Workplace reviews and discussion: 弘銘科技有限公司

I was approached via 104, and I didn't even have to submit an application, so I suppose that saved me a bit of hassle. Fortunately, the interview was online; otherwise, I would have been even more annoyed.

Only after opening Zoom did I realize it was an online “group” interview. There were three interviewees in total. Then, someone—I don't know who—instructed us to change our Zoom names to name + school + department. I was like, huh? My personal information was completely exposed.

At the scheduled 8:00 p.m. start time, Director Chen arrived about five minutes late. He first introduced his background: 28 years in education and three years since founding the company (although it is an affiliated company of Samebest https://www.samebest.com.tw/interested-parties.html). He also described their current scale as approximately 70 teachers and 400 students. However, the 104 page says they have 500 employees, which would mean that, after subtracting the 70 teachers, there are still 430 employees doing who knows what. The office building address listed on the page happens to be a place where I had previously worked for another company. That space was already hard-pressed to fit 30 people, so I have no idea which alternate dimension the 400 people are in.

Before the interview, I had already read posts online and had a general idea that the company was a terrible place. During the interview, however, Director Chen seemed fairly restrained, and the conversation was quite relaxed. Regarding the online evaluations of the company's workplace culture, he only said that young people were too spoiled to handle pressure and quit over nothing. He added that their employees acted as though they were on vacation whenever they came to the office. People online all have their own versions of the story; anyone with firsthand experience can add more. But after checking Tianyancha, PTT, and SalaryExploration, it looks pretty bad. Perhaps Director Chen was somewhat restrained on the surface, but his remarks still revealed a mindset based on the “responsibility system” (i.e., unpaid overtime and no fixed working hours).

After he finished speaking, it was our turn to introduce ourselves one by one. In other words, while someone else was talking, we just had to sit there and wait, wasting time. Moreover, he had scheduled a fourth interviewee for 8:30 p.m. By the time our group ended, it had already gone far beyond the time he had agreed on with the other person. He clearly needs to work on his time management.

Run for your life.

The pay was set at 250 per hour, with four days scheduled per week and 12K per month. In other words, commuting for one hour each way, working for three hours, and then going home means five hours for only 750. I can casually tutor students as a hobby and already make 600 per hour.

Then Director Chen said that, for this low-paid, lousy environment, we would also have to sign a contract guaranteeing that we would work for six months and could not leave, so that he wouldn't have to go through a handover for nothing. What the hell—I don't know whether that's illegal.

Seriously, not even a dog would go there; the cost of feeding a dog for a day might actually be higher.