Workplace: Taipei Main Station branch
Supervisor:
Store manager: Makes plans for the next steps and future development for every employee, and handles and analyzes matters very thoroughly.
Supervisors in each department take great care of employees. If you are genuinely feeling unwell or facing any difficulties, you can take leave. Even when employees are working their regular shifts, they will pay special attention to their physical condition.
Employee meals: Super delicious
From Monday to Friday, there is a place to rest and sleep during the midday break.
Coworkers: 80% of them help and encourage one another.
After all, it is in the food and beverage industry, and business runs until 3 a.m.
The pay is quite generous, but the working hours are also long: an average of at least 9 hours per shift (not including the split shift break of 1–3 hours). *Overtime is always paid.
Every month, each person is assigned an area to clean (it must be cleaned during your own time).
During special holidays (e.g., Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Christmas), employees need to be divided into groups to decorate the venue.
(The decorating must be done during your own off-hours.)
Coworkers: 20% will stab you in the back and kick you when you are down.
The pay is a little generous.
Basically, it is a Communist Party united-front enterprise, forcing you to download third-party software not approved by the App Store to communicate about various matters. Internally, everyone receives major external propaganda messages every day. No wonder that even though it is already 2023, they are still using management methods from the Great Leap Forward era, such as collective punishment. I sincerely recommend that the government thoroughly investigate this company’s various bizarre practices and shameful behavior involving exploiting loopholes in the Labor Standards Act.
Interviewed position: Plumber/electrician
Interviewer: Everyone asked everything and explained the job duties in a way that might sound easy or might not; the interviewee has to judge for themselves
Hiring status: Hired
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Actually, the salary for this job is genuinely attractive. During the probationary period, it is 45,000 to 50,000, and then after the probationary period
there is a chance it may be adjusted to 60,000 or even 70,000.
The managers are all pretty NICE. They will ask you anytime and anywhere whether you need any help.
The position corresponds to your professional expertise, so you really can apply what you learned. Everything you can think of—and even what you cannot think of—is included.
Because the six days of leave are arranged by yourself, you can schedule four days in advance and keep the other two flexible. If you want to take a day off, just report it to your supervisor.
The employee meals are really delicious. I gained five kilograms.
1. As a plumber/electrician, the working hours are not long—nine hours a day. However, if an unexpected situation occurs, you must stay and work overtime to handle it, without exception. The seriousness of the situation is not for you to decide; it is decided by the supervisor.
If they do not trust the judgment of specialized personnel, why hire them in the first place? They might as well hire anyone and have them resolve things according to their wishes.
2. Regarding salary, it is not stable after the probationary period. Instead, there is a work-performance evaluation every month, divided into three levels with three different salaries. If you do not get along well with your supervisor, there is a high probability that you may receive the lowest salary every month. You might earn 65,000 this month and then drop to 50,000 next month.
3. The electrician role is not purely plumbing and electrical work. You also have to serve as a workplace-safety and fire-safety-control administrator (fire drills, team organization, and execution), and there is a large amount of paperwork waiting for you. You must accompany on-site inspections and audits, which means you will not be able to do anything else that day. If there are tasks scheduled for that day that remain unfinished, you still have to continue working after the inspectors leave, even if your shift has ended.
4. Personally, I feel that the company does not place much importance on plumbers/electricians. When designing the stores, they did not even plan basic material-storage rooms or maintenance rooms. As a result, plumbers/electricians can only carry out repairs in areas outside the store itself. (Most locations are together with shopping centers or department stores, so repairs are usually done in stairwells. Some particularly unlucky employees are even told by the department store or building that they cannot carry out repairs in the stairwell and must go to an open area.)
P.S. If you did not design maintenance or material-storage rooms, why not just outsource the work?
5. The maintenance system is completely without structure. There is no repair-request SOP; everything is decided verbally. There are no repair request forms or request numbers. How are you supposed to record how many times this type of repair has occurred, whether over a short or long period, and review and improve the process?
Although the internal communications system is used to say which areas are broken and need repairs, who is going to take out their phone and check it while working? Even after finishing a repair, when you finally have a moment to rest, it is impossible to keep that messaging app open and watch it continuously.
6. Plumbers/electricians are always busy when there is work, but whenever there is a chance to take a break, someone will resent you for doing so and send you to help serve dishes...
P.S. You expect a plumber/electrician who is filthy after work to serve food that customers will eat...???
(This is something I probably should not have written, but if anyone applies for the job, consider it a warning. This position is different from ordinary maintenance, engineering, or facilities jobs elsewhere.)
7. Extremely strict food-safety controls... This is something you really need to pay attention to yourself, because ordinary plumbers/electricians outside usually focus on keeping their work running smoothly. For example, some people like to wear gloves while working, while others do not. In the face of food-safety controls, all of that is irrelevant. Whether you like wearing them or not, if you do not wear them? Fine—points will be deducted, and your salary for the month is ruined.
P.S. Food safety is ridiculously and excessively strict (but isn't that what gives customers peace of mind when they eat?)
1. The salary for 104 is very attractive.
2. The employee meals are said to be provided five times a day.
3. The colleagues seem very easy to get along with.
4. You work at almost the same position every day, with little variation.
5. It is claimed that the working hours are eight hours every day.
1. The employee meals are said to be provided five times a day, but you basically have to be able to get them in the first place. In my experience, when working the morning shift, I could only get two meals; breakfast was usually very perfunctory (frozen packages, white rice with stir-fried meat, or frozen meatballs, the same every day). You have to finish eating within the 30-minute break. (During my first six months after joining, there was so much work that I could not finish it, so I almost never got to eat.) Someone will tell you to eat during mealtimes, but then you will not be able to finish your own work.
2. Customers come first, but employees are not included. The workstation training requires you to memorize and learn everything within three working days (do they treat everyone like a superhuman?). If you cannot finish within eight hours, you have to work overtime on your own (and it will not be paid), even if you are a new employee.
3. After joining, you are forced to use the Chinese software DingTalk and receive Communist Party propaganda every day.
4. Every corner, customer seating area, and work area is filled with surveillance cameras. Quality-control inspectors may watch your every move through the cameras at any time, and you will then see messages after work (because employees are required to store their phones together during working hours). (I do not know whether the footage is uploaded to China.)
5. You do not clock in at work; working hours are calculated using a handwritten logbook. You must also upload photos of yourself wearing your uniform, working-hour calculations, and other messages to DingTalk every day. If you are late, HR will announce it in the large group chat, telling everyone that you were late (a pop-up appears saying: “Whole-store public criticism!! XXX was N minutes late, the Nth time late this month...” ).
6. Managers and other supervisors smile when they see you at work, but afterward your negative work evaluations will be posted in the work group for everyone to see. (If tableware has stains or table-side service was not provided promptly, a warning will be posted: “Person responsible: ○○○.”)
7. Every day, every hour, quality-control inspectors and different managers inspect your environment, products, and so on. Every week and every month, there are countless unannounced inspections (including inspections by managers from other branches, headquarters, and under other names), and you may receive a warning each time (there are different systems involving yellow, green, red, and blue cards, but you will not know the rules in advance—you only find out after violating them). If you receive three warnings in a month, you can only receive the minimum wage.
8. There are many rules for monetary penalties (not returning employees’ seats to their proper places, accidentally dropping tableware and making a noise, placing food in the beverage cabinet, or failing to close the door behind you). Even if a supervisor does not see it, there are cameras everywhere.
9. There is a mentor-apprentice system, and who your mentor is matters a lot. If your mentor is never promoted or is ostracized, you can forget about having an easy time; conversely, even if your abilities are mediocre, you can still advance smoothly. In short, personal relationships matter more than the rules.
10. The schedule only tells you which days you are off. You will not know which shift you are working tomorrow until the afternoon of the previous day.
11. The food-safety requirements are beyond common sense. You even have to scrub the underside and back of the worktable, and clean the backs of the dining-table legs. There are unannounced spot checks, and if you fail one, they will take photos and upload them to the group chat to tell everyone what you did wrong.
Employee meals
Excellent employee rewards
Opportunities to transfer between front- and back-of-house positions
Overtime pay is provided
Workdays start at 9 hours (including one hour of overtime), so the total time spent at the company starts at 10 hours.
Because food safety is taken very seriously, there are many strict rules—even seemingly minor ones. Failing to follow them or accidentally violating them could result in immediate dismissal.
Your position may not always be fixed, so your working hours will not necessarily be fixed either. If you have other plans or social activities, scheduling may be difficult. Monthly days off are not necessarily eight days. The company says it will provide additional compensatory leave, but after overhearing current employees’ complaints, it may be best to treat that promise as something to be taken with a grain of salt.
WeChat is the company’s required communication app (if you do not have an account, they will ask you to create one). With more than a hundred employees, the company uses it for communication and day-to-day operations, so leaving vibration notifications on before bed may affect your sleep.
The company uses various motivational methods to encourage employees to get through difficult times together (in other words, you may be expected to work overtime). At first, I thought I had joined some kind of direct-selling company. The employees’ enthusiasm did not feel entirely comfortable or sincere.
Although the salary is high, you earn it by sacrificing your health and life. As long as you are willing to work overtime, are willing to take on the work, and follow their rules, you can indeed make a substantial amount of money. I recommend this job only to people who are willing to devote their body, mind, and spirit to the company.
These are only my personal opinions. Experiences may differ between branches, so please take this as reference only.
None
This company takes very good care of its customers, but not its employees. Even when you are sick, it still counts as being late. The training is also nowhere near as appealing or as good as it was made to sound during the initial interview. The interview and the actual experience are completely different. I hope that anyone looking for a job will not consider this company. If you really do decide to go, I hope you have a strong heart.