Workplace reviews and discussion: 台灣蜜納國際股份有限公司

The direct supervisor of the company’s hair-care product brand e-commerce business is a very nice person, and most colleagues are fairly easy to get along with.

1. Unclear division of responsibilities: It’s not that I’m unwilling to take on extra work, but the company has taken this to an absurd level. One supervisor did not truthfully report the actual work her employees were doing, allowing her to use other people’s budget and direct others to do work that she should have been doing herself; she was first to claim credit and completely shifted the blame, setting traps for others to fall into. At best, this caused others to be needlessly busy; at worst, it made them take the blame for someone else. Even when my supervisor stepped in to discuss and clarify things, that supervisor still said, “Don’t make things too clear, otherwise it’ll be very troublesome.”

2. Irrational and unprofessional: After the unclear division of responsibilities began, we raised the issue with that supervisor and the employees and expressed our wish to discuss it. The two-person team verbally agreed, but continued sending their own work to our team after working hours. After I replied that we were unable to handle it, that supervisor first called my supervisor into a small room and scolded me—the person who had sent the email—and then called me in, demanding that I (who had only been at the company for just over two weeks) explain why there were no sales during the Double 11 promotion. The campaign had clearly been devised by them; I had only operated the backend settings. Although I found the situation baffling, I still tactfully explained that there had been no external advertising exposure and that the products themselves lacked sufficient awareness. That supervisor actually replied, “Do you think the people above us will accept that explanation?” ???? (An infinite number of question marks.)

Sorry, but that sounds like your job—and what exactly did you want me to say?!

She also told us to stop all the “idealistic and dream projects” we had on hand and instead work on the tasks assigned by their two-person team (because those would immediately generate orders and sales). However, what she called our idealistic and dream projects were the regular and major campaign planning for the official website, website redesign and optimization, membership program setup, and checking and updating product information. These are the “basic things that should be done” when operating an e-commerce business, but she only focused on whatever could generate immediate sales. All I can say is that there’s a reason the official website’s performance can still be this bad after four years. There’s no budget, no reputation, no advertising exposure, no news coverage, no new products launched, and no samples to give away; they only want to make short-term money by selling near-expiry products and holding sales events, without conducting sales analysis or reviews. Even the monthly sales reports are wrong—I was honestly laughing so hard I almost couldn’t laugh anymore…

Afterward, the employee under that supervisor would deliberately place the shipping cartons for returned-to-warehouse goods that she needed to process on my desk in the morning before I arrived at the office. There was no email, note, LINE message, or explanation in person. I understand that this may not be a major issue, but it was genuinely very rude.

3. Saying one thing and doing another: During interviews and meetings, they liked to say that overtime was discouraged and that employees should not let work take up their personal time after hours. In practice, however, they would compare people’s clock-in and clock-out times. If you left work on time or not long afterward, they would assume you were “not busy (had plenty of free time).” As mentioned earlier, during meetings everyone shared their respective work progress. My supervisor and I were no exception, regularly reporting on and updating the official website plans, and that supervisor indicated that she had no questions and that we should continue. Yet when reporting to the director above her, she said, “I don’t know what they’re doing, so I don’t know how to explain it.”

She also liked to use morally coercive statements, such as “Can’t you help out a little?” and “They’re unwilling to help right now,” dumping the work on us and spreading rumors. Once you “help them,” it effectively means the responsibility has been dumped on us—so why on earth would I agree?!!!