Workplace reviews and discussion: 南一書局企業股份有限公司(總公司)

1. Being in the right department and under a manager favored by senior management is still a place where newcomers can gain experience. Staying for a few years makes your résumé look reasonably acceptable.

2. As long as you have a good relationship with your manager, most matters or difficult problems can be resolved with ease (and vice versa).

(The following applies to the northern office.)

1. At the strategy level, the junior-high division can only be described as chaotic. During the marketing period, everyone holds meetings intensively to fight for the version, but when the results are poor, they start wasting one another’s time by blaming and shirking responsibility. This also confirms why Nani’s market share has never exceeded that of its competitors since the new curriculum began (with a few exceptions among certain subjects).

2. Execution cannot be put into practice. It is always easier to talk than to act, without exception. The boss places no importance on the company’s textbook business, and even publicly stated that if the junior-high division did not perform well, it would be shut down. Yet there was no integrity whatsoever, and the company still clings to this business (which suggests that it may be profitable, that the boss cannot bring himself to give it up, or simply that the boss is wealthy enough and wants to keep burning money).

3. Resource allocation is Nani’s biggest problem. Nani is a family business, and its substantial financial resources are almost universally evident. However, the current boss’s biggest goal is digital education (a company has already been established to operate it), while the textbook business that built the company has long since ceased to be a priority, and the focus of its funding has gradually shifted elsewhere. In addition, the incident that emerged in mid-2020 (https://tw.appledaily.com/local/20200730/MSTMO3TXJIRWTRXDO6WK6K6GKGJY/) also raises questions about whether there are further financial irregularities.

4. The standards for appointing managers are extremely careless. Most of Nani’s managers are parachuted in from other companies in the same industry (with highly uneven competence). The rest are people who have worked at Nani for a long time and, despite factional struggles, have survived or gained favor and thus risen to power. (They are almost all incompetent deadweights who create problems all day and make their subordinates take responsibility.) The number of managers who can genuinely lead their subordinates and fulfill their managerial duties is practically zero. Even those who once performed their managerial responsibilities well have mostly left because of the company’s factional culture and the socializing habits of senior editorial management. Some managers do not even understand what editors are supposed to do. Even after senior editors have taught them hundreds of times, they still know nothing about the editorial process, and their proofreading never truly addresses the key issues. They nevertheless consider themselves “veteran editors,” using the title of editor and managerial authority to force subordinates to comply. It is clear from this why Nani’s editorial department has declined to this point.

5. The best example of wanting to reform but being brought down by one’s own management. The northern office once established rules for work processes, but to managers and senior management, the best workflow or regulation is not an explicit rule written in black and white. Instead, it is an order issued by senior managers via messages or phone calls, so that they can keep their hands clean and avoid being blamed by the boss.

6. Resource restrictions lead to an even worse negative cycle. As stated in point two, Nani is not without money, but it is unwilling to invest and has even begun restricting resources. It also shows great contempt for its customers (distributors, teachers, parents, and others). For revisions to the new curriculum—especially the second-year junior-high textbooks, which are important for many subjects—it invested only half as much as it did the year before last. Teachers will surely feel the results of this investment once the books are published. In addition, the production of supplementary materials is merely superficial; the quality of their content is as crude as papier-mâché and difficult to look at. You may wish to visit bookstores and take a look. Given the competencies emphasized by the curriculum and the direction of the Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students, Nani’s editorial department can be said to be cutting corners and trying to fish for everyone’s money blindly. Parents and teachers should keep their eyes open and look carefully.

7. The harsh treatment of copy editors is as severe as if they were bearing an original sin. No matter what goes wrong, it is almost always the copy editor who has to take the blame: the art department lays out the wrong manuscript, sales fail to sell well, the author is not properly handled, the printer misprints the M99 edition, and so on—too many examples to list.

8. Senior management lives in comfort while subordinates are exhausted. The senior management of this company arguably has the easiest life of all. Every Tuesday is their time for entertaining, and even after the pandemic broke out in May, they continued to stay in the office, open bottles, raise glasses, and invite middle managers or important figures whom senior management favored to “join in the festivities.” The monthly cost of eating, drinking, and entertainment for this group—starting at six figures in New Taiwan dollars—has even exceeded the various official-business expenses of the northern office (across multiple departments), to the point that even the accountants at the Tainan headquarters could not stand it. When editors hear senior management say, “Our textbook budget is insufficient; we need to reduce costs,” who could possibly believe that this company’s products are high-quality and promising under such use of funds?

In addition, the company’s art consultant, unable to become art director, clings to senior managers in the north, going around eating and drinking well, attending social events, and getting drunk and causing disturbances at numerous establishments (the businesses in Shenkeng complain to and warn one another). He takes leave whenever he wants during work hours, throws his weight around in meetings, and has even come to the office wearing beach shorts and flip-flops, using his influence to yell at editors as if he could control everything.

9. As stated in point eight, middle managers basically imitate what they see and create factions within their own groups as well: those who obey the manager prosper, while those who do not perish. That is only the basic version. Some middle managers have even developed a culture in which editors do the work, editors take the blame, and managers take the credit. Some of the more extreme ones spread false information to smear editors or use their influence to force people out. Some middle managers are so uninhibited that they pursue office romances, destroy other people’s marriages, and even end up acting as someone else’s surrogate father or mother.

10. The office environment is atrocious beyond description. Every summer, the air conditioning breaks down at least once, without exception, and the repairs are so slow that you will become furious. The office floor is always damaged; even if the company asks you to report it for repair, the problem returns within a week of being fixed. The restrooms are small, dirty, and smelly, and when something breaks, the repair speed is comparable to that of the air conditioning. There is cleaning time every week, but it is unclear whether the company cannot afford to hire cleaners or simply wants to exploit employees. There is actually very little to clean, but there are never enough cleaning tools for the office staff, and most people use the cleaning period to chat, making it seem like a large-scale farce.

Conclusion: As I continued writing about the disadvantages, there turned out to be far more than I had imagined. There should be quite a few people who have experienced the same things as I have, and there are also plenty who have had it worse. Those currently employed or who have seen the light and resigned are welcome to continue adding to this. Thank you for reading this far. I hope this can provide some help to those still observing before an interview, deciding after an interview whether to join, or still in the pit of fire and hesitating about whether to leave.