Workplace reviews and discussion: 美商安達產物保險股份有限公司台灣分公司

A foreign company. If you are able to join as a full-time employee, the salary and benefits will be better than those offered by local Taiwanese companies.

The company is located in a prime area of Taipei City's Xinyi District. The building where the company is located is right in front of you as soon as you exit the MRT station, so transportation and daily conveniences are extremely convenient. Anyone who can afford to buy a home nearby must be incredibly wealthy.

The office environment is very clean and tidy, and the restrooms also look very high-end, with standards you would expect from a five-star restaurant or hotel.

The elevators in the building where the company is located are also quite unusual. Unlike ordinary elevators, where you enter first and then press the button for the floor you want to go to, in this building you first press the desired floor at the elevator entrance, then wait for the screen to display an English letter and proceed to wait in front of the elevator corresponding to that letter.

Overall, the office environment is quite top-notch.

As mentioned above, the salary and benefits are better than those offered by local Taiwanese companies, but the price is an enormous workload—so large that it feels as though one person is being used as two or three people. I often heard many colleagues complain that there was simply too much work to finish. During busy seasons, you might even have to come to the office to work overtime on weekends.

I once worked at this company as a contract employee. During that time, I often heard that some colleagues may have resigned because the workload was too heavy. When someone resigned, no one would say anything openly, but some of the aunties at the company would go around badmouthing them to others. Then you would see a group of people secretly laughing and making comments mocking the other person's abilities, saying that they were not capable enough or could not take the pressure.

Supervisors and colleagues appeared polite and courteous on the surface, but in reality most of them were cold, heartless, practical, and snobbish. During my time as a contract employee, the workload was often so heavy that I had to work overtime until the evening. My supervisor and colleagues may therefore have thought that I was incompetent, and they treated me with extreme contempt. Their tone was very harsh and full of barbed remarks. If I happened to run into them in the elevator, they would not even greet me and would instead give me discriminatory, contemptuous looks. When I had something to ask my supervisor, the supervisor would simply ignore me and tell me to ask Human Resources. Not long afterward, when a full-time employee had something to ask the supervisor, the supervisor responded in an extremely friendly tone, saying, “Okay~” The difference in attitude was enormous.

Once, because I was busy at work, I accidentally made a minor mistake. It was not serious and only required a slight correction. However, a senior colleague immediately called me an idiot in front of everyone, while the colleagues nearby secretly laughed. The supervisor heard it but said nothing.

Even when there was nothing else for me to do, they were unwilling to teach me any new work. They would only tell me to stare at the computer or fold paper—tasks meant merely to kill time.

There was originally a bottle of alcohol-based sanitizer at the company entrance. I had a habit of using it to disinfect my hands after going to the restroom. One time, another auntie at the company happened to see me doing this and joked that spraying the alcohol all over my body would disinfect me more effectively. I thought it was just a joke and did not take it seriously, but the next day I discovered that the bottle of sanitizer was gone.

Earlier this year, there was an outbreak at this company, and many people in the office tested positive and had to isolate. I was also infected by others and tested positive. After isolating for a week and returning, I was required to work overtime again. I thought that, having just recovered from a serious illness, I would like to leave work early and go home to rest. As soon as my supervisor heard this, they immediately jumped up and yelled: “Wasn't your illness already cured?” and “You've already taken so much time off!” They went on angrily for quite a while, and only stopped when I changed my mind and said I would work overtime. I felt extremely unlucky. I had been infected while coming to work, yet the company showed absolutely no understanding.

But that was not even the worst part. The worst part was that an elderly family member living with me was unfortunately infected by me as well. Their condition became serious enough that they had to be hospitalized for a time. Fortunately, they eventually recovered, but they still needed a long period of recuperation after returning home.

Later, I wanted to apply for the Labor Insurance sickness and injury benefit. It was not even much money—just a little over NT$1,000—but one of the company's HR employees was clearly very dismissive. When I went to see them on the first day, they simply told me to go home and said they would send me a list of application requirements for me to read myself. The next day, I prepared all the documents listed and brought them to that HR employee, who then said that something was missing and the application could not be processed. They also said that the sickness and injury benefit could actually be claimed within five years, while looking at me with a firm expression—as if they did not want to help me apply. I went home that day, prepared what the HR employee had mentioned, and brought it back on the third day. They again told me that some document was missing and that the application could not be processed. I was already getting angry, but I still pretended to be helpless and asked exactly what else was missing and whether they could explain everything at once. That HR employee probably realized that I was becoming upset, and only then said they would check what documents were needed. After looking, they changed their answer and said that everything was now acceptable and they would help me submit the application. Well... did I do something wrong? Being infected with pneumonia at work was already unlucky enough. Then, when I applied for the Labor Insurance sickness and injury benefit, I received this kind of dismissive attitude. Isn't this my right? Moreover, the company itself is in the insurance business. Why were they so unenthusiastic and unwilling to help their own employee apply for insurance? Was it simply because I was a contract employee rather than a full-time employee?

The company also had another HR employee. During my initial interview, that person said that anyone who wanted to join the company as a full-time employee first had to work as a contract employee, and that the company would consider converting them to full-time status after they performed well. However, during the time I worked there, I sometimes saw newly hired full-time employees reporting for work. Um... what is going on here?

As mentioned in the previous section, the elderly family member who had been infected by me continued recuperating after returning home. Because I was unable to be in two places at once, I often had to care for them and sometimes take them to follow-up appointments. My supervisor considered that I had taken too much leave—although I had only taken leave three or four times, which was not frequent at all, and this was over a period of three months. The supervisor directly snapped at me that they would report this to HR. The next day, while I was walking through the company, the HR employee who had interviewed me suddenly called my name loudly and stopped me, saying they had something to tell me. I was startled, but I still went to hear what they wanted to say. At first, they asked what had happened to my elderly family member and whether I needed to apply for anything—insurance?—while wearing an indifferent expression. After I said no, the HR employee directly told me that the company no longer wanted to hire contract employees because the workload had decreased, and that they hoped I would find another job as soon as possible. They said that if I needed to take time off for job interviews, it would be fine and the supervisor would approve it. What the heck... were they implying that they suspected I was lying??? As I said earlier, I was infected after coming to work, and I also infected an elderly family member at home, whose condition became very serious and was even critical for a time. After being discharged from the hospital, they also needed a long period of recuperation, leaving me unable to be in two places at once. I had suffered so much because of this, and they still suspected that I was lying? I had never lied to or deceived anyone at the company. Why exactly did they suspect me of lying? Besides, as far as I can see, the company has continued posting openings for contract employees on job websites even now. Um... what is going on here?

A few days before I was due to leave, I went to ask my supervisor about something, but once again the supervisor did not really want to deal with me. After I left, I heard the supervisor calling an extension. I could not hear the details clearly, but it seemed they were communicating with someone about assigning the work I was responsible for to a full-time employee in another department. Uh... I was in the same office. Was it not a little too disrespectful to say something like that right in front of me?

On my last day of work, as I was packing up my belongings near the end of the workday, the senior colleague mentioned above saw me collecting my things and said in an extremely sarcastic tone, “Gather up everything that needs to be gathered.” They had a deeply contemptuous attitude, did not even look at me, and then walked away.

I would also like to emphasize that I was not slow. The reason was that no one at the company ever taught me the correct method. Later, once that senior colleague taught me a method, my speed clearly improved, and I finished all my work before the end of the workday. That senior colleague then actually called another colleague on the extension and said that they had clearly increased my speed.

Even though there was a faster method, they deliberately did not teach it to me at first and only decided to teach me when my contract period was almost over. They made me work myself to death every day before that, and then talked as if it were all their achievement. Moreover, that senior colleague was the first person at the company to test positive when the outbreak initially emerged. I even wonder whether they were the one who brought the virus into the office!

Oh, and I would like to clarify that not everyone at this company was practical and snobbish. There were still some people who were pleasant to work with. Once, when I was busy at work and had not eaten lunch, a few colleagues brought me cookies and reminded me to eat, saying that otherwise they would feel very bad. Of course, I mean those few other colleagues—not the people I mentioned above.

Simply put, this company's working style is very much that of a foreign corporation. I would recommend applying only to people who are highly capable, work quickly, and can handle a huge workload. It is best to apply directly for a full-time position. I strongly do not recommend the contract positions. The company very clearly uses contract employees only when needed and discards them when they are no longer needed, once their contracts expire—treating them entirely as disposable chopsticks. The better salary and benefits mentioned at the beginning apply only to full-time employees; contract employees receive none of them. Even the New Year red envelope, one of the few benefits, was only NT$200 for contract employees. I was stunned when I saw it. If they were going to give so little, they might as well not have given one at all. The amount made it very clear that they simply did not want to give me a red envelope!

Sometimes I feel that I would have more dignity collecting wastewater outside and begging than working here as a contract employee. I must have been out of my mind to come here as a contract employee. I ended up being harmed to the point that both my family and I became ill, and then I was discarded and left without a job. Now my résumé contains a record of a contract position that ended after a short time, making it even more difficult to find subsequent employment.

That is my account of working as a contract employee at this company, for anyone who may find it useful.