None
The interviewing manager clearly hadn’t even looked at my résumé. The salary posted on 104 looked decent, but when I arrived for the interview, they acted all high and mighty and criticized me for not having enough experience, saying I wasn’t a good fit. Weren’t you the ones who invited me to interview? Hello?
If you want to pay peanuts, just say so. What a waste of time!
The hourly wage for temporary workers is okay.
A very strange Taiwanese family-run company. They expect newcomers to be psychic. Important and complicated things like the serving order, changing plates, and when to clear plates are not taught at all—you’re just expected to figure them out yourself. Then they make you wear a headset, but you can’t clearly hear or understand a whole bunch of banquet terminology. What is the point of making temporary workers wear headsets anyway?
When the veterans see that a temporary part-timer doesn’t know what to do, they don’t take the initiative to guide you. They just quietly do their own work. You can only stand there blankly watching them stay busy, walk over and pretend to be proactive, or keep asking what you’re supposed to do now and annoy them.
Some people with poor emotional control will randomly lose their temper at you. Most people just leave you to fend for yourself. It feels a bit like being bullied—you should come experience it sometime.
Over the entire five hours, nobody asked me whether I wanted any water, and nobody told me where the staff restroom was.
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The Tien Cheng Hotel I worked at before was much better. I was also a temporary part-timer there. Although the pay was lower and the work was exhausting, I was very happy. Everyone was very nice and didn’t abandon you just because you were a temporary part-timer. On your first day, they would give you very attentive and thorough training, with clear steps for what to do and when. The veteran temporary workers who came regularly would also cover for one another.
The guy in charge of the dish-collection area was also super nice. He would keep coming over to help you, and someone even wanted to apply for a full-time position after just their second day of work XD
The cafeteria lady is very kind.
First, I should mention that I have worked in the food and beverage industry for seven years. Restaurants in Japan all have comprehensive SOPs, place very high demands on employee training and basic etiquette, and pay close attention to food quality.
This time, I applied for a temporary part-time position in the banquet hall at Mayfull Hotel.
A lot happened on the very first day—it was absolutely shocking.
1. You never hear “please,” “thank you,” or “sorry” here.
There is no division of labor or cooperation, and no team spirit. Everyone snatches things and cuts in line when doing their work!
Taking red wine = cutting in line; getting ice = cutting in line.
I was already standing in front of the ice machine with the ice scoop in my hand, ready to start digging, when a girl suddenly appeared behind me and said, “Excuse me,” then snatched the scoop from me. After digging out the ice, she walked away without even looking back, without saying sorry or thank you.
2. The girl who trained me—I’ll call her A.
A banquet-hall guest’s braised pork was missing one piece of broccoli.
I noticed it right away and took it back to A, asking her to handle it.
She looked at me with an amused expression and said:
“So what? What’s wrong with there being no broccoli?”
I asked, “Can we serve this to the guest like this?”
A replied, “Of course!”
So the braised pork without broccoli was served to the guest just like that.
Before long, I saw the guest take her aside and ask why there was no broccoli in his bowl of braised pork.
3. There were two bottles of red wine on a guest’s table, and one of them was empty, so I picked up the empty bottle and asked A, “Where should I put the empty bottle?”
A took the empty bottle, then went to open a new bottle of wine herself.
She then noticed that there was already wine on the guest’s table and angrily came over to blame me, saying, “There was already wine on the guest’s table. Next time, you need to explain yourself clearly!”
??? I never told A to open a new bottle of wine. 🙄
4. When employees were handing over information and describing a guest’s features, one of them actually said, “The short-haired auntie—the ugly one.”
If you like arguing, you can come here :)
A hotel that claims to be five-star is nothing special after all.
The employee restroom is shared by men and women.
The employee meal consisted of very dark fried chicken legs, fried fish so dry it was like a mummy, bok choy, scrambled eggs with radish, and cucumber—basically a school cafeteria lunch.
All I can say is that this environment is toxic.
Every intern’s eyes looked dull and lifeless.
Can you imagine it? College students in the prime of their youth had eyes that looked as if they had no soul.
And it wasn’t just one person—it was every single one.
For a hotel of this star rating, the environment is extremely poor. The employee meals were the worst I have ever seen, the employee elevator was extremely slow—at least ten minutes each time—and the internal routes and stairwell emergency exits were more like a maze, even harder to navigate than Taipei Main Station.
Mayfull Hotel belongs to the Mayfull Group.
Its businesses include Miramar Department Store, Miramar Cinemas, and Mayfull Meat Products.
You can search the keywords “Miramar closure” and “Mayfull family” to learn more; quite a few incidents have occurred recently.
If you're lucky enough to work with friendly full-time employees, they will take the time to patiently teach you the work procedures and things to pay attention to.
- Perhaps because this is part-time work, full-time employees may encounter new hires every day. Having to reteach different newcomers each day can cause them to lose patience, so newcomers may not always receive answers when they ask questions. However, everything in the food and beverage industry is rushed, which may in turn lead to customers complaining about your service because they are unwilling to wait.
- I heard that one coworker who was working the same shift arrived five minutes late because of a traffic jam, yet was required to work an additional thirty minutes.
- Employee training needs improvement, because each full-time employee teaches you different work procedures, which can lead to your work ability being questioned by supervisors.
- Everything in the food and beverage industry is rushed, and there are constantly different demands, perhaps from customers or supervisors. Sometimes they are reasonable and sometimes they are not, which can consequently cause employees to be more irritable.
It is a high-end hotel, and all the guests are very wealthy.
A part-time job found through Chicken Working.
The PT working with me arrived 5 minutes late and was required by the supervisor to make up 30 minutes of work. Also, the lunch break was only half an hour, including the time spent taking the elevator and using the restroom. If it exceeded what they considered half an hour (this half hour was determined at their discretion, not based on clock-in records), we would likewise be required to make up 30 minutes of work.
Moreover, there was no training whatsoever, yet the part-time workers were sent to serve guests.
Each full-time employee taught different things.
At the tables in the Caihui buffet, we were told to place napkins. One supervisor said to put them on the east side; after we did so, another person said to put them on the west side; finally, a third person said to put them on the north side (of course, each of them yelled at us 🙃).
When we finally asked them how the napkins should actually be placed to comply with the rules, they started discussing it among themselves.
So, all the guests who spend money at a five-star hotel may actually encounter part-time workers who came through Chicken Working and received no training whatsoever.
Finally, I felt that the hygiene standards in the buffet, café, and banquet hall were all ordinary. For everyone’s reference.
This time I worked as a temporary dispatched part-time worker at Mi Xiang Chinese Restaurant. Since it was my first time there, I had to arrive at the restaurant half an hour early to complete the check-in procedures, change into a uniform, and familiarize myself with the environment (this time was unpaid).
Everyone there was very kind. They taught me very carefully and patiently, guiding me step by step and occasionally asking, “Are you thirsty?” or “Would you like to use the restroom?” They were very attentive to newcomers. If there was anything I didn’t understand, I could ask anyone at any time, and everyone was kind and helpful.
The workflow was also very smooth. The supervisor clearly explained what needed to be done at each stage. We communicated via walkie-talkies and worked together seamlessly, so newcomers weren’t left confused about what to do.
Everything described above probably only exists in dreams. If you still harbor fantasies about a six-star hotel, feel free to experience it for yourself. Thanks for reading.
Oh, right—when the guests were taking a group photo, all of my coworkers and the supervisors suddenly scattered. No one reminded me to hurry outside, so I awkwardly stood inside alone while being hit by the camera flashes several times, then quietly walked out. Only then did I realize that everyone had already gone outside and had deliberately left me alone inside :)
I hope these descriptions haven’t disgusted everyone.
No meals provided
Other than supervisors, everyone is either an intern or a dispatched worker
Family-owned business
Colleagues generally get along well (excluding certain individuals
Working hours are extremely irregular. We often work overtime, and sometimes are even expected to arrive early (without pay).
Each department has a foreigner, and it is hard to say whether they are easy to get along with!
The managers do not manage anything and spend all day fighting among themselves.
They even falsely report overtime to cheat the system and claim overtime pay.
What is even more ridiculous is that people in managerial positions favor the subordinates they personally like.
The overall atmosphere is very tense.