The only advantage is that the employee benefits are decent.
If you want to learn skills, I recommend staying for only one to two years.
If you want to stay for the long term, after working here, you can apply to Chunghwa Telecom—you may have a chance of getting in.
Most of the coworkers are over 40. The people inside are 26–28, but they jump directly to over 42; there is a huge gap in technical ability and values. There are some technically skilled people, but none of them are willing to teach. If they do teach, they think it is something you should learn yourself—why should they be the ones to teach you?
The technical gap is severe. Recruitment for frontline positions has been open for nearly a year, and still no one has been hired.
The older-generation engineers spend every day scheming office politics, driving away many engineers from the younger generation. They never stop to think about how much longer they can remain in their comfort zone.
A coworker has a terrible reputation in other departments. Some people have even come to file complaints. The supervisor ignores them, but will definitely criticize you. Why? Because the supervisor thinks they have helped you (they handled your training as a new employee), so you should help smooth things over for them. Have you ever heard of an older-generation employee having someone cover for them for that reason?
They were complained about by a client for poor technical ability. The other reasons were even more absurd—for example, someone in their forties liked wearing Taiwanese-style outfits and procession shirts from a particular temple, and you were still expected to help smooth things over for them. The person being covered for did not think it mattered. Later, a contract employee wanted to become a regular employee, but after failing the interview, they simply started slacking off. Once, a client asked about an access-control issue, and they gave a random answer. The client called the next day to lodge a complaint. Important positions at the company are filled with contract employees. When checking the data, I suggested checking the previous month during the current month, so that each audit would not require checking an entire year’s worth of data. My coworker said no because it was too troublesome.
For the access-control system, when visitors and clients come to inspect the site, the company once required us to fill in the name of the authorized person. But coworkers never filled it in. Later, the system was updated to force users to enter it. I asked the vendor afterward, and they said it was a fail-safe mechanism added because someone had deliberately refused to fill it in.
Coworkers will give you a pile of reasons and stories to brainwash you into accepting their values. You have to experience this for yourself.
After seeing all this, do you still want to join Far EasTone? The older-generation coworkers are over 40.
This is the most important point: the supervisor directly said that someone’s audit performance would definitely be the worst. It is usually a younger employee or someone who has just joined. What happens if your audit performance is the worst? Your bonus will be reduced. On top of that, the supervisor threatens you every day, asking whether you are going to resign and telling you to say so quickly if you are.
After reading this far, do you still want to join Far EasTone?
Engineers always have to clean up after the sales team and PMs. Discussing specifications is the PM’s job, but clients come directly to the site to ask engineers. When salespeople sign contracts, they do not ask the professional engineers whether something can be done; they only care whether they can earn sales results. At every employee meeting, the general manager says that sales targets have been met and mentions how much they have increased, but refuses to give employees raises. Far EasTone has already been mocked as a Chunghwa Telecom training school, yet Far EasTone still refuses to give employees raises.
This is what the internal environment of a large company is like. How much better do you think it could be?
A telecommunications allowance is provided, and almost all reported overtime is paid.
318 and 718 bonuses.
It is one of the major companies. If you want to build up your résumé, you can consider staying for around two years. It is recommended that you start considering whether to continue by your third or fourth year.
Overall, the annual compensation is guaranteed to amount to approximately 14–15 months of salary, including a two-month year-end bonus.
If you want a place to coast toward retirement, you can give it a try—if you have thick enough skin.
I won’t mention any specific department; I’ll just talk about the overall situation.
For the other aspects, you’ll know what I mean if you read the reviews other than this one.
The salary is not competitive.
There is a lot of work.
The application process for employee travel subsidies is extremely troublesome. Among the people I know, some say they don’t want to go because the process is even more troublesome than the previous arrangement.
From what I’ve seen, more senior employees seem to have become complacent and settled in, staying because they have nowhere else to go. Few experienced employees can stay for long.
Excluding employees whose birth years begin with 2 or 3—in other words, the younger generations—the older employees are mostly around 46 years old on average.
The company appears to have the motivation to pursue internal reform,
but compared with last year, there has been no noticeable improvement this year.
Many of the ideas and practices are unsuitable for what is expected in the modern era, so conflicts between younger-generation employees and supervisors occur quite easily.
Compared with last year, 2024, I’ve seen an even larger wave of resignations this year, 2025.
Also, there has been almost no change in management, and few members of the younger generation have taken on management roles.
Benefits such as telecommunications fee subsidies / two months’ year-end bonus / 318.718 profit-sharing bonus / employee travel subsidies
Location: Kaohsiung / Customer Service. A certain male manager at the department-manager level or above, because the company headquarters is in Taipei, acts like an emperor in Kaohsiung, stirring up trouble as if it were the Kaohsiung Far EasTone kingdom. He completely disregards headquarters. This male manager is especially fond of men and frequently looks for men to come into the office to chat. His male favorites can come in whenever they want, while everyone else has to knock and ask permission before entering the office. Even when a certain male favorite previously quit after deliberately being absent from work out of resentment, this manager still agreed to reinstate him (the rules clearly state that anyone dismissed for absenteeism will never be rehired). This male favorite only has a high school education, yet in less than two years, the manager promoted him from a new hire to a department-manager-level supervisor (even though such a position clearly requires at least five years of experience). He also openly displays their same-sex romantic rapport in public. These male favorites are responsible for keeping this male manager company; they can chat throughout working hours without having to work. Discipline is an absolute mess. It is just like one person attaining enlightenment and even the chickens and dogs ascending to heaven: he can promote you or tell you to go home and fend for yourself—it is all up to him. He completely ignores your efforts and contributions, and there is no system of checks and balances whatsoever. It is as if this were a dictatorship, with everyone else barely surviving in the cracks. There is also a certain manager who smiles in front of people but calls you into a meeting room afterward to berate you harshly. The company says it is recruiting customer-service staff in Kaohsiung, but in reality it is only looking for new male favorites. This is an era of diverse families, but gay men should not be stigmatized in this way. Therefore, I advise anyone who does not want to become a male favorite and is considering joining Kaohsiung customer service to think very, very carefully—again and again and again. Don’t contaminate your precious life...
None at all
Let me state the conclusion first: do not be fooled into coming here.
Company location: Neihu
During the interview, the HR representative and supervisor both painted an overly rosy picture and misled me into thinking I could make full use of my talents after joining. Only after starting did I realize they had been talking nonsense. The systems inside are a complete mess, with no SOPs, and every colleague—senior employees included—has no idea about anything when asked. On top of that, they relentlessly bully newcomers verbally and through their attitudes. Those who have stayed there for a long time are mostly old-timers with nowhere else to go; they only put on a show for upper management. Most importantly, they expect you to work overtime every day and finish your work before leaving, but you cannot report the overtime at all! When you ask the relevant colleagues about something, they read your messages without replying and do not answer the phone either—it's absolutely outrageous. The average employee age is over 45. If you like working with older people, you can consider giving it a try.
A high degree of freedom. If you stay long enough and develop a thick skin, you can make it to retirement.
The company is extremely stingy when it comes to distributing performance bonuses.
The methods for meeting the annual performance-bonus targets are changed every year.
And they almost always rush to announce them in March of that year.
There is no retroactive adjustment after the announcement, which means that some performance achieved before March does not count as performance under the new method.
The company simply saves on bonuses while also increasing its gross profit.
The department responsible for calculating and distributing performance bonuses spends all day coming up with ways to make sure sales staff cannot receive their bonuses.
The company’s attitude is that, with such a big name and large business, there will always be new people willing to be exploited.
But when new hires are brought in, there is no training program for them whatsoever.
On the morning of the first day, there is a one-hour session that is nominally called new-hire training, but in reality is just preaching to you about how good the company’s benefits are.
How great the performance is—does this really count as training?
There are loads of older employees waiting to retire, just getting through one day at a time.
Young people who join eventually become old in their mindset too.
If young people want to come here just to pad their résumé, I think that’s fine.
But if you have dreams and want to showcase your talents,
please don’t come and waste your time.
There are many startups out there that would suit you better.
A monthly telecommunications subsidy of 1,600, an employee trip allowance of 10,000 to use as you please, two months’ year-end bonus plus 318/718 profit sharing, and leave according to the Labor Standards Act. Overall, the benefits are considered excellent.
I was in customer service. The system was unstable and frequently crashed, so I constantly had to apologize to customers. I couldn’t take leave because it would affect the SL and my supervisor’s performance evaluation. During my first year with the company, overtime was routine—almost every day. After the 499 disruption, the company’s financial reports showed that profits continued to shrink each month, so tremendous promotional pressure was placed on frontline staff. If targets weren’t met, we had to make up the results using our personal time, of course without overtime pay. The various on-duty performance indicators weren’t difficult to meet, but the satisfaction-rating system was unfair, so I changed jobs after working there for two years.
The disadvantages completely outweigh the advantages.
The company underwent a restructuring in November 2018, which completely changed the company. Many managers have questionable character. All I can say is that Far EasTone is currently in an unstable situation, and joining the company means having to endure frustration.
Overtime can be claimed.
One of the managers there usually puts on a very rational front, but whenever even a minor matter fails to go his way, he calls you into a meeting room, shuts the door, and verbally abuses you, shouting and yelling at you. He will even roar: “Fine! If you’re unhappy, you can leave! My department doesn’t want people like you!” The troublesome part is that resignations still require his approval, leaving junior employees with no choice but to swallow their grievances. When I resigned, he also said to me: “Come on—next, I’m going to say a few things to you as a friend.” (Hah! Who would consider someone who threatens employees like you a friend?) Babababa, remember not to focus only on software, or you’ll keep narrowing your own path. What’s ridiculous, however, is that this person, who thought software was far too simple, still hadn’t managed to get the server up and running by the time I resigned, while the colleague who trained me and I had finished it several weeks earlier. Someone with no technical ability or rationality, who would lose his temper and scream abuse over the slightest matter, actually had the nerve to tell me: “Software is a very narrow path, you know~” Hah! Just thinking of the way he looked back then almost makes me vomit!
Moreover, I was not the only victim. I sincerely hope this person’s misconduct is exposed soon, so that there won’t be another victim.
There is a monthly subsidy for telecommunications expenses.
I work in IT, and the work here is miscellaneous and chaotic. The pressure is extremely heavy. The company provides a laptop, making it convenient for you to take work home. Your salary is calculated by dividing the annual salary you negotiated by 16 months (two months’ year-end bonus and two months’ performance bonus), so your monthly salary will be lower than at your previous company. If you can’t hold out until receiving the year-end bonus, you will effectively lose money. When I applied, the position was for a software engineer, but after I joined, my supervisor said that he didn’t care what position I had applied for—if I joined his team, I would have to do everything. Even if hardware and networking were involved, I was expected to find a way to solve it. The work pressure was so intense that I frequently suffered from insomnia starting in my third week, and sometimes even woke up startled in the middle of the night. I originally thought I could hold out until the Lunar New Year, but I couldn’t. The pressure here was truly unbearable, especially because the work had nothing to do with software. The more you worked, the greater the pressure became. I eventually resigned and found a new job, but because I was still in the probationary period, I didn’t receive a year-end bonus. If I hadn’t switched to Far EasTone, I could originally have received a year-end bonus of over one hundred thousand, but now it’s all gone. This year will be very difficult...... Also, the resignation process at this company takes one month. Even if you resign after only a few days on the job, you still have to give one month’s notice. So if you are unfortunately hired, remember this: if you can’t adapt, submit your resignation immediately, so you don’t end up unable to report to your next job on time.
None
Work overtime until you drop dead
Working hours in the IT department are normal, and there are no internal regulations in the relevant departments regarding compensatory leave for overtime; everyone can apply.
Other departments have internal regulations, so compensatory leave for overtime cannot be applied for.
Supervisory positions are not allowed to apply for compensatory leave for overtime.
High degree of freedom
The list is endless
The worst part of this job for me is that it requires you to cast aside your conscience. Meeting the company's performance targets involves deceiving people, and some training sessions even directly discuss how to trick customers without them ever realizing it.
None
Before leaving the company, the project manager asked for my phone number. After I left, they began using Far EasTone's SMS system to send hundreds of harassing text messages, and only stopped when I threatened to file a lawsuit. I recommend not working for a company like this.
The company benefits are very good. Full-time employees do not need to clock in or out, and employees are given a great deal of freedom. I recommend Far EasTone to anyone looking for a stable job.
Overtime is blocked by supervisors using both soft and hard pressure, making it impossible to report, or you can only report overtime after working very late (nearly until dawn).
It is very easy to get hired at a FarEasTone company-operated store, but once you attend training, you will find that each class has over thirty people, and the attrition rate is extremely high. Usually, only five people survive to be assigned to stores. Taipei City is especially competitive. If you start work at 11 a.m. and have not met the day’s performance target, your supervisor may expect you to take the day off automatically—an “all day” leave. FarEasTone’s performance figures also accumulate gradually at rates such as 0.5%; you need to reach at least 80% per month to start with. Many stores in Taipei City do not finish work until the early morning. Renewals generate little performance credit; new applications are best, and low-priced phones bundled with high-cost plans generate the most performance. If you cannot retain a customer who wants to terminate their contract, that also affects your performance. FarEasTone also has an automated voice service that calls customers to ask about the service attitude. If a customer inexplicably selects the worst rating, store employees still have to return for retraining at 8 a.m. The telecommunications industry may generally be similar, but I would not rate this job positively, because if you are too conscientious and assume it is simply a store counter-service position, you will not be able to survive. This is 100% a sales job—and one with very little commission.
Adding a bit to what was mentioned below:
Store staff can take the day off during a typhoon depending on the area manager’s decision.
Some do, and some don’t, since there are still difficult customers even during typhoons.
But the benefits are generally accurate.
Salary: Non-sales employees are guaranteed 14 months of monthly salary plus two months of performance bonuses for non-sales employees.
Benefits: Better than required by the Labor Standards Act. Annual leave is provided according to job level, with the statutory minimum being the baseline. Other leave is fully in accordance with the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration; in other words, when a typhoon day is announced, you take the day off as long as the news says it is a day off. In addition, the company has offices throughout Taiwan, so parking is available with proof of employment. For phone expenses, there is a monthly allowance of NT$1,600, so I almost never have to pay a phone bill—much better than Chunghwa Telecom’s NT$500 per month.
I have been at Far EasTone for more than ten years. My salary has increased by more than 3% on average each year, and over the past ten years it has nearly doubled. Personally, I think this is a good company with a future and prospects. I recommend it to everyone.
Given the current overall environment, FarEasTone really isn't that bad (I've been here for two years).
And surprisingly, they actually fully comply with the Labor Standards Act and the one fixed day off and one flexible rest day policy...
In a 30-day month, you'll get at least 8–10 days off—usually around 10. In certain months or at certain stores, it may be only eight days.
At ordinary stores, opening time is currently around noon. You only need to arrive at 11:30 a.m. to clock in and get ready.
The store closes at 9 p.m., and the clock-out time is 9:30 p.m. However, it depends on the situation at the time: you have to finish the closing work before you can leave. There is no overtime pay unless there are still customers inside the store after your clock-out time, in which case you may receive overtime pay. (Seriously, there are lots of idiots who crawl in after the security shutters are halfway down and act like morons.)
Starting pay seems to vary by region; I'm in Taipei City.
Base salary plus meal allowance is around NT$28,000. The rest consists of performance bonuses and overtime pay.
There is a NT$1,600 monthly phone allowance. (I haven't paid a phone bill since I started.)
The basic package is 14 months of base salary (including a two-month year-end bonus).
Performance is a major focus, so it's a good place to improve your sales talk and ability to deal with people.
It used to be very bleak, but things are better now. Still, it mainly depends on the store manager and coworkers.
Most people are actually pretty nice, though.
The salary sounds very attractive during the interview, but the actual job is definitely not that easy.
Whether it's easy to hit your targets depends on the individual. The environment also makes a difference—some stores are good and some are lousy—but there are still people who achieve excellent results even at lousy stores.
This is a sales-oriented line of work and does count as sales (you don't have to be out making calls for it to be sales). If you don't take it seriously or only want to collect the base salary, they'll find all kinds of ways to force you out. Anyone who treats it as just a game will probably resign voluntarily within two months.
Performance is calculated as a percentage. 70% is the minimum target; once you hit it, you receive 70% of the performance bonus. At 80%, you can receive the full amount, and the more you do, the more you get. At 110%, the bonus increases again.
For the first six months, new employees' performance is discounted. For example, the first month is calculated at 0.3 times, the second month at 0.5 times, and so on.
At the 0.5-times rate, if I sell NT$10,000 worth of products, I can receive 1%; you only need to sell NT$5,000 to receive 1%.
If you just want to try it out and have a certain level of ability, you might give it a try during the first six months. The bonuses actually aren't bad even then.
Without any discount, most people can reach over 80%, though there are also countless people who barely scrape by each month.
During interviews, managers always make it sound very appealing, talking about things like abundant promotion opportunities.
I have to tell everyone: that's not really the case. The veteran employees who are stronger than you are still waiting to claim those spots. Unless you're truly a genius or the top new recruit, don't expect to move up without spending several years at the bottom.
The next position above a regular employee is acting position holder. When the store manager isn't at the store, this person is in charge, but the pay isn't any higher.
Above the acting position holder is the store manager. But it's not a position you can simply get promoted to—you also have to beat out all kinds of strong competitors, and most importantly, there has to be an opening.
Right now, many veterans with five, six, or seven years—or even longer—are still holding onto these positions. The company is gradually phasing people out, but those veterans aren't pushovers either; they'll fight to hold onto their spots to the bitter end.
You can't really blame them, either. Think about how many years you've spent holding onto a comfortable position here (though it's actually pretty tiring), and then imagine being pushed out by people who haven't even been here for a few years. Of course you'd be pissed.
To sum up the salary: a regular employee earns around NT$29,000 without performance bonuses.
With the basic performance bonus, you can add around NT$6,000–8,000; if things go well, you can add around NT$11,000 more.
Overall, this job really isn't that bad. It's quite suitable for improving yourself, and you don't have to worry about being suddenly laid off (as long as you don't do things you shouldn't) and then being unable to make ends meet. But if you want to make big money, it's probably not the path for you unless you're exceptionally good.
That's all.
For retail store sales staff, those with experience can negotiate their salary, but the room for negotiation is limited. The bonus calculation is based on one-third of the base salary as 100% of the bonus, with the base salary added on top; the maximum is a 300% bonus. The base salary is guaranteed for 14 months. Telecommunications fees are fully covered up to a NT$1.6K allowance. Annual leave follows the Labor Standards Act. There is a NT$10K employee travel allowance, with partner companies available domestically and internationally. The employee welfare committee organizes activities every two years. Annual salary adjustments depend on the manager and are divided into five levels. If you fall out of favor with the district manager, even excellent performance will not lead to much of a raise. Also, if store staff do not leave work on time, it is difficult to claim overtime pay. Even if you clock in and out, the system will not automatically grant overtime—whether you can report it depends on whether your manager is willing to approve it. Sharing the above for reference.
Full-time employees receive an annual salary starting at 14 months’ worth of pay. Overtime pay or compensatory leave can be claimed, and parking for cars and motorcycles is free.
These are benefits I personally confirmed receiving—it's hard to imagine these benefits come from one of Hsu Hsu-Tung's companies... XD
The company largely follows the Labor Standards Act, but there are still some unwritten rules, with both good and bad aspects. The benefits offered by the company are quite reasonable by market standards. However, even with a good company and systems, encountering an unsuitable manager means you can only endure the pain while enjoying the benefits. That said, most managers are highly capable. Recommended as a top choice for fresh graduates or those with one or two years of work experience.