Workplace reviews and discussion: 耀際實業有限公司

The job basically involves riding a company motorcycle or car to various restaurants or locations to carry out cockroach and rodent control.

Working hours are 8:30 to 17:00, with a 1.5-hour lunch break. You clock in and out at the company office.

You have to visit approximately 5–8 clients a day. This is not difficult for people with pest-control experience, but because employee turnover is so high,

you often end up taking over a complete mess (a cockroach infestation or severe rodent problem). Since the previous pest-control work was ineffective, the person taking over

may get harshly blamed for problems left by the previous worker. Reporting the issue to management often gets you a response like, “You should figure out how to solve it yourself,”

or they send a team leader or someone else to accompany you (although senior management also just goes through the motions and does not genuinely put in the effort to help resolve the problem).

Night work is defined as work after 5 p.m. For example, leaving at 5 p.m. to perform pest control until 8 p.m. counts as overtime.

After finishing at 5 p.m., you may rest for 2–3 hours and then return to the company to carry out pesticide spraying at 10 p.m.; this counts as a night shift.

Whether night shifts stay under seven days is a matter of luck. When there is a staff shortage, plenty of people end up working more than ten night shifts.

After working at night, you must take compensatory time off the following morning, meaning you only need to start work at noon the next day.

At present, the company generally operates on a five-day workweek with two days off (public holidays in the same month are also off), using a flexible-hours scheduling system.

That means you may get two or three days off in a week (three if there happens to be a public holiday), but you cannot be scheduled for three consecutive days off.

Overtime is currently calculated according to the Labor Standards Act, but only based on the insured salary used for labor insurance contributions.

For example, if your insured salary is 22,500: 22,500/240 × 1.33, or 1.66 (after two hours).

Because the one-fixed-day-off-and-one-flexible-rest-day system and public holidays are shifted around, there is basically no overtime pay for working on scheduled days off to claim.

Your days off still have to be scheduled according to the work at hand—in other words, according to the needs of clients, coworkers, and company operations.

For example, a supervisor may suddenly instruct you not to take the day off, a client may suddenly change the appointment time,

or a team leader or coworker may ask you to swap shifts. Often, if you do not show up, the work simply goes uncovered.

Pay consists of the basic salary + meal allowance + unexplained bonuses + overtime pay (if any; I heard they may switch to a responsibility-based system),

minus your employee-paid labor and health insurance contributions. Since the insured salary is low, the deduction is generally a little over 1,000.

An example calculation is 22,500 + 1,500 + 8,000 + 1,236 − 800 = 32,436 (for reference only).

Monthly earnings are generally between 30,000 and 40,000, with only a few people earning over 40,000. You only get more money after being promoted or taking on a management position.

There is absolutely no system for promotions, management appointments, or salary increases; everything depends on the boss’s mood. Naturally, the boss will claim that there is a system.

The year-end bonus is also calculated based on the basic salary, multiplied by a performance percentage (also judged solely by the boss, between 0.5 and 1).

The actual year-end bonus is approximately 11,250–22,500 (based on a basic salary of 22,500). If you have worked for less than a year, it is calculated proportionally by month.

The three-festival bonuses are not guaranteed. They may consist of just one box of pastries for everyone to share, or cash of 600–1,000.

Employee trips basically do not exist. If a workplace cannot even give you three consecutive days off, could it possibly have employee trips?

Department dinners only happen occasionally. However, if people eat too much, the boss may complain again, so some employees do not attend the dinners.

What I find most laughable about this company is that it claims on 104 Job Bank to provide comprehensive training.

The “comprehensive training” consists of applying to the company, being casually handed over to a senior employee or a coworker who is about to leave,

being trained for 3–5 days, and then being left to deal with clients and pest-control work on your own (because turnover is so fast, there is no one to take over the assigned areas).

Then, internally, the company claims and tells outsiders that you have three years of experience. Three days equals three years of experience—is this a time chamber?

In my view, pest-control work may look easy to enter, but without 1–2 years of training, it is difficult to become fully qualified.

The job basically involves riding a company motorcycle or car to various restaurants or locations to carry out cockroach and rodent control.

Working hours are 8:30 to 17:00, with a 1.5-hour lunch break. You clock in and out at the company office.

You have to visit approximately 5–8 clients a day. This is not difficult for people with pest-control experience, but because employee turnover is so high,

you often end up taking over a complete mess (a cockroach infestation or severe rodent problem). Since the previous pest-control work was ineffective, the person taking over

may get harshly blamed for problems left by the previous worker. Reporting the issue to management often gets you a response like, “You should figure out how to solve it yourself,”

or they send a team leader or someone else to accompany you (although senior management also just goes through the motions and does not genuinely put in the effort to help resolve the problem).

Night work is defined as work after 5 p.m. For example, leaving at 5 p.m. to perform pest control until 8 p.m. counts as overtime.

After finishing at 5 p.m., you may rest for 2–3 hours and then return to the company to carry out pesticide spraying at 10 p.m.; this counts as a night shift.

Whether night shifts stay under seven days is a matter of luck. When there is a staff shortage, plenty of people end up working more than ten night shifts.

After working at night, you must take compensatory time off the following morning, meaning you only need to start work at noon the next day.

At present, the company generally operates on a five-day workweek with two days off (public holidays in the same month are also off), using a flexible-hours scheduling system.

That means you may get two or three days off in a week (three if there happens to be a public holiday), but you cannot be scheduled for three consecutive days off.

Overtime is currently calculated according to the Labor Standards Act, but only based on the insured salary used for labor insurance contributions.

For example, if your insured salary is 22,500: 22,500/240 × 1.33, or 1.66 (after two hours).

Because the one-fixed-day-off-and-one-flexible-rest-day system and public holidays are shifted around, there is basically no overtime pay for working on scheduled days off to claim.

Your days off still have to be scheduled according to the work at hand—in other words, according to the needs of clients, coworkers, and company operations.

For example, a supervisor may suddenly instruct you not to take the day off, a client may suddenly change the appointment time,

or a team leader or coworker may ask you to swap shifts. Often, if you do not show up, the work simply goes uncovered.

Pay consists of the basic salary + meal allowance + unexplained bonuses + overtime pay (if any; I heard they may switch to a responsibility-based system),

minus your employee-paid labor and health insurance contributions. Since the insured salary is low, the deduction is generally a little over 1,000.

An example calculation is 22,500 + 1,500 + 8,000 + 1,236 − 800 = 32,436 (for reference only).

Monthly earnings are generally between 30,000 and 40,000, with only a few people earning over 40,000. You only get more money after being promoted or taking on a management position.

There is absolutely no system for promotions, management appointments, or salary increases; everything depends on the boss’s mood. Naturally, the boss will claim that there is a system.

The year-end bonus is also calculated based on the basic salary, multiplied by a performance percentage (also judged solely by the boss, between 0.5 and 1).

The actual year-end bonus is approximately 11,250–22,500 (based on a basic salary of 22,500). If you have worked for less than a year, it is calculated proportionally by month.

The three-festival bonuses are not guaranteed. They may consist of just one box of pastries for everyone to share, or cash of 600–1,000.

Employee trips basically do not exist. If a workplace cannot even give you three consecutive days off, could it possibly have employee trips?

Department dinners only happen occasionally. However, if people eat too much, the boss may complain again, so some employees do not attend the dinners.

What I find most laughable about this company is that it claims on 104 Job Bank to provide comprehensive training.

The “comprehensive training” consists of applying to the company, being casually handed over to a senior employee or a coworker who is about to leave,

being trained for 3–5 days, and then being left to deal with clients and pest-control work on your own (because turnover is so fast, there is no one to take over the assigned areas).

Then, internally, the company claims and tells outsiders that you have three years of experience. Three days equals three years of experience—is this a time chamber?

In my view, pest-control work may look easy to enter, but without 1–2 years of training, it is difficult to become fully qualified.