A brand name to add to your resume, an opportunity to learn about alcoholic beverages, recommended.
The unprofessionalism starts with HR. There wasn't even an offer letter; everything was communicated through 104 messages. They also didn't proactively inform me of the final salary when notifying me to report to work. After actually starting the job, I found that the salary was split up in a confusing way (in short, the labor insurance salary was underreported), and I was not informed of this beforehand.
The salary isn't particularly high, and there is a serious degree of rule-by-person. Senior managers will reject applications simply for the sake of rejecting them, and will even tell you frankly that they rejected your proposal because they disagreed with what another manager said. The company has outdated ideas and cannot accept new things (this applies to the entire company). They are unaware of many things that already exist in the market. If you're just looking for a stable job without seeking a sense of achievement, it may be suitable.
If you like alcohol and the atmosphere of alcohol-related events, you can go to the interview and find out what the job involves.
When I arrived at the office entrance for the interview, I found that everyone was still on their lunch break. It was only after I rang the doorbell a second time that someone woke up and opened the door. Scheduling the interview during lunchtime was also quite strange. It felt awkward to wake the people inside from their naps, but there was nothing I could do.
The headquarters office near Xingtian Temple felt quite cluttered. Many things were piled around, and there was also a lot of dust. It did not feel like they paid much attention to cleanliness. The aisles were also very cramped because the space was not very large. Overall, I still think a bright and tidy office is better.
I applied for the Overseas Product Specialist position. The job platform listed the starting salary as NT$33,000–40,000, but when I went to the interview, it was immediately cut to NT$30,000 for a full-time position. I do not know how much the probationary salary would be; it might even be lower. Overall, it did not feel good. If you are not actually going to offer that salary, you really should not list that figure, because there are many honest companies that offer what they advertise. If your foreign-language skills are good enough, there are actually many more and better options!
During the interview, the boss said that when you first start looking for a job, you should not focus on the salary and should not care too much about it. I said that prices have risen so much these days, and some of us still have student loans, so what are we supposed to consider if not money? It is not as though we are making an offering for charity—and even deities bless people who do that. Of course we have to consider whether we can make a living. I was truly speechless.
Learn basic knowledge about alcoholic beverages.
Promotion is ridiculously fast. If you want to pad your résumé with store manager experience, highly recommended.
A company that has been around for more than 30 years, yet its systems are a complete mess and there isn’t a single standard. Someone with no retail experience at all can become a store manager after just three months as long as the owner takes a liking to them. I don’t know whether the owner is choosing store managers or concubines.
The pay will only decrease the longer you work there. If you need money or are ambitious, I don’t recommend joining. Your superiors will drive you crazy. Their instructions are like empty talk: they say one thing and do another. They tell you something today, then ask you tomorrow, “Who told you that?” No one has the authority to make decisions. A large company is run like children playing house.
Fortunately, working with some experienced store managers means you can learn more, but they’ve also been pushed to the breaking point by the company and can barely stay.
Low pay, high responsibility, and endless demands.
You’re expected to use Line, Facebook, Instagram—everything.
Every day they tell you to post promotional content and flood people with ads.
If you don’t, you get fined.
The company is always talking about everyone weathering hard times together.
Meanwhile, the boss is very generous when buying cars and houses.
Every now and then, they flaunt their wealth on Facebook while the employees struggle.
Employees are treated worse than the caddies at a golf course.
They donate to help other people while slashing employees’ wages.
The store manager allowance is practically nonexistent.
You also have to rely on a rating system, and the rating system is extremely unclear.
It basically depends on what the company thinks of you as a person.
If you don’t pass, you get nothing—not a single cent.
There are even cases where employees earn more than store managers.
There is no year-end bonus, and the gifts for the three major holidays are so terrible they’ll make you laugh and cry.
They even forget to distribute them, so employees have to ask for them themselves.
They love fining retail-store staff; whenever something goes wrong, it is absolutely always the store staff’s fault.
Not a single supervisor above you will speak up for you.
They are all experts at shirking responsibility.
If you sell something the company doesn’t want sold, you’ll get yelled at.
If you don’t meet your sales targets, they’ll still chew you out.
You work yourself to the bone pushing sales all month,
but the bonus you receive will genuinely make you want to cry.
Do not waste your time staying in a place like this.
To them, employees are disposable chopsticks.
They absolutely do not value good talent.
There are educational wine-tasting courses available, which help improve your knowledge of alcoholic beverages.
If you're lucky enough to have a more senior store manager, there is a lot of knowledge about alcoholic beverages to learn.
The salary conditions change from one day to the next; they changed three times in 2020 alone.
The pay keeps getting lower: bonuses and competition prizes are cut, while performance targets are set so high that you can't reach them.
Department-store counter staff may have a tough time during the off-season, but at least they have the anniversary sales to make some money.
The Lunar New Year period has the highest sales, is the busiest month, and has the most orders. You have to work overtime, days off are prohibited, and business hours are extended.
After working yourself to the bone during the Lunar New Year, you only earn two or three thousand dollars more than usual (in the past, you would at least earn several tens of thousands more).
The store manager's salary is so low that you will cry for them (they probably only make a few thousand dollars more than you, while also having to shoulder performance targets and a pile of responsibilities).
The company steals 10 minutes of your time every day without paying you: if you start work at 9:50, you clock out at 19:00; if you start at 13:00, you clock out at 22:10.
If you are late or forget to clock in and do not submit a missed-punch application within 24 hours, you will be recorded as absent without leave (well, you forgot—who is going to remember? A 24-hour grace period is far too short; the previous one-week period was much more humane).
The company has zero tolerance for losses: broken bottles, selling the wrong item—employees have to pay for everything themselves.
In recent years, while expanding stores, the company has also required buying the premises, then told employees that the stores were not making money. It is always penny-wise and pound-foolish.
The chairman and general manager constantly say: “Don’t just think about how little your salary has increased; think about what you have gained from your work and what the company has brought you” (I can barely support myself, and they still expect me to think about that?).
Everyone is struggling and so broke that they have taken part-time jobs at breakfast shops, closing shifts, and delivering for foodpanda.
You think being the leading company in the liquor industry means they must be impressive, but in reality, the system is terrible.
If headquarters dislikes you, they will do everything they can to get rid of you. They transfer you back and forth until you can't take it anymore and resign on your own. No matter how difficult an employee is, they will never lay them off; they force the other person to resign voluntarily.
The turnover rate is very high. The company always acts as if having no employees is no big deal and says, “We can just hire more people.” They are now so short-staffed that they have started hiring second-career workers (I just want to ask: can they even move cases of liquor? If they don't strain their backs, they should count themselves lucky).
No year-end bonus, no year-end bonus, no year-end bonus.
There are no bonuses for the Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, or birthdays; instead, they give you company products that are almost expired. And for the Lunar New Year, don't even think about it: you get nothing.
Only store managers can attend the company banquet, and there are no employee trips either.
Get lost～
It has one of the more comprehensive training systems among wine retailers.
Employees are entitled to free wine-tasting event slots.
Salary is unrelated to rank and depends only on the store’s size, customer volume, and sales revenue.
The manager of Store A does not necessarily earn more than a sales associate at Store C.
However, by comparison,
store manager positions are limited—one person per position.
A vacancy only opens up when someone above retires.
The company’s tolerance for inventory shrinkage is zero.
You pay for broken bottles yourself, and if you sell the wrong item, you have to figure out how to deal with it yourself.
At first, it seemed like a somewhat sizable company.
But after actually working for a few days, I found that the systems and policies were very opaque.
If you break a bottle, you have to pay for it yourself; the system is very outdated, the activities are complicated, and if you sell something incorrectly, you have to cover the cost yourself.
The interview made it sound very good, but when it came time to collect my paycheck, I felt like dying.
I recommend not trying it lightly.
You can gain a basic understanding of alcoholic beverages.
The job duties include introducing store products, cleaning the store, designing store promotional campaigns, printing and designing store cards, providing delivery services, and, of course, some “other” tasks as well...
The company’s base salary follows the minimum wage set by the Ministry of Labor, while everything else is treated as a bonus. However, these bonuses are not clearly itemized on the payslips, making it difficult to know exactly how they are calculated.
The company often issues announcements requiring employees to sign them. If employees do not sign and agree, they may be pressured through interpersonal pressure from store colleagues or collective penalties, such as deductions from bonuses.
The company’s policies are sometimes changed abruptly, and there are also some “one-day policies.” If store staff fail to keep up, they are left to bear the responsibility themselves.
The company’s overall POS system is still in the state it was 20 years ago. Anyone who takes a job at this company needs a powerful brain and must be prepared to use their own mind as a substitute for a computer.
1. The girl at the front desk was friendly and cute.
1. The interviewer made me feel very uncomfortable. She was a woman who looked nearly forty. Not only was she late, but she also had a bad and arrogant attitude—cold and visibly impatient. Why invite someone for an interview in the first place? What was most astonishing was that she arrogantly told me to introduce myself in English as soon as she opened her mouth, yet when she spoke herself, her English was very poor. It was ridiculous. Throughout the interview, she kept applying pressure through her facial expressions, whether intentionally or not. When she disliked an answer, she would frown very deeply and for a long time.
2. Overtime is required, the pay is not high, and they will use belittling or questioning tactics to make you lower your salary expectations.
If you really want to join Oak Barrel,
it is recommended that you secretly bring a voice recorder and record the interview,
because the interviewer will use vague and ambiguous wording to make you feel that the benefits are good.
In reality, this company does not offer bonuses for the three major holidays.
They do give gifts,
but the gifts will make you smile wryly.
Unless you become a store manager,
there is no year-end party.
Moreover, the policies keep changing,
and on top of that, it is a family-owned business,
so there is quite a lot of infighting internally.
When they want to get rid of someone,
they will use all kinds of methods to make that person leave.
The company also has legal counsel and basically likes to use legal provisions to pressure employees who do not understand them.
If you can put up with that,
it may be worth considering,
after all, you can still learn professional knowledge about alcoholic beverages.
That’s all.