Workplace reviews and discussion: 艾佳清潔有限公司

1. During the interview, HR provided a glass of negative-ion mineral water.

1. After that, I never got to drink it again, so I couldn't have it with the pie the executives were serving.

2. At the beginning of the interview, the senior manager said that the pre-employment training would last two weeks, and that once we had a solid foundation, we could develop through our own strengths as salespeople. However, during those first two weeks, I found that it was all just sales scripts. We had to stay for the full eight hours each day, but the actual teaching took less than an hour; the rest of the time, we were left to occupy ourselves. It was an enormous waste of time.

3. What they taught at the beginning was fundamentally hollow. The results of rushing new hires into the job were fully reflected in the performance figures. The company would tell you to practice independently while discouraging you from asking experienced colleagues for advice. Then, if you failed to meet your targets, management would assess whether you were qualified to continue, making newcomers feel that being allowed to stay was an opportunity the company had given them and that they needed to work harder.

4. Once I actually started working, I found that the pay was very meager. Basically, this is a highly profitable industry, but the sales commission is small. On top of that, being late or forgetting to report something would result in a NT$5,000 deduction from that week's marketing bonus. Supervisors would also encourage you to work on weekday evenings and holidays to generate sales, without overtime pay. Even when no clients were scheduled, you still had to go to the office and practice with yourself. This was quite a waste of time and completely restricted the sales staff's freedom. Calculated out, we only had two or three days off per month.

5. The company's senior executives like sycophants. Even if their sales figures were zero, as long as they performed the act of practicing by themselves in the office all day for the executives to watch, the executives would protect them, because the company needs people who are constantly improving. Even high-performing salespeople would become targets of senior management's disapproval if they raised opinions about the company's rules.

Overall company atmosphere:

At first, they say they will give you plenty of freedom, and that if you work hard at the beginning of the month, you can rest later on. All of that is a lie, because upper management wants to take a cut of your sales. As a result, you can only work harder. If you slack off even slightly or want to take a break, you instead become an outsider. That is why quite a few senior colleagues gradually slow down and just meet the minimum requirements. The job is nowhere near as positive as it was made out to be during the interview.

Thoughts: If you do this as a short-term job, personally, I don't think you should stay for more than six months, because you do not learn much from the work itself. Most of your time is tied up in the office, where you end up wearing yourself down. As a long-term job, it is completely not worth considering: there is no year-end bonus, no promotion system, and it is essentially manual labor. You work overtime on holidays and at night to earn sales, but receive no overtime pay. Each month, people with good sales figures may be invited to a group meal, but based on what they share, it is basically a direct-selling convention. The boss draws up enticing promises for you, and I heard that one of the group meals was at Costco. Even that sounds rather pathetic (fortunately, I did not push myself to chase sales at the time). It is clearly an industry with room for development, yet the company has managed to develop it into a complete mess ^_^