Workplace reviews and discussion: 精準環境股份有限公司

1. Brief introduction:

I joined the company immediately after graduating and have been here for a little over one year. Position: Environmental Engineer.

Salary: NT$32K (originally NT$30K, adjusted to NT$32K after about five months).

Working hours: 8:30–17:30. Working hours are very punctual; at 17:30, the employees in charge of business affairs clock out right on time! Overtime is not encouraged.

2. Interview experience:

The department manager conducted the interview (there is an HR department now). The questions were simple,

such as: self-introduction, why you applied for this position, and whether you know how to use Excel.

The manager mainly relies on intuition when interviewing. As long as you speak confidently and give people a friendly impression, you should be fine.

(They are usually very short-staffed because of the high turnover rate, so unless you act too strangely, it is quite easy to get hired.)

3. Job responsibilities:

At the company, we belong to the administrative department, which is further divided into three groups: air (about five people), water quality (about three to four people), and toxic chemicals and waste (one person). Coworkers are approximately 24–30 years old.

I worked in the air group. Our main task was using Excel to prepare permits. Senior colleagues teach you the preparation process. It is not difficult, but it is quite tedious, so you need to spend time learning it.

You also need to communicate with environmental-protection-agency service firms and factories by phone and email. The service firms are somewhat like our teachers: they review our work and grade it (checking whether the permits have been prepared properly). The factories are the clients. We act as their representatives and prepare permits for them; with these permits, they can discharge pollutants in compliance with regulations.

Each person is responsible for approximately seven or eight cases. Processing one case takes about six months to one year (a few take more than a year), so you will be handling several cases simultaneously. Phone calls, LINE, and email are used frequently (you can learn how to write professional messages!), because you need to contact people about which documents must be submitted. It is a semi-responsibility-based system: senior colleagues will cover for you, and you should ask whenever you do not know something, but we are still the primary people responsible for our own cases.

You also need to draft official documents, prepare quotations, send estimates and file them, negotiate prices with clients, schedule testing, and occasionally visit sites to inspect factory conditions (usually the managers go). However, they hope that male employees will eventually also be able to drive and visit sites.

One colleague is mainly responsible for arranging testing (this job is extremely busy...). You need to understand many details, which I will not elaborate on here. It is a demanding and thankless job.

(In short, “engineer” is just the title; in reality, it is more like an administrative business assistant ><)

4. Workplace environment:

After entering through the main gate, there is a large square-shaped space. The business staff and environmental engineers sit in the front rows, while the testing personnel sit in the back (although they go out for sampling in the morning and do not return until the afternoon). The managers sit in the row on the far right, with employees facing the entrance and the managers facing the employees (so do not do anything wrong—you will be seen ><).

There are no windows, so you cannot see outside. Coworkers generally do not chat much during work because everyone is busy with their own tasks. It is also difficult to use your phone, make calls, or browse webpages (because the managers can see what you are doing). Overall, the atmosphere is somewhat oppressive. I used to laugh bitterly with my friends and say it felt like a prison, haha.

However, an HR department was recently added, and a young manager joined the company. Over the next 10 years (or longer), there should be some opportunities for reform. Our manager is also easy to talk to—as long as things are not too excessive, everything is open to discussion.

1. Traditional mindset:

The company was established about 30 years ago and is a traditional family business. Its culture is somewhat closed, many records are kept on paper, and internal systems are updated slowly.

(Our manager is the junior owner—the owner’s eldest son. The younger son recently joined as the HR manager, so there may be an opportunity to reform the company culture.)

2. Limited opportunities for promotion:

The management group is like a hall of fame, consisting of uncles and aunties who have worked there for a very long time. It is not very likely that you will move up. If you work there for four or five years, the manager may promote you to a team leader without an official title (slightly more money, but many more responsibilities).

(But perhaps things will change in the future. At least according to what my coworkers here have told me, nothing has changed in the past 20-something years, haha.)

3. Passing the buck:

The business department somewhat likes to dump tasks on us, haha (even though they are clearly outside our scope). In practice, the business department is an administrative errand-running team, and its replaceability is very high. I do not recommend that young people apply there.

4. Workplace facilities:

The water dispenser was installed a month after I joined. For roughly the first 30 years, they used the kind of hot-water dispenser from 7-Eleven used to prepare instant noodles—yes, a dispenser with only a hot-water function. In the past, they would fill a pot with hot water, place it behind their desks, and let it cool before drinking it...

The new freestanding water dispenser is very large. The water supply occasionally even gets cut off, haha, but it looks very high-end~

The pantry has a sink, two food steamers, two microwaves, and a medium-sized refrigerator. That is about it.

The restroom is not large and has four stalls. The last one was combined with a utility room, so it is slightly larger. There are no exterior windows or ventilation, and because the company tries to save electricity, the lights are rarely turned on... (you have to use the restroom in the dark). To save money on toilet paper, they use a very coarse type that hurts when wiping QQ. When I first joined, toilet paper was even provided for everyone to keep on their desks, but a month later they said everyone was wasting too much, so they stopped providing it?

5. This job is suitable for people seeking stability:

Basically, this position is very comfortable and uneventful. If you can tolerate the environment, you can stay for a long time because salary increases are based on seniority, not ability.

Overall, I think recent graduates can join and gain experience. You really can learn how to use Excel, communicate and express yourself with clients, and write professional correspondence. The coworkers are also very friendly, and everyone has a somewhat clueless, inexperienced feeling, haha. Most of the above is based on my observations, and some people may consider parts of it somewhat subjective. But since this is an anonymous sharing platform, I wanted to share what I experienced! It does not mean everyone will have the same experience. If you are interested, you can join and experience it for yourself~