A decades-old company and a large enterprise with several hundred employees

A traditional manufacturing company with a system based on individual responsibility for working hours, salaries depending on luck, and opportunities to learn about different fields—for example, working as a cleaner or newspaper delivery person

Some colleagues are crazy, others are sick; managers just talk and feed you empty promises. It can train your self-cultivation and emotional management skills.

Suitable for natural actors who are good at flattering managers—you’ll do very well here.

1. You have to sneak into major universities to hand out flyers, write on blackboards, and hold seminars.

2. As mentioned above, when holding seminars, you have to pay for the food upfront yourself (NT$100 per student—NT$4,000 for 40 students). You won’t be reimbursed until several weeks later.

2. As mentioned above, when holding seminars, you have to play cat and mouse with the campus security center because the school won’t lend you a classroom (during my first week on the job, I was yelled at by a school officer and kicked out).

I urge people with an overflowing sense of justice not to work in school-channel sales.

3. During the General Scholastic Ability Test, Comprehensive Assessment Program, and any civil-service examinations, you’ll be dragged in as an unpaid temporary worker to hand out DMs.

4. According to what senior colleagues said, performance bonuses used to be better; the commission could reach double-digit percentages, but now it’s a pitiful single-digit percentage.

5. They keep shouting that the declining birth rate means everyone has to weather hard times together, but supposedly revenue hasn’t fallen.

6. The company’s senior management is also similar to a family business, but it’s difficult to hear much gossip.

7. The mentor-apprentice system for newcomers can’t be called good or bad, because it depends entirely on who your mentor is and whether they keep their tricks to themselves.

8. There are tons of meaningless meetings. If you don’t hit your targets, you have to go up and give a review. I heard that in the past, the review had to be written (I’d rather write it than be publicly humiliated onstage).

9. I have absolutely no idea how the managers make decisions. If they say today that we’re going to the North Pole, we go to the North Pole; if they say tomorrow that we’re going to the South Pole, we go to the South Pole. You need excellent survival and adaptability skills.

10. During the interview, they said most colleagues were around the same age (almost all under 30). Only after joining did I understand that this was because the retention rate was so low.

11. You have to bring your own toilet paper. Your colleagues can hear the sounds when you poop, unless you never poop at the company.

12. Your self-esteem is often belittled here. Although the scolding usually doesn’t rise to the level of personal attacks, you will be subjected to PUA-style manipulation, such as being told, “For someone with your abilities, you’re already doing pretty well here. You definitely wouldn’t earn as much at another job, and it would be even harder.” Or managers will compare and pressure you: “Look at so-and-so—they did NT$** million in sales this month and even came in to work overtime on holidays to serve students,” and so on.

13. Managers will lead the group in isolating new employees they dislike. Group-work schedules are not transparent, creating information gaps that make it impossible to coordinate work.

After a while, you’ll realize that you’ve been singled out for elimination and that you’re no longer suited to staying, so you’ll quietly leave on your own.

But the upside is that if you don’t CARE about any of it, the company can’t bring itself to spend severance pay to ask you to leave.