Workplace reviews and discussion: 鼎盛工業股份有限公司

Production worker.

Stable, with fixed working hours, and no need to think.

1. Short-staffed

They frequently ask employees to work overtime. Although, officially, Taiwanese colleagues are not forced to do so, foreign colleagues who cannot take leave often complain to you about why you do not work overtime. The supervisors also engage in emotional blackmail, deliberately praising colleagues who work overtime in front of you while staring at you to pressure you into working overtime, or spreading rumors and inciting colleagues to treat you unfavorably. Supervisors at every level especially like to encourage employees to form factions. Whenever they are unhappy, they tell workers not to help the person they dislike, or indirectly make that person’s work more difficult.

2. They do not teach

The manager says that it is difficult for supervisors to manage people, but the supervisors do not actually train anyone. They simply leave it to foreign colleagues to teach others, despite the language barriers to some extent, or only explain half of what needs to be said. If you take the initiative to ask the supervisor questions, you will only get scolded. They may even deliberately tease you and run away so that you have to chase them, thinking it is funny. In reality, the supervisor does not know the answer to anything. If you seek help from someone else, you may also be scolded for not having reported it to them. They only show up to make sarcastic remarks when something goes wrong.

3. Chaotic work processes

The SOPs are terrible, and announcements frequently start strongly but end without follow-through. Things are especially chaotic when new products are introduced. When product problems occur, there is no record or update explaining how to troubleshoot them. The next time something goes wrong, they only yell at and scold employees. Yet when you initially ask what to watch out for, they have not explained anything clearly. Sometimes the plant manager only says, “We’ll see.” However, when these supervisors make mistakes themselves, they frequently refuse to admit them and instead blame foreign colleagues for mishearing. Even when you confirm things with the supervisor, they become impatient.

4. No management ability

Apart from the SOPs, upper management is also terrible at managing the plant’s inventory and responsibilities. During my three years there, right up until I left, assigned tasks were still frequently changed over and over again. It also kept happening that they would specify how many units needed to be produced, but the materials would run out halfway through preparation, requiring everyone’s work to be reassigned from scratch.

5. Inflated egos among management

The upper management group is extremely condescending, forcing employees to flatter and please them. Otherwise, they deliberately make things difficult at work—abusing their authority. Whenever they are unhappy, they lose their temper at subordinates and take it out on them, nitpicking over every little thing.

(I once encountered a situation where they deliberately failed to repair a machine, making it impossible for people to work, without explaining how it would be handled afterward. Then the supervisor later scolded us for not meeting the required quantity.)

6. They love comparisons

Announcements and verbal statements say that there are no quantity requirements, and they even post articles saying not to compare people. In reality, the person who most enjoys comparing quantities is the manager. There had previously been friction over comparisons between foreign and Taiwanese supervisors, which led the supervisors to keep pressuring us to reach specific quantities. In short, we are expected to produce more, make no mistakes, and accept low pay.

7. They cannot separate work from private matters

When work-related problems are reported to the supervisor, they do not take them seriously and fail to manage matters they should handle. Yet they are obsessed with meddling in other people’s private affairs, controlling what others eat and like, and making sarcastic remarks even when people take leave.

8. Very poor personal ethics

They secretly look at employees’ social media accounts and share what they find with other colleagues. (It was a private account that I had locked, and I have no idea how they secretly viewed it.) I had never shared my private activities at work, yet they discussed them in detail as conversation starters. It was absolutely disgusting.

9. Harassment

The men at the plant have extremely poor gender awareness, especially regarding physical boundaries. According to their understanding, they are trying to get close to people, but for some reason the areas they touch are the chest, waist, and buttocks. In particular, several tall foreign male colleagues are habitual offenders. Because they get along very well with the supervisors, the only practical option is to stay away from them. Once, while I was operating a machine and unable to let myself get distracted, a foreign section manager deliberately used a product to poke me in the butt, while the manager stood nearby laughing. The same disgusting man would deliberately keep blocking my route and standing in front of the machines where I was working. On another occasion, the plant manager pretended to be using his phone while handling a machine beside me during packaging, but secretly pointed it at my face to take a photo. The men throughout the entire management team are utterly disgusting.

10. They say one thing and do another

In short, all the rules change according to the mood of upper management. They cannot distinguish between rules that should remain fixed and matters that should be flexible and adjusted. In the end, those who flatter management get treated better.

Some of the above problems have improved, but not by much. I do not know whether things are still like this at present. However, the terrible incidents and disgusting men I encountered were real.