Learned a lot about display merchandising.
1. The boss is forgetful and frequently changes decisions from one moment to the next, forgetting promises he made.
2. The boss’s wife judges people rather than the issues at hand, is extremely petty and stingy about everything, and speaks harshly and sarcastically.
3. When problems arise at work, the boss often blames employees before understanding the situation and takes outsiders’ side.
4. The workload is extremely heavy, causing capable employees to overwork and work excessive overtime. Overtime is also often assigned at very short notice. (There are multiple records of complaints being filed.)
5. There is a record of repeatedly owing employees back wages. (There are records of complaints being filed.)
6. Some people receive year-end bonuses while others do not, and they are not paid until April or May. (An eye-opening experience.)
7. The company has absolutely no systems in place and frequently makes grand promises to employees.
8. The owner and his wife are extremely gossipy and have loose lips, often sharing employees’ personal matters and speaking negatively about them with vendors and clients. (This is truly outrageous.)
9. The company is not competitive and always engages in price-cutting competition, leaving little profit. At one point, it was unable to pay employees’ salaries and vendors’ invoices.
Easy to get hired.
The interview was effortless. Basically, I was hired immediately after showing up. They simply asked when I could start, and they always seemed to be extremely short-staffed. The salary was average. Although overtime pay was provided, the amount of overtime was completely beyond what anyone could imagine—it was an overtime nightmare. During busy months, they would have you work overnight, and if you slept past noon the next day, they would ask a colleague to call and wake you up. You could even be criticized for sleeping too long. Overtime was also announced at the last minute; sometimes they would not say anything until before clocking out on Friday, when they would tell you that you had to work over the weekend. If you had something else to do and could not comply, you would be criticized, as if their attitude were: “I pay you overtime, so how dare you say you can’t work overtime?”
The work was varied and miscellaneous. It was nothing like the cross-departmental collaboration at a typical company; it was more like using one person as ten. Even if you were hired for job A, they would constantly say the company was busy and needed help, then ask you to do jobs B and C as well.
The company’s business was extensive and disorganized. To be honest, I did not know what the company’s core business was. It seemed to do whatever work came along. If you want to develop professional expertise, this place does not seem suitable, but it can help you develop excellent crisis-management skills. Clients often sent urgent requests, and the boss frequently pressured employees to stay and clean up afterward. Many projects came in at very short notice, leaving everyone scrambling. The boss’s working style was to act on whatever idea came to mind; their ideas would be different from one day to the next, and they often forgot what they had said. The customer always came first, and whenever something went wrong, they blamed their own people first. The company had no well-established procedures, so the work was often chaotic.
Although I was not there for very long, the company’s professionalism is questionable. After joining, I was frequently required to travel off-site to clean up unexpected situations. Even projects that had supposedly been completed continued to have problems requiring fixes and follow-up work.
During the company’s busy months, monthly overtime frequently exceeded 100 hours. They also said that labor insurance was kept at the minimum level to save everyone money. The year-end bonus was not paid until April and was only one month’s salary. There was no well-established promotion system, and the boundaries between departments were unclear. If you want to accomplish work that gives you a sense of achievement, this place is not suitable. However, it is quite suitable for being toughened up and developing perseverance.
Crazy overtime every day until midnight. Whether employees can even eat dinner depends on the higher-ups’ mood.
They fire wildly at the sight of a shadow.