Workplace reviews and discussion: 科碼新媒體股份有限公司

A company with no systems

There is no budget to hire HR, so things are handled haphazardly.

The company accountant is not an internal employee. An external accounting firm comes to the company once a week to handle related matters,

but does not help the boss review costs, budgets, or unreasonable expense claims.

As long as receipts are collected and the company tax ID is entered in the correct format, most longer-serving employees take advantage of this to pocket some extra money.

Business trips include high-speed rail and taxis, three-star hotel accommodations,

purchasing alcohol, a pile of late-night snacks, and daily necessities from convenience stores—

as long as the company tax ID can be entered, it is fine.

The boss manages in a laissez-faire way; you just need to learn how to please them.

Year-end prizes may be the result of the boss cracking under too much pressure,

or perhaps the boss inherited substantial assets from their parents’ generation.

The boss splashes out money at year-end as a way of venting stress.

At the year-end banquet, many clients are invited to watch the boss spend money,

with the aim of finding some gullible sucker to become a company investor. There have been many instances of squeezing money out of investors.

The benefit is that every employee receives a bonus of no more than NT$20,000,

because small companies do not offer high base salaries and are afraid people will leave, so they use the illusion of a year-end bonus to give employees a sense of happiness.

(But if you calculate it carefully—no raises, low wages, and excessive overtime, plus a once-a-year gift worth NT$10,000–20,000 or less as a little moment of happiness—is it really worth it?

The fact that improper expense claims can still be reimbursed may be why everyone fails to address the real problem.)

The company’s systems are extremely chaotic.

Employees are made to work excessive overtime, using one project to sustain another, while taking on a pile of small projects that are not cost-effective and perpetuating a vicious cycle.

When changing jobs or switching career paths,

interviewers and HR at most listed companies and the top 100 enterprises do not really recognize this company’s project experience,

because the small company has no effective project management.

During interviews, remember not to be too honest; when asked about project management, you should embellish this company’s operations.

The Taiwanese market demand for virtual reality, AR, and VR is very small, and the boss does not have much of a government-relations background.

The company mostly works as a subcontractor on major tenders. When project experience is presented

for full-time positions, diligent HR departments at listed companies will not find any records of this company’s involvement in public tenders.

The projects listed on your résumé will often be questioned, with extensive follow-up questions.

When the pandemic broke out, the number of exhibition projects decreased, making the company even more unstable.

The company’s passive management style prevents it from growing.

It can be an acceptable experience for young people without experience and for fresh graduates,

but after joining, they should carefully consider whether the company will still exist in the future, its long-term excessive overtime and dependence on one project to sustain another,

and the unstable situation caused by investors gradually withdrawing their funding.

Those wishing to start a family should carefully consider their long-term career development.

Only those who are single and do not plan to marry or have children, or who come from wealthy families and treat work as a place to socialize, can endure working here.