1. The boss always smiles during meetings

(But they also always smile while piling more work onto you. Smiling, they say: “Then I’ll leave this part to you~”)

2. The boss is fairly generous with pay—if you dare to ask, they dare to offer it

(But because of this, they also feel that you should be willing to accept all kinds of additional work beyond what was originally discussed)

3. The boss is very busy and doesn’t come into the office often (That counts as a pro, right?)

A family-owned business.

Do I really need to explain what an exploitative boss is?

Aside from paying slightly more than other exploitative bosses, there isn’t much difference.

(But in reality, they expect you to do far more than the position entails. So although it may appear on paper that you’re being paid more, in practice they simply want you to be more willing to be exploited.)

1. During the interview, they said the job duties were A. When you actually reported for work, they told you they also expected you to do A + B, while C + D and E + F would be handled by two more hires. A week later, they suddenly changed their story and said they were no longer hiring anyone new: “My expectations for you are A + B + C + D + E + F.” (???). They made this clear.

2. The boss’s decisions can change without warning. It gives people the feeling that they can’t be trusted.

(You can look at reviews on Interview.tw to see the incidents where they offered someone a job and then withdrew the offer—this has happened more than once.)

3. Everything has to be confirmed with the boss again at the last minute. The things that have been confirmed are often changed again, over and over, which in a way simply increases employees’ workload.

e.g. After you have already placed an order with a vendor, the boss suddenly says they don’t want it anymore. After a while, they say they do want it after all, so you have to confirm it with the boss, reconfirm it with the vendor, and be able to appease the vendor and maintain a good relationship with them.

e.g. Today they say they’re no longer going to work with A; tomorrow they suddenly say they should go ahead and work with A after all.

4. The boss has many “good friends” and loves listening to their opinions. Basically, this only adds to your workload: change this a little, add that a little—whatever they hear, they change.

5. Although the boss is very busy and doesn’t come into the office often, they love taking classes (online or in person). Whenever they hear something they consider new knowledge, they want you to add something here and change something there.

6. The company uses LINE for communication and provides no company phone. Aside from the overwhelming number of group messages, the boss also loves sending several work-related messages after hours. If you’re the type who disappears after work, you’re in trouble: if you don’t reply, they’ll be unhappy and secretly keep a note of it. (But they may not say anything at the time; they may also privately bad-mouth you to another coworker.)

7. Although the salary is generally higher than in Hsinchu, they will drop all kinds of hints that they hope you’ll keep an eye on company messages even while on leave. The boss wants the whole company to be united as one, but won’t say so directly—instead, they’ll make all kinds of suggestions about how you should behave. Basically, the boss has little concept of overtime, so don’t expect overtime pay. At most, they may give you compensatory leave on a whim.

8. The boss privately gossips with coworkers about other coworkers. Probably every employee has been gossiped about by the boss.

But the boss speaks as though they’re only telling you because they regard you as a close confidant. This includes complaining about their spouse (the factory manager) having a bad temper, in the same tone—as if they were on your side.

9. Because policies are constantly changing, and the boss’s ideas sometimes conflict with those of the factory manager, you may be the one who suffers (gets blamed).

10. The boss wants to do everything but is unwilling to hire professionals or enough people to match the workload. As a result, many things are either done poorly or only half-done, but they will blame you for the poor results.

In summary, whatever position you apply for, once you join you’ll discover that the job is not limited to the duties listed in the posting. You’ll be loaded down with a great deal of additional work. Because the boss keeps changing who is responsible for what, if they haven’t found anyone else to take over temporarily, it might be you ^_^