Workplace reviews and discussion: 鋒朋有限公司

Paychecks are issued on time

1. There is no overtime pay (the boss says there is not enough staff to calculate such things). Every day, employees must fill out the attendance sign-in sheet, but they are only allowed to write the hours stipulated by the company. For example, if they work overtime until 6:30, they cannot actually write 6:30.

2. The salary statement is only provided once every two months. The reason is that the accountant thinks the amount is the same every month, so there is nothing worth printing, and they do not want to waste an extra sheet of paper.

3. Employees cannot eat at their own desks. During the lunch break, everyone has to gather in the conference room to eat. While they are eating, if the boss sees that they have nothing to do, he will take the opportunity to discuss and assign work. I heard that a former employee ended up eating only sandwiches to fill their stomach because of this.

4. During mealtimes, each person is allowed to take only one tissue. Toilet paper is provided only in the restroom; employees must prepare it themselves for any other needs.

5. The boss’s wife does not like wearing a mask at the company and has repeatedly walked around without one. When employees deliberately kept their distance to avoid infection, she angrily scolded them, saying that she had already been vaccinated, so what were they afraid of?

6. Employees are replaced every six to twelve months. Job postings can frequently be seen on 104 and TaiwanJobs.

7. The owners are father and son. Both are changeable and constantly reverse their decisions; doing unpaid work is routine. The senior owner often does not remember what he has or has not said, and when work problems arise later, he shifts the blame to employees. Therefore, to protect themselves, employees must constantly keep written records of what he has said. The junior owner is indecisive and unable to make decisions promptly, and often needs to ask senior employees for their opinions.

8. The senior employee is eloquent when dealing with outsiders, but is sarcastic and verbally bullying toward colleagues she dislikes. She deliberately ignores them and refuses to fulfill her responsibility to train them, leaving subordinates to fend for themselves.

9. The junior owner sends messages in the company LINE group and tags employees to assign work after hours and on holidays.

10. Five of the company’s eight employees are relatives or close associates of the owners. Every related decision must be followed as though it were an imperial decree.

11. Work starts at 8:30 a.m., followed immediately by a meeting. The boss requires employees to forward customers’ quotation inquiries received that day to the factory before the 8:30 meeting because the factory is very busy. He just stops short of saying that employees should come in earlier.

12. The company has no proprietary system; everything is done using Excel. Their requirement for interview candidates is that they be very good at using Excel because all contracts provided to customers are prepared in Excel. Basically, however, simply knowing how to use Excel for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division is enough to meet the requirement.

13. You have to get used to being frequently corrected by the owners’ relatives and associates. For example, when using SF Express to send a package to mainland China, they say that simplified Chinese must be entered in the pickup-order system, otherwise people in mainland China will not understand it and there will be problems. In reality, she does not even know how to operate the pickup-order system herself.

14. The vendor contact may not have much chance to build a personal rapport with you, because employees are replaced so frequently that one person is gone in less than a year.

15. On the surface, everyone is very polite to one another, speaks kindly, and gives instructions courteously. However, when opinions differ or they encounter something beyond their ability to understand and cannot agree, their sarcastic and mean side will show.

16. During working hours, employees cannot make personal phone calls, handle private matters, or do their own things. If they really have no choice but to make a call, they must go to the conference room so as not to disturb other colleagues. The owners’ relatives and associates are exempt.

17. A trading company uses the type of dial scale commonly found in wet markets. Before handing an export package to DHL, the company collects the shipping fee from the customer in advance. Because the scale is inaccurate, the company undercharged by 500, and the owners’ relatives and associates said it was the shipping department’s fault.