凱士士企業股份有限公司

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Adding some things I dreamed about:

1. Job postings require applicants to be “fluent in English,” but in reality, the managers’ own English is terrible. They often write a kind of Taiwan-style English that is completely grammatically incorrect—worse than Google Translate—and still have the nerve to criticize assistants for not translating emails into English word-for-word according to their Chinese meaning. The formal announcements the company sends to clients are also written by those managers. Reading them makes you wonder whether the company has no talent, or whether it cannot even afford to hire a translator.

2. Similar to the first point, because the company refuses to hire professional translators, employees who know a second foreign language are required to help translate the company website. They have to spend their own extra time doing the translations and are not paid extra. The boss even wanted to ask overseas clients to help with the translations, treating foreigners as free translators.

3. The Christmas raffle prizes are things the boss’s family no longer wants, such as facial cleanser, no-name suitcases, and luggage bags given out by courier companies. Some long-time employees still cheer obsequiously, but winning this kind of thing is just helping the boss recycle their trash. It is not enjoyable at all.

4. The company turns on the air conditioning every day. Some people come in from outside, immediately say it is hot, and keep lowering the temperature without considering whether anyone else might be cold. Even when a cold wave hits, they still turn on the air conditioning. They would rather wear beanies and down jackets indoors while freezing than open the doors or windows or simply buy fans for ventilation.

There are also people who think that if the air conditioner is set to a higher temperature, the machine will sense that the room temperature has risen and keep blowing cold air, so the temperature must be set lower to prevent it from getting too cold. That kind of logic is truly genius.

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The following is something I dreamed about; it is absolutely not real.

The overseas sales assistant position is definitely the best of the best, because you simultaneously have to learn to be an assistant, a purchaser, a secretary, a switchboard operator, a cleaning staff member, and a shipping handler. The salespeople take all the money, while the assistants get all the scolding. Where could you find such a great position?

1. Hire two new people at the same time, then find a reason to ask one of them to leave during the probationary period. After the probationary period, if they dislike you, they will try to make you resign voluntarily, because this company is famously generous and naturally does not want to pay severance. By the way, it is only two months into 2021, and five assistants have already left (there were only seven in total).

2. There is “no” HR department here, so the person who interviews you will be your future supervisor. Every time they receive a call from an interviewee asking for HR, they roll their eyes internally. Also, the overseas department does not hire men, so men, please do not waste your time submitting résumés or calling to ask.

3. Following from point 2, it is easy to imagine that this company expects each person to do multiple jobs. The work done by assistants and salespeople is not very different, but assistants also have to answer a pile of calls, print and process all the company’s mail, send packages for the boss to their children overseas, and handle all kinds of miscellaneous tasks.

4. In addition, everyone has to take turns serving as the duty person, taking out the trash (including the bathroom trash), carrying A4 paper and printer paper, turning lights on and off, and so on.

5. The company environment is terrible. When you first walk into the office, you will be stunned: documents are piled everywhere, and cockroaches and ants appearing in the office is already normal. There have even been mice. There is no break room; the water dispenser is on the balcony, sharing a space with the trash cans and the air-conditioner compressors.

6. There are no bonuses for the three traditional festivals, no company trips, no travel expenses, and no overtime pay—none of these. Oh right, there was a period when the labor authorities were conducting strict inspections, so they would “clock out first” for people who had to work overtime. The perfect-attendance bonus is NT$450. Once, a salesperson said their year-end bonus was exactly NT$9,000. Typhoon days off are deducted from annual leave; if you have no annual leave, personal leave is deducted instead (which means your pay is docked).

7. The extremely generous boss often bestows on us snacks and health supplements that are about to expire or have already expired.

8. Although this is an overseas sales/assistant position and the main way of communicating with customers is by email, “two or three people share one laptop” to write messages, so they have to wait for one another, which is extremely time-consuming. Moreover, there are separate internal and external computers. In other words, if you need to send an internal document to a customer using the external computer, you first have to go to a shared computer and transfer the document via USB, then plug the USB into your external computer. Come on, it is not as though this were some high-tech company where everyone is trying to steal company data.

9. Despite the extremely high turnover rate, they love looking for people with good educational backgrounds who are also attractive (which is why résumés on 104 require a photo). However, many people are tricked into joining and resign after working only briefly. I once saw an assistant arrive at work in the morning and submit their resignation by noon. Some worked for only one week; the number of people who lasted less than a month is impossible to count.

10. The people who stay there for a long time all live in an echo chamber. Every one of them has a bad temper and loves shouting. Every day, I hear them yelling that someone made the bathroom dirty. I am almost embarrassed to say this, but you all are suspects too, okay? Once, I went into the bathroom right after the loudest one, and there was a puddle of urine on the floor. If it was not you, then who was it? And you still have the nerve to accuse everyone else, haha.

I have poured out my heart and told you all about the dream I had. Please, young, attractive women with good educational backgrounds, listen to the advice of someone who has been there. By the way, the reason I am only addressing the women is

Occasionally, the boss gives out small snacks. Everyone scrambles for them, and there isn't much, so each person can get a few bites. Once the work is finished, you can leave on time. You can be late and take leave as you please; at most, your pay will be docked. The company may not want to pay severance, so it won't proactively fire people. You can slack off however you like. After joining, you'll see someone demonstrating every day how to shamelessly be a good-for-nothing.

The employees are mostly older, especially those currently in upper management, who are close to retirement age. Their methods are traditional and inflexible. They love creating piles of paperwork and seem almost paranoid, worrying that outsiders will rummage through the trash to steal information, so they are often shredding and burning paper, wasting time.

The workload is distributed unevenly. People with the same position have very different experiences: some happily arrive 1–3 hours late every day and still leave on time, often chatting and scrolling through their phones at work; others work overtime every day. However, doing more work and having a serious attitude does not result in bonuses or a larger year-end bonus. The 2021 year-end bonus was less than one month’s salary. Even though the company had so many orders that the schedule was completely full, it did not share the benefits with its employees.

Every so often, a young person resigns, but the company still likes hiring young people—and even judges their appearance and educational background. It isn't even that good of a company, so why are its standards for selecting employees still so high? People who had attended top national universities or studied abroad have joined before, only to resign after a little over a week. Young people quit because they can't stand this old-fashioned company, while the veteran employees criticize them behind their backs for lacking resilience and never examine their own problems.

There are no bonuses for the three major traditional holidays. Being late results in a pay deduction, and the perfect-attendance bonus is NT$400.