Workplace reviews and discussion: 嬌妻廚具百貨有限公司

Smoke-free environment. The senior employees, other than the boss, are friendly toward apprentices. The work environment is bright and clean.

The boss is not actually hiring because he is genuinely short-staffed. It may simply be a rehabilitation employment site operated in cooperation with a government agency, intended to make former offenders feel that they are experiencing a seemingly reasonable work environment. In reality, after about a month, the boss began to reveal his true colors. What he had initially promised—training apprentices to become technicians and helping them obtain certifications—was all wordplay. During the two-month employment period, he never once allowed the apprentice to install a water heater independently from start to finish. Even after the apprentice had learned how to install one, he would deliberately intervene during every installation and recite the same fixed script: “You’ve been here this long—can you actually do it or not?! Why can’t you ever learn? Is this how I taught you?” “Do you actually have the desire to learn?” “I really don’t want to teach you!” “You said you knew how to install it?! What kind of installation is this?! Who taught you to do it this way? What’s the next step? Is it like this?” Ninety percent of it consisted of specious rhetoric—empty or fabricated statements. There was very little constructive guidance or instruction. Only his son still had some conscience and taught the apprentice fairly, although there were also two isolated instances of self-interested misdirection. For the most part, his son was quite responsible and taught without holding anything back. However, the person with real power was his father, the boss. If the boss did not like you as a person, he would force you to leave within three months. In the end, the boss would personally take out a “resignation application” and hand it to you, meaning that he wanted you to submit your own resignation. It was effectively voluntary resignation. You had no choice but to comply. Even if you refused to write it, you could not keep the job. Even if you temporarily retained it, that would only be temporary; eventually, he would find an opportunity and a pile of reasons to force you out. Even when installing water heaters, he would intervene every time with the water pipes, preventing you from completing the installation, changing the length, or making the piping run more smoothly. In any case, he would say, “As long as it doesn’t leak water or gas during the exam, you pass.” As for appearance or professionalism, he did not care. Then he would photograph these ugly pipes and show the photos to customers. Naturally, customers would not consider that professional. Most importantly, regarding any joint with a gasket, the boss actually said that after tightening it by hand, you should tighten it another two turns with a tool. I do not agree with this. Basically, for a joint with a gasket, the most important thing is to use a tool to tighten it to the appropriate tightness. Tightening it another two turns with a tool completely ignores the required tightness; put bluntly, it means forcing it and cranking it until it is stuck. This crushes and damages a perfectly good gasket, causing it to deteriorate and fatigue prematurely. If you simply force and crank it tight, is any skill still required? Anyone could install it! Showing off by wearing a certification is not going to work. Sorry, I do not buy it. Seeking facts and keeping my feet on the ground is my attitude toward plumbing, electrical, gas, and related work. That will never change. I detest this kind of specious pseudo-morality. From the first day of work, they had already labeled you. Someone even said aloud: “Being monitored is also a kind of happiness. If it were me, I would openly let them monitor me,” and “You can find different breakfast shops along the way and eat at them.” These inexplicable, completely out-of-the-blue remarks made the atmosphere feel chilling and suggested a deeply calculating mindset. If you treat someone as a former offender, you should treat them fairly—not label them and treat employees from a position of superiority. The master-apprentice relationship was not friendly at all, yet they still expected others to perform normally? They should try switching roles and then expounding at length. They waste other people’s lives as if they were garbage, with no respect whatsoever. Their official statement was: “Help apprentices develop a specialized skill and help them obtain certifications.” Although the boss’s wife explained on the first day that you could use the microwave for lunch and drink the beverages in the refrigerator, those were all traps. Never take beverages from the refrigerator, and never use the microwave unless you have already been there for more than three years. Those are tests, so be sure to remember that. Every time you went out with the boss, he would lecture you the entire way and verbally put you down throughout. Any vocational high school graduate could install a water heater; the apprentice had not actually done anything wrong, yet the boss would deliberately intervene and then verbally put the apprentice down, making them lose confidence and feel defeated. His aim was to make the apprentice feel worthless and incapable, then continue putting them down, eventually throwing out statements such as: “Do you actually have the desire to learn?” and “I’ll give you one more week.” It was simply that he disliked certain people—an entirely subjective judgment. If you were a former offender, or if he decided that you were one, your continued employment depended on luck; perhaps praying at a temple might give you a chance to stay. As the saying goes, when someone wants to condemn you, what excuse could they lack? Once the boss disliked you as a person, when the time came—generally within about three months—he would tell you to leave. Help with obtaining a license? Support in becoming a technician? It was all wordplay; just take it with a grain of salt.