Normal working hours, with almost no overtime. For people with families, it’s a good place to settle down and take it easy.
Objectively speaking, if you have no particular thoughts about your work, do whatever you’re told without complaint or talking back, and just want to leave at 5:30 every day, then this place is a good fit for you. However, if you have confidence in your abilities and your own ideas, and don’t know how to hide your talents, your supervisor will target you at every turn. The supervisors here are generally incompetent and lack professional knowledge. They want obedient servants who follow orders, not capable soldiers who know how to fight.
In particular, regarding the Business Planning and Marketing Department: if you’re a recent graduate, I can tell you that you will learn absolutely nothing here, because all the important projects are outsourced to external marketing companies. All you can do is miscellaneous grunt work, and you’ll also be subjected to workplace bullying and manipulation by your supervisors and team leaders from time to time. It’s not that I don’t want to respect the supervisors; it’s just that the burden of doing so is simply too heavy. When they insult people, even the flesh around their mouths trembles. The turnover rate among newcomers is the highest in the entire company. The team-leader sycophants are completely emboldened by their positions; if you don’t flatter them and act as part of their clique, they’ll find a way to get rid of you. There is no way to appeal to higher-ups here, because the top boss doesn’t manage anything. In the end, the only person who leaves will be you.
If you don’t want to be subjected to workplace bullying and manipulation, the best approach is to do only your own work and never express any opinions about your supervisors’ methods, because their fragile egos cannot tolerate being challenged. Their most common tactic is to start by loudly shouting vulgar nonsense, go around disparaging a particular employee’s abilities to other colleagues, and then, after rationalizing their own behavior, tell HR that this person is incompetent and cannot be retained. The company’s crab mentality is deeply ingrained. Excellent employees find it difficult to receive recognition here. The political maneuvering and vicious competition among internal supervisors, along with the blocking of information from the boss, makes the boss believe that everything is peaceful. It is an environment filled with internal friction. People often use the term “traditional industry” to summarize this kind of workplace culture, but the problems here are no longer merely stagnant thinking—they are corruption from top to bottom.
1. This is probably the most stress-free, retirement-like company I’ve worked for so far. Working hours are 8:30–17:30, so there’s still daylight after work. It’s suitable for parents who need to personally take their children to and from school, or for people who like a fixed daily routine.
2. Convenient transportation.
3. There are many female employees, so the company’s policies don’t include too many subtle forms of gender discrimination against women. (The fact that this is considered an advantage says a lot—come on, Taiwan.)
1. A standard Taiwanese company where interpersonal skills matter more than actually getting things done. I don’t recommend it for fresh graduates (especially in departments such as MKT that need to keep up with the times). If you lack experience, you will definitely learn the wrong things here.
2. Even if you do good work, other managers or colleagues can still recognize it. But pray that you don’t end up under a manager who praises you to your face and spreads rumors behind your back. Otherwise, your achievements become their achievements, and any trouble they tell you to cause becomes your fault (even if you repeatedly told them that it was a stupid idea). A vivid example is when another manager emailed to praise you and CC’d them, only for them to happily reply with a whole string of fantasies.
3. I hope this review can save at least one person. If you still want to apply, I suggest staying alert if you discover that the department has the highest turnover in the company and has been hiring for the same position forever. If, on your very first day, you find that your manager cares less about training than constantly criticizing their predecessors (even though they personally interviewed all of them), pay close attention and try to think about the reasons behind it.
1. The workload is not heavy, and overtime is uncommon. Two departments are more likely to require overtime, while in most other departments, employees clock out and leave as soon as their scheduled hours end.
2. If you work overtime, you receive compensatory leave (you can request payment only after exceeding a certain number of hours), and requests are generally not blocked.
3. The work pace and environment are fairly comfortable, but it still depends on the department and supervisor. In favored departments, group orders, playing video games, and watching videos during work hours are tolerated. In unfavored departments, even eating may be reported, and you may have your holiday bonuses cut and your raise blocked.
1. The salary agreed upon is reduced during the three-month probation period (by more than 2,000). Neither the deduction nor the existence of a probation period is disclosed proactively. Even with good performance, the probation period will not be ended early.
2. The company is managed like an elementary school. Departments have to take turns cleaning during their own work hours, and a hygiene patrol team has been organized to conduct inspections and regular meetings.
3. If you are in an unfavored department, you have to work hard to build good relationships with other departments to avoid being given a hard time. However, your supervisor may casually destroy the relationships you worked so hard to establish.
4. Because of the company’s outdated culture, mobile phones may not be used during work hours, even for business purposes. If the boss happens to be walking around the company and sees someone using one, they will criticize that department at the managers’ meeting. If you are unlucky, your supervisor will then reprimand you and say that even work-related phone use should be avoided when the boss is around, rather than explaining to the boss that the employee’s current duties require phone use.
5. Be extremely careful! Office politics and scheming do happen here. People may praise you to your face but spread rumors about you behind your back, and may even lie outright.
6. The company has the typical problems of a traditional family business. Handover procedures and training are not very complete or systematic, so you generally have to proactively ask questions while working. However, there is a 70% chance that you will be criticized or scolded when asking.
7. There is no flexible grace period for starting work. Even being one second late results in a deduction equivalent to half an hour’s pay or leave, and all leave is taken in half-hour increments.
8. Remote work depends on the department. Some departments require employees to report their work progress every hour.
9. Raises are small and occur only once a year, usually amounting to a few hundred dollars. Despite this, there are two performance reviews each year. Due to the pandemic and new business initiatives, there have been no raises for two years, and there probably will not be any opportunities for raises in the near future. If you want a stable, secure life, it is recommended that you negotiate upfront for the salary you would be willing to stay at until retirement.
Applied and was interviewed on the same day, then notified the next day.
Everything sounded very good during the interview.
I have a background in early childhood education.
1. At first, the director said (during the summer vacation) that I would only be a teaching assistant and would not teach classes. However, on the second day, at 12:00, they threw the teaching materials at me and told me to teach at 1:00.
2. It is a family-run business, and there are also teachers who are unfit for the job. In another class, there was a child with an obvious intellectual disability, and they simply said that the child was beyond help and did not need to be taught.
3. When the semester officially began, the director asked me to independently lead a class, but offered a salary of only NT$25,000 while requiring me to do everything. They required me to arrive at 11:20. Although it had originally been agreed that I could arrive later on Tuesdays (because I had to attend classes in Taipei in the morning, and I was only five minutes late each time), they had also agreed that I could leave early once all the students had left. However, when it came time to pay my September salary, they went back on their word and deducted pay for various reasons. I could not take it anymore and switched to hourly pay (still at the minimum rate). When I asked how the ten minutes from 11:20 to 11:30 would be paid, they replied that I was originally supposed to start work at 11:30 and that they had only hoped I would arrive early. They even criticized me, saying that I should not be calculating my pay for working there and that I should mainly be there to gain experience.
4. The director deliberately did not add me to a work group chat. (I often needed to prepare things for class, and another teacher told me that everything was announced in the group, which was how I found out that I had never been added.) Instead, they created a smaller group for me, but I often still did not receive messages. They kicked me out immediately after I resigned.
5. Even though I was clearly the lead teacher, another English teacher’s name was written in the sign-in book.
6. The shuttle bus was overloaded, and teachers were even required to sit in an added seat in the rear compartment.
7. They directly threatened me, saying that if I looked for a job elsewhere and my new workplace contacted them for information, they would not say anything positive about me.
8. Three teachers left in three consecutive months, and I was the third. I heard there were more afterward.
1. I heard you don't have to go to schools to recruit.
(Beitun branch)
1. The interviewer did not seem to be a supervisor.
2. The résumé information form was double-sided A4.
3. They ignored my desired salary and immediately offered the industry's starting salary, which was only slightly higher than the minimum wage, then asked whether I thought it was too low.
4. The interviewer said that they do not pay if you work fewer than four days. Isn't that a violation of the Labor Standards Act?
5. The interviewer did not understand the Labor Standards Act's regulations on working hours. When asked about scheduling, they could only reply, “We all work regular shifts here,” which seemed to mean that everything is according to company policy.
6. The scheduling sounded very chaotic. Although days off are supposedly based on the days marked in red, there is no day off when the school has classes. National holidays (flexible holidays) are also sometimes given as days off and sometimes not, and no overtime pay is provided.
7. No rejection notice, followed by another interview invitation.
The two supervisors at the Guling Street branch are both very gentle, and they speak very gracefully.
The workday starts and ends on time every day, and overtime is not required.
The first-floor environment feels very comfortable.
There is an elevator, so you don’t have to climb the stairs.
There are many classrooms.
The HR colleague at headquarters is very kind, gentle, and courteous.
Lunch boxes can be ordered.
Convenient transportation.
The atmosphere among colleagues is not very friendly.
There is not much to do at work, so it is very boring.
The supervisor asked everyone to proactively divide work among themselves and assign it to new employees, rather than having the supervisor distribute the work. However, everyone seemed afraid that they would be replaced by the new employee, so they all said there was no extra work to assign. As a result, the new employee spent every day staring into space. Staring into space all day is actually very exhausting.
As a result, a colleague next to me seemed to deliberately set me up. Basically, she told me to watch a child doing homework, and then, only a few minutes later, suddenly came in and harshly scolded the poor little boy. The child had clearly been behaving well, but she acted as if she were putting on a show, repeatedly berating him and even throwing his homework onto the floor. I was frightened standing beside them. Only later did I realize that she probably just wanted the supervisor to misunderstand my ability to supervise children... No wonder she scolded him so loudly—she wanted the whole world to misunderstand.
Day after day, I went to work without knowing what I was doing; I was still just waiting to see whether someone would dump some miscellaneous task they did not want to do on me. Later, when a veteran employee who seemed to have been ostracized went with me to pick up lunch boxes, she said tearfully that new employees might replace her in the future or something like that. In any case, I felt sorry for her.
Then, the colleague next to me said that she had previously done manual labor in a factory and did not like children at all. I felt that this environment was very different from what I had imagined a child-loving workplace would be like.
Dinner was also often inconsistent, sometimes provided and sometimes not. Toilet paper was not provided in the restroom either. The seats were arranged facing one another, which was very stressful; getting water or going to the restroom was very conspicuous.
PT English teacher interview
There was a demonstration teaching session, and the atmosphere was friendly.
Friendlier than other places
Everything was good
1. A company suitable for retirement (if you’re not short of money and can tolerate certain people doing things in an absurd way)
2. The boss’s wife values the R&D and training departments most, so salaries in these two departments are a little higher than in other departments (but still the lowest in the industry)
3. The maximum employee travel subsidy is NT$13,000; it won’t be any higher
4. Colleagues and supervisors in some departments are fairly easy to get along with. Taking leave is relatively convenient in every department except Sales and Administration
1. The company is run by relatives and close associates of the owners, so its pace is slow and it cannot keep up with the times.
2. The starting salary and salary adjustment system are bizarre. The adjustment amounts are based on rates from ten years ago, and in a department of more than a dozen people, only one person will receive the maximum adjustment. Adjustments range from 300 to 1,000, which is very humiliating.
3. There are no clear criteria for promotion. Even if you are capable, you will be held back by the owners’ relatives and close associates. They always wait until talented employees are about to leave before trying to retain them, while still telling you that the company has a system and therefore cannot offer much. I really don’t know whether they genuinely want to retain people or simply think disposable employees are plentiful and there is nothing to worry about.
4. Basically, there is no opportunity to rise rapidly and become a supervisor here. Every department supervisor position has been firmly occupied for the past ten years and will not open up. Even when a vacancy appears, you still cannot get promoted (because someone from above will be parachuted in~).
5. Low pay—really, extremely low pay. A first-level specialist starts at only NT$24,000 (I’ve heard specialists in other departments start at NT$20,000). Given the salary adjustment system described above, I recommend coming here to coast toward retirement only if you are not short of money. Also, overtime here is compensated with time off in lieu, not overtime pay.
6. When joining, you are forced to sign an unreasonable contract; if you do not complete one year, money will be deducted.
7. There is a monthly meeting that constantly brainwashes you into believing this is an amazing education company, with amazing salaries, amazing colleagues, and an amazing work environment—as if the wind itself blows when you walk down the street. It really feels like a direct-selling business. Some supervisors and senior colleagues love this company as if they had been injected with morphine, but to employees who are underpaid and do not identify with the company, it simply feels disgusting. Two particular departments often take advantage of the boss’s wife favoring them and delay the work of other departments, or tell the designers to “use their psychic powers” first and then keep making changes until the end of time. They have no design sense yet insist on criticizing and directing the design work, claiming to respect professional expertise while trampling on it at the same time. However, the Design Department has no say in this company, so it can only swallow its tears and endure it.
8. To summarize the above, the Design Department is constantly bullied by other departments. If you want to improve or gain a sense of achievement, do not come here—you will only become increasingly insecure and feel that you are worth only this much.