Workplace reviews and discussion: 順天堂藥廠股份有限公司

1. Colleagues are generally quite friendly

2. Professional pharmacists prepare the company’s own medicines for sick employees

3. Many department dinners; the company organizes dining events from time to time

4. The salary is somewhat more generous than that of typical jobs

During the interview, I was told that the company rarely required overtime, with the stated end of the workday being 5:30 p.m. Little did I know that the moment I entered the Foreign Trade Department marked the beginning of hell. Since the manager always leaves early, perhaps she cannot see her subordinates working overtime and therefore assumes that no one is working overtime?!

Whenever the end of the workday approaches, people in the General Affairs Department happily take out the trash and prepare to leave. The departments that work overtime every day, sometimes until they nearly miss the last MRT home, are the Foreign Trade Department and the Finance Department.

Although colleagues are friendly, the main reason is that the department must follow its motto (namely: do not make the manager unhappy), so everyone helps one another because nobody wants to become the manager’s cannon fodder.

I have to admit that the manager is very capable, which is why she is always late and leaves early. If you delay her early departure, you will be scolded for taking so long to come to her to discuss something.

The manager loves using LINE to remotely control all her subordinates, regardless of whether it is a weekday or holiday. If you want to rest on a holiday and do not reply to her LINE messages, you are basically as good as blacklisted. Previously, the manager may have been someone who understood reason and dealt with matters on their merits, but once you make her unhappy, she will look for fault with you every day. For example, whether you wear makeup or not, occasionally wear high heels, or dress up slightly for work—if she sees you like this and is displeased, she will call you into the office to scold you, but she will berate you over nonsense completely unrelated to your work.

Basically, this job requires an extremely high level of cooperation: speak a little more sweetly, join the manager in criticizing the colleagues she dislikes, and treat being made to suffer as training for your work experience. You can certainly give it a try, because it will absolutely broaden your perspective on workplace experience.

It has been some time since I left the job, but I still constantly dream about being shouted at by this manager and wake up in fear amid her screaming.

BTW, while I was still employed, I also saw a psychologist and received psychiatric treatment, but neither was effective. It was not until I decided to resign—and after I left—that things began to improve. I suggest that anyone considering taking a sales position in the Foreign Trade Department think twice. After all, it is not something that an ordinary sales role in a traditional manufacturing company can handle—especially soothing the manager’s emotional and hysterical behavior. Calm her down, and you will have succeeded.