Workplace reviews and discussion: 紐秋沃德有限公司

The colleagues I worked with at the time were all friendly and easy to get along with. We helped one another, and the atmosphere at work was pleasant. The manager was easy to communicate with, understanding, and emotionally stable—the best supervisor I had encountered throughout my working life. The boss did not often come to the company to inspect things, so the pressure was not as great.

1. All of the company benefits were secured for employees by the manager, and employees also signed agreements acknowledging them after being hired. However, the company would remove the manager from the position whenever it felt like it (without even formal notification or discussion—if they were unhappy with you, they would simply remove you). After removing the manager, the company said the benefits were invalid because they had been proposed by the manager (which was extremely absurd).

They even chose to lay off 80% of the employees and remove the manager from the position one month before the year-end bonus was paid. They were very good at penny-pinching.

2. The boss only comes to the company once a week. When the boss is not at the company, they hardly spend any time handling work-related issues or checking on progress. As a result, a considerable amount of work gets held up, and everyone has to wait endlessly for the boss’s confirmation. We often ended up offending vendors. The boss would confirm only a little of a document each week, and then there would be new things to revise every week. When the process took too long, the boss would blame employees for being inefficient (even though it was clearly the boss’s own problem).

3. The company’s accountant is part-time (I have genuinely never encountered a company whose accountant only shows up a few days a month). If you need to process a payment request, you have to wait an extremely long time. Again, this constantly offends vendors, leaving them waiting and delaying scheduling, which sometimes makes events very rushed. The payment-request process is complicated and looks very formal, but problems occur frequently (such as payment-request forms going missing—it is unbelievably frustrating).

There is also an accounting supervisor who controls the entire company. Even projects approved by the boss must obtain the accounting supervisor’s approval before they can take effect. However, the accounting supervisor also rarely comes to the company. In short, everything gets held up waiting for the boss’s confirmation, the accounting supervisor’s review, and the accountant’s disbursement. It is completely normal for a project to be delayed for several months after being submitted. Reimbursement for expenses advanced by employees is even more difficult; even small amounts can take three or four months to be paid.

4. The boss and accounting supervisor do not understand brand marketing. They are rigid and stubborn in their thinking, and often complain that the company’s performance is poor, but they do not want to promote the brand. They only want to operate the company like a traditional factory. However, the company sells specialized products with a small target audience (vegetarian health foods and shelf-stable stinky tofu), which are difficult to sell and distribute in large quantities. They are unwilling to transform or provide a marketing budget, so why hire a marketing planner instead of simply hiring a salesperson?

They provide only NT$2,000 per month for advertising and expect the results of a large company investing NT$1 million in marketing. If you cannot achieve that, they say the employee lacks ability. The boss often says, “Other large companies sell very well, so why can’t you do it?”

5. The boss is a teacher who founded their own religious sect. You can search online for “Sheng Dao of Prayer” (Xinru Moral and Compassion Association) to understand what I mean. There are many students (fellow practitioners) under them, and they refer to themselves as Xinru teachers. Most people in the organization are older, and their behavior and thinking are very strange. To put it bluntly, it is like a cult. They even exploit events such as the South Korean ferry disaster for publicity. Just look at the articles on their website to understand how absurd it is.

6. If you have seen this review and are about to apply, please think twice. The company laid off most of its employees in November 2023. The only job opening will be for a “social media marketing editor,” but you will be responsible for all marketing, shipping, operations, graphic design, video editing, and so on. Everything described above was genuinely experienced by a former employee. I have never encountered such an outrageous company.

The short version

《The Company’s Three Major Sources of Trouble and Chaos》

1. The boss: Teacher Xinru is always right. If the products do not sell well, it is your problem. They have a pile of bad ideas and unrealistic fantasies, along with “If other people can do it, why can’t you?”

2. The accounting supervisor (Sister Xie): I am the most powerful person in the entire company. Marketing expenses are unnecessary. If it involves money, wait patiently; I will release the funds when I feel like it. If I suspect there is something wrong with you, I will point a surveillance camera at you and monitor you every moment.

3. The factory manager: “What does it have to do with me? I have no idea what is going on. None of you do any work; we are the ones handling everything.” They know nothing no matter how many questions you ask; teaching them is equivalent to teaching nothing.

*Important* If this review is attacked or refuted, there is a 99% chance that it is the association’s paid defenders (cult followers) coming to defend it. It definitely will not be former employees, because all the employees except the three ringleaders got along very well. Those who understand will know what I mean.