Workplace reviews and discussion: 永詮機器工業股份有限公司

Everyone is a student, so there is no generation gap.

Work assignments in the factory are handled by students, which can lead to conflicts with veteran employees. I also feel that it is inappropriate to have a student who has been there for less than one or two months assign work.

The salary structure is strange. Sometimes money is still deducted when taking paid personal leave. What they call the basic salary is not actually the basic salary—it is the salary plus benefits combined and called the “basic salary.”

The design department’s workload is heavy. You have to assist on-site while also helping develop machines and rush drawings. If the design drawings have not been completed, the on-site staff may have no work, and the boss will come out and lecture you, asking, “Why can’t you do it if you work in machinery?” If you respond that the design drawings have not been issued yet, everyone assigned to design by the business department will be called to the site and berated.

Materials are delayed. Once a machine has reached a certain stage and materials are needed, you may discover that the material order has not even been placed yet. Then the boss comes over and asks, “Why didn’t you check whether any materials were missing when you picked them up?” Boss, why don’t you just fire the warehouse manager? Maybe my salary could increase by another 500.

Salary increases are slow. I asked veteran employees and learned that after two years, the daily wage only increases by 50. You can’t even afford a boxed lunch; factory lunch boxes cost 70, and they are not provided.

The on-site assembly technicians are all foreign workers, making communication difficult. They also do not hire Taiwanese technicians—or, if they do hire one, they soon berate the person until they quit. The fastest recorded resignation was after half a day.

I can’t say that the veteran employees are highly capable, but at least they can get the work done. Yet they are always berated by the boss, who keeps repeating, “You don’t have the ability.”

The two veteran technicians on-site are about to retire, but no replacements have been found. They are still recruiting students. It is becoming difficult to find people in Taichung and Tainan, and I heard they have gone to Hualien to look for workers. Shouldn’t there be concerns about the technical skill level?

The boss: “Explain the drawings after the design is completed.”

Whether or not there is work, as long as the boss is at home, he may come out and walk around to check on you seven or eight times a day. The pressure is enormous. It’s not that the work is busy—boss, what exactly are you wandering around for?

The equipment is incomplete, and purchase requests for new equipment may even be rejected without explanation. Unless the work is genuinely urgent, waiting a week for a single drill bit is not unusual. The equipment is extremely outdated. If the factory manager had not purchased replacements, the electric drills might be electrocuting people by now. Electrical leakage is a very serious problem.

The work on-site is highly diversified. As an assembler, you are expected to know machining, measuring, purchasing, and material preparation, as well as how to wire electrical systems. You may even have to test the machines you assembled yourself. The boss’s response is, “I’m giving you an opportunity to learn.”

If an employee plans to resign, during the month before leaving they will be sent into the cold and assigned to remote tasks, such as machining, moving materials, and other physically demanding work.

There is no proper break room. The break room is the factory’s Earth God temple, with two tables placed inside to serve as a break room. Laying cardboard on the floor to sleep is not allowed. If you are exhausted after half a day, why can’t you lie down for a while? Are you lying on your desk?

The boss and the boss’s wife strongly disagree with each other and often argue in the office. Sometimes veteran employees get dragged into it. The boss assigns you a task, and the next second, when the boss’s wife sees it, she asks why you are doing it and then harshly berates you.

The boss often comes to the worksite to give instructions. Does that sound like an advantage? Wrong. He instructs you to work one way, then returns ten minutes later and asks why you are doing it that way. Talk back and you get blasted; don’t talk back and you just suffer in silence.

Students who are not majoring in the relevant field are assigned everywhere: one moment electrical controls, the next assembly, then design, then sales. Just as you become familiar with one area, you are transferred again.

Employees with more than four years of experience earn 28K; new employees start at 30K; technicians earn 32K; and technicians with nearly 20 years of experience earn less than 40K. Are all the profits being spent on buying Mercedes-Benz cars?

Think carefully before coming to work here. The pay is low—after two years, the daily wage only increases by 50. The boss is volatile, and technical expertise is being lost. Unless you want to experience the harsh realities of society, think twice before joining.