Workplace reviews and discussion: 全盛科技有限公司

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This is a predatory company operating within the Veterans Affairs Council’s vocational training system. It is owned by the Hsiao family, with the boss, the boss’s younger brother, son, daughter, and relatives controlling personnel and finances, so don’t expect any prospects for advancement.

The boss teaches classes at a Veterans Affairs Council vocational training center.

Basically, the owner of a company with nearly 20 employees and annual revenue of over ten million would not think much of the hourly teaching fees at a Veterans Affairs Council vocational training center.

What he wants is first-hand access to those who have just left the military and are still naïve about the darker side of society.

That way, he can carry out his exploitation plan. Who can blame him for thinking soldiers are easy to fool? Scam groups love this kind of target.

As for why it is predatory:

1. Work environment: There is a morning meeting at 8:00 a.m. where the boss assigns tasks and work. Sometimes, if he is in a bad mood, he will yell at people. Clocking in is done through a cloud-based system, which means that at exactly 5:00 p.m. you have to clock in while at the work site or on your way back from it, so that the company can avoid paying overtime.

2. Overtime pay: Basically, assume that this does not exist. For new employees, when you return from a work site, the boss uses various forms of emotional blackmail, as well as sarcastic comments, intimidating looks, and peer pressure from veteran employees, to force you to stay at the company and do miscellaneous tasks under the pretext of practice. For veteran employees, it is actually worse, because after returning to the company they have to fill out all kinds of forms, submit official documents, and get yelled at by the boss. None of this is counted as overtime.

3. No meals provided: Normally, when a company sends a work crew out, the foreman covers meals and water. This company provides nothing at all—even the boxed lunches sold at the construction-site convenience store have to be paid for by you. As for water, there is no need to mention it: if you fill up too much water from the office, the boss will even complain about it.

4. Workplace atmosphere: Things are much more pleasant at the work site than at the company, because returning to the company means entering a high-pressure environment. This is also why the veteran employees here all have such poor attitudes: the pressure imposed by the boss can of course only be vented on new employees.

5. Most importantly, pay: New employees earn less than 30,000 [New Taiwan dollars] per month and have a three-month probationary period. Raises depend on the boss’s mood and are 500 [New Taiwan dollars] at a time. Leadership positions are laughable too—just an extra 500. There are technicians who have worked at the company for three or four years and earn less than 40,000 per month; they have to work on holidays to exceed 40,000. The holiday overtime pay is ridiculous: calculated out, it is even less than what you would earn as a day laborer—at most a little over 1,000 [New Taiwan dollars].

6. Tools: The company does not provide basic tools and expects you to buy your own. Although there are shared power tools, the boss closely monitors how you use them, and you have to pay for any damage. So basically, everyone there prepares their own tools. There is one benefit, though: when you resign, you can simply take everything with you.

7. Why hasn’t the company been sued? This goes back to what I mentioned earlier: soldiers are naïve and easy to fool, so no labor disputes have broken out yet. After being indoctrinated in his classes, every few months some fool gets tricked into joining his company. I am writing this long post simply to save as many people as possible, one at a time. Low-voltage technicians are in very short supply on the market, so don’t let this company fool you.