Workplace reviews and discussion: 康軒文教事業股份有限公司

1. Lunch is provided.

2. Labor and health insurance are provided, along with a perfect-attendance bonus.

3. For overtime, you can choose either compensatory leave or overtime pay.

1. There are many meetings, but they never reach any substantive conclusions. Meetings also take up too much time, so you can’t finish your work without working overtime.

(Example 1: The vice president asked what the projected market share would be for the following year. A colleague answered, “40%.” The vice president said, “Great, I like that attitude. Have a seat!”)

(Example 2: The vice president asked how to improve the declining market share. The group leader replied, “Some of our teachers have given feedback that several lessons are difficult to teach, so after evaluating the situation, we decided to replace those lessons with the same versions as those in the textbook with the best market share!” The vice president said, “Okay.”)

2. There are many tasks, and the department is very busy. Sometimes, even when the training has not explained things clearly, you are expected to start working immediately (on my second day at the job, I was told to submit the first proof of a certain book by the following week). Then, if the result does not meet the supervisor’s expectations, they scold you. When I pointed out that the training had not covered it at all, the supervisor said, “Then you should have observed and figured it out yourself!”

3. The supervisor assigned a senior colleague to help review my work. After I revised it according to the senior colleague’s feedback, the supervisor demanded major revisions before sending it out for a sample review and then accused me of delaying the production schedule.

4. When you take leave, the supervisor dumps work that other colleagues could not finish on you and says it must be submitted on the day you return to work.

5. As an editor of humanities textbooks, I was told by a colleague, “Yue Fei was a historical figure from the Han dynasty.” I’m truly worried about the education system.

6. The supervisor told everyone in the department to avoid clocking out on time whenever possible: “The boss will think you’re not working hard if you’re able to leave exactly on time.” Likewise, going to lunch on time would also attract “concern.”

7. A colleague spent an entire afternoon browsing Facebook and then worked overtime until late at night, and was considered extremely hardworking.

8. When I told my supervisor I was resigning, they said: “If you resign, we won’t be able to finish all the work.” “My normally strict demands are all for your own good.” “You won’t be able to work in the publishing industry anymore after this.”

This was truly the most painful job I’ve ever had. It was physically and mentally exhausting.