Workplace reviews and discussion: 安琪兒百貨有限公司

The interview seemed pretty good.

The environment felt very clean and comfortable.

I happened to start during a holiday, so most of the experienced employees were very busy, introducing products and handling incoming and outgoing shipments.

The newcomers who had started nearly a month earlier had gradually learned a lot. I happened to start later and had been there for less than five days. During the first few days, the experienced employees simply had no time to teach me. However, I was not allowed to ask the earlier newcomers because they were afraid those employees might teach me incorrectly. Still, I secretly learned from the earlier newcomers.

Around the fourth day, the manager suddenly asked how much I had learned. I replied that I had not learned most things yet, but that I had learned a little from them. I said, “You were relatively busy during the first few days, so I could only first familiarize myself with the products and ask the newcomers who had started earlier about incoming and outgoing shipments to learn the basics.”

The store manager coldly replied, “If you have questions, ask us experienced employees. Don’t ask the newer colleagues who arrived only a little earlier than you. What if they do something wrong? Your learning progress is very slow—you need to work harder. I only like proactive newcomers; I don’t like passive ones.”

The other newcomer who had started around the same time as me and I were completely dumbfounded and speechless. We did ask questions, but you were the ones who said you were busy. We had to wait until you were finished, didn’t we? When you were busy, we also felt bad about interrupting you, didn’t we?

But ironically, after you finished your work and started teaching us about incoming and outgoing shipments and stock transfers, we gradually became familiar with them.

In the evening, shortly before the end of the workday, a supervisor from headquarters came to the store to pick up a document. They called me upstairs and told me that I was not suited for the job because I was learning too slowly.

My God! I was completely speechless. Do you know that learning these things takes at least a month? I had worked in many service-industry jobs before, and supervisors had also said that it takes at least one to three months of learning before someone can work independently. You had already mastered everything, so you apparently thought newcomers could learn these things in just a few days.

The problem is that everyone learns at a different pace. Not everyone can learn very quickly, right!? That is why it takes anywhere from one to three months. But in the five days I was there, I only truly had two days to learn from you. On the other days, you simply had no time to teach me and were busy the entire time! Was I supposed to be blamed for not asking? 🙄

I had only been there for five days, yet you expected me to learn everything. Were you treating me as if I were three people? That is completely unreasonable!

It makes no logical sense. As it turned out, I discovered that several of the newcomers at the store were relatives—even family members—of managers from other stores. Their names in the system were identical or differed by only one character. There is no way they didn’t know each other, right? What are the odds of that happening?

The job openings for that area had clearly been closed on the website, yet they were still interviewing a newcomer that afternoon. Only then did I find out that the person was the wife of one of the new colleagues. 🙃

This was obviously an arranged hire. It was utterly ridiculous.

So were those of us who got in without connections supposed to do everything possible to please and curry favor with you, right?

That very evening, they asked me to sign a voluntary resignation form, claiming that I was unsuitable for the job. It really was just as other reviewers said: when a supervisor takes a dislike to you and you are not favored, they start nitpicking and coming up with all kinds of reasons to get rid of you.