Workplace reviews and discussion: 三井資訊股份有限公司

If your colleagues are supportive, you can learn a lot from them.

I work in retail sales.

First of all, this is a family business. The supervisors, managers, and so on above you are basically all parachuted-in outsiders. They come to inspect the store as if they were visiting their own home—touch a pane of glass, say that it’s filthy, and tell the part-time worker to wipe it immediately. As the “hygiene monitor,” I’m sure you know what I mean.

Secondly, the company does not comply with the Labor Standards Act. Everyone is required to arrive half an hour early to clean and hold a morning meeting, and at closing, we have to wait until all customers have left, finish the checkout, and complete the cleaning. That would all be fine if there were overtime pay—but there isn’t! During the one-hour lunch break, you have to be ready to deal with customers at any time, so you can’t even eat properly. Then they make up excuses like, “If there are no customers, you’re resting anyway,” just to brush it off. The store even posts a notice saying that the company provides a normal lunch break in accordance with the Labor Standards Act. It’s obviously posted for labor inspectors to see—it’s an absolute joke. The Ministry of Labor’s system for checking businesses and employers violating labor laws can find plenty of cases, and there are countless more that haven’t been found.

Then there’s the store supervisor. During the interview, HR said, “This supervisor may be a little serious.” That was incredibly superficial—it’s actually a full-blown case of self-importance. The first thing he said when we met was, “Do you know who I am?” Wow, what an impressive display of authority. But that wasn’t all: other colleagues were assigned to teach me everything about the work environment, the department’s duties, and the training. Whenever I encountered something I didn’t understand and went directly to him, all he could say was, “I don’t know,” or “Go ask XXX.” Every day before work, he made everyone stand in a line and lectured us—not motivational speeches, but personal attacks. Before leaving, he would bring up the day’s sales report, see how much each person had sold, and berate us one by one for selling so little. Meanwhile, he himself just sat around in the back during work. He would even openly berate you in front of customers, showing absolutely no respect. If he had provided guidance several times and I still couldn’t do it, then that would be my problem. But this store manager simply never provides guidance; he only looks at the KPIs, and if they aren’t met, he unleashes a barrage of profanity. He also asks things like, “How much are you going to sell today?” and makes people set their own targets, only to berate them again at the end of the day if they fail to meet them. Why don’t you predict how many customers will come in today, then? Anyone assigned to a supervisor like you is truly unlucky.

All I can say is that there’s a reason the turnover rate is so high at a store with so many self-important people.