Hongyi Hongyi Engineering Consultants Co., Ltd. is a company jointly founded by Teacher Shi, a famous cram-school instructor, and Boss Su.
Salary: Master’s degree: NT$35K; bachelor’s degree: starting at NT$26K (please deduct labor and health insurance contributions yourself)
Working hours: 08:30 until the work is finished (there is no overtime pay; the air conditioning is turned off at 17:30)
Days off: Two-day weekends (if you cannot finish the work, report to the company on your own)
Bonuses: Three months’ worth (at the end of the year, you discover that this is merely compensation for your overtime hours)
Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival: starting at NT$1,000 (NT$0 if employed for less than three months)
Learning: Google it yourself, exercise your creativity, or read old reports.
Work atmosphere: Better when the boss is away.
Turnover: Every month there is a farewell dinner for departing employees. Lasting six months is enough for you to be sarcastically considered a senior employee.
P.S. The teacher and the boss are different roles.
(To all senior members of the civil engineering field: This article is not intended to diminish Teacher Shi’s standing in your minds. I only want to provide you with some information when making employment choices.)
1. I am not particularly sure how demanding Teacher Shi is of himself, but he has very high demands regarding profits.
2. The company has the advantages of never delaying salaries or reimbursement claims. (I don’t know when these became advantages, either.)
3. In my understanding, civil engineering is an industry that requires a great deal of knowledge and experience to be passed down. If the salary is low (as an apprentice) but you can gain a great deal of experience, at least you will level up. But if you cannot learn anything and the pay is low, do not waste your life.
4. Are the company’s benefits good? In fact, it depends on how employees feel. There was no year-end banquet last year, no New Year banquet at the beginning of this year, and the employee trip was merely talk. However, because the company does not delay salaries and provides bonuses for the three major festivals, some people may still feel that the benefits are good. It depends on the individual.
5. Does the company not require overtime? The company’s intention in turning off the air conditioning promptly at 17:30 in summer (and opening the windows during the other seasons), I suspect, is that closing time has arrived. Naturally, no one wants to work overtime in a stuffy, hot environment, so everyone leaves work on time (and takes the work home).
6. The company subsidizes transportation expenses for site personnel. The so-called transportation subsidy is absolutely different from what you and I would normally think. Their transportation subsidy only covers travel from the company to the construction site, not from your home......
7. There is no such thing as an office at the construction sites. They all borrow storage rooms from the clients free of charge. Of course, you have to bring your own electric fan. As for air conditioning, see whether you happen to dream about it.
8. One person is simultaneously responsible for eight construction sites. You read that correctly......and there are no colleagues who can share your duties.
9. There is only one photocopier. For an engineering consulting company.....a whole bunch of people have to queue up to make copies all day.
10. Almost every departing employee ends up on bad terms with the company and cannot complete a proper handover. The company knows this as well. Downstream contractors working with the company are very troubled by it.
This may be just one individual case; there are also stranger or better companies. Good birds choose good trees to nest in, and I hope all the good birds in the civil engineering field can find a good job of their own. This industry has already been cost-cut to an outrageously extreme degree by business owners. If you only offer bananas, do not expect to hire anyone more capable than a monkey, and do not trample on the passion of young people who want to contribute to this industry.