The benefits are good: annual salary adjustments, half a month’s salary each for the Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, and a guaranteed year-end bonus of two months’ salary. There is a dedicated welfare committee responsible for the company’s benefits and activities. I really enjoy the holiday events, small gifts, afternoon tea, and birthday celebrations—they are little bright spots amid busy workdays. There is one domestic trip and one overseas trip every year. The company has a gym, showers, and an aerobics studio. Overtime pay is provided in accordance with the Labor Standards Act! I previously interviewed at several traditional manufacturing companies where overtime was exchanged for compensatory leave or employees were under a duty-based system, and many traditional manufacturing companies do not comply with the Labor Standards Act. The company also has a lucky bag sale—I forget how often it takes place—where you can buy lots of sports-brand apparel for very little money. I feel this company is relatively open-minded among traditional manufacturing companies, and the compensation is also quite good.

The systems at a large company are relatively strict, with various evaluation criteria. They are not extremely difficult to meet, but there are quite a lot of them. The overtime can be very intense, so you really need a certain level of stress tolerance and a fresh liver (recently, the company has also tried to address staffing allocation issues by adjusting the division of work between departments—at least it is not simply leaving the problem unattended). The office atmosphere is relatively dull. Although people can occasionally chat briefly during work, most of the time all you hear is the sound of typing, with an almost complete silence (headphones are not allowed during work). During peak commuting hours, the elevators are very difficult to catch…