Working at headquarters offers flexible hours: you can choose 08:00–17:00 or 09:00–18:00 (but if you clock in at 08:01, you still have to clock out at 18:00; it is not calculated as nine hours by the minute). After working for a period of time, you can work from home on Thursdays and Fridays (if your job can be done remotely), so it is fairly flexible!
At the company, you can schedule the weekly calendar you want to follow in advance and work according to it; the work is fairly routine.
The company environment is clean and minimalist (everyone’s desks are extremely uncluttered), but there are no cleaners, so employees have to clean the common areas themselves.
Here comes the scary part!
1. HR gives off a strong and intimidating sense of authority. They make you feel as though they are pretending to ask questions while actually probing for information, which is not very comfortable!
2. The lights are forcibly turned off at 7 p.m., so take your laptop home and continue working remotely! If you clock in late and do not report overtime, you have to select “handling personal matters”; there is no other flexibility whatsoever.
3. I was the only person responsible for the business. All I can say is that everything depended on me working hard by myself (because my temporary replacement did not know how to help and knew nothing about it). During that period, I had to draw elevation plans, design, communicate, coordinate with vendors, and place orders for incoming goods myself. This part was quite terrifying! It made you a jack of all trades and master of none!
4. The stores have a great deal of power and can independently confirm which discounts to offer without informing you, resulting in the category manager only finding out about the promotion at the very end!
5. Because staffing between departments is overly streamlined, you often have to wait forever to receive a response about many matters. Be mentally prepared!
6. Working excessive overtime for the company is illegal. You may be sent to the company’s disciplinary committee, which is emotionally distressing, and the HR manager is especially harsh and scolding. It is terrifying!
None, at most the employee discount is okay.
Two or three full-time employees are very good at giving people attitude and are half-hearted about teaching newcomers. On the other hand, most hourly employees have a pretty good attitude and are willing to teach newcomers.
Supervisor: Even after the end of the shift, they would suddenly require overtime. If you showed an unwillingness to work overtime, they would lash out at you.
Employee purchases are a good deal
A very small number of colleagues are genuinely nice
The veterans put on airs all day. They’re just specialists, yet they think they can order other people around and treat them like their assistants—without even knowing their own limitations. It’s laughable. They clearly promote not working overtime and turn off the lights when the workday ends, yet they target you and say that not working overtime means you’re not a team player and deserve it. The manager talks as if someone owes him two million dollars. Once they become a manager, they act like an emperor. You’re a salaried employee too, okay? You’re just another company-raised livestock, after all. Don’t you feel ashamed standing on a high horse and exploiting your other colleagues? They even abuse their personal authority to pressure teammates in the same group to accompany them to meals and social engagements. You can’t even tell whether they came to work or to be drinking companions—and they don’t even have to pay for their own drinks. This completely violates the partner oath and shows no respect for others. Although they’re a team member, they treat people coldly, while putting on a fake show of friendliness and team spirit in front of senior management all day. The outstanding people at this brand are the ones in Japan. Taiwan is just a laughable half-hearted imitation that copies the surface; at its core, it’s just as bad as ordinary Taiwanese companies. You can’t learn anything there—only endure endless exploitation. Staying even one more second is a waste of time.
I’ve been here for over two years.
To be honest, the advantages MUJI has are things that most companies generally have too!
So there isn’t really anything special to list.
Overtime after regular working hours is not paid the way it is at other Japanese companies, and there are very few managers who let employees leave on time.
Most importantly—
The monthly salary listed on 104 is NT$30,000... Everyone should come and see for themselves whether they actually receive NT$30,000!
If you work at a larger store, there are more colleagues to make friends with; because it’s busy, time passes very quickly
1. Extremely, extremely, extremely exhausting. If you want to lose weight, give it a try
2. The scheduling system is very strange
3. The salary is not proportional to how busy the job is
4. With so many people, there is a lot of gossip, so your coworkers and supervisor are very important
5. Turnover is very high, so you have to keep training new employees
6. Unless something unexpected happens, the end time for the evening shift is always very late
At the previous store I worked at, the atmosphere among colleagues was very good, and everyone helped each other.
Because it was a large store, working overtime was really commonplace. However, if it was less than half an hour, you couldn't apply for overtime, and supervisors usually wouldn't approve overtime anyway...
Employees can purchase many things.
Low salary, little bonus (I heard that at some branches, so many things were stolen that employees had to pay compensation, resulting in pitifully small bonuses)
Often required to work overtime, with no overtime pay. Being penalized is really only fair.
XX headquarters
None
Long working hours
Worked to death
Some managers are real jerks