赫爾思國際有限公司

Group meals

Salary may come with benefits:

Over three years, my monthly salary was adjusted upward by only NT$1,000. Perhaps that was just meant to let you know that the company still has a tiny, tiny bit of room for salary increases.

The company wanted me to become a supervisor and offered NT$1,000 more. When I refused to listen to the boss and accept the promotion, he had the other supervisors receive another NT$1,000 increase. Fine, even with NT$2,000 more I still wouldn’t become a supervisor. The company just wanted to announce it so I would regret not getting the supervisor position.

The year-end bonus actually dropped by half a month’s pay. When I had just completed one year at the company, the year-end bonus had originally been one month’s pay. Then, in order to establish a hierarchy, the company transferred the year-end bonus of ordinary employees like us to those willing to become supervisors. That year, the year-end bonus was also paid one month late.

There are no bonuses or red envelopes for the three major holidays, although the company does not interfere when someone takes bereavement leave or gets married.

The company goes abroad almost once a year. In three years, I only got to go to Japan once. There was no domestic trip during the pandemic year either. We took taxis according to the itinerary arranged by the company, but paid our own transportation costs. In Japan, three or four people shared one taxi; remember to get into the boss’s taxi so you can avoid paying the transportation fee.

You have to participate in every activity organized by the boss. There is no escaping the Christmas gift exchange, but we were only coworkers, and I really didn’t want to participate. When they found out that someone was not participating, they immediately announced in the group chat: “Everyone who participates will also receive an additional card.” Previously, the group chat had only mentioned the exchange date—how did this extra rule suddenly appear? If there was going to be such a thing, the rules should have been explained before the event began, because this card was related to the end-of-year banquet bonus and could turn the whole result around.

For a previous company project, we were required to go to the continuing-education department. This meant working an eight-hour shift and then staying late at night to serve as lecturers. I handled half of all the sessions, and in the end received a bonus of just over NT$1,000. The supervisor said, “It’s not as if the company didn’t pay you overtime.”

Promotion system:

In order to establish a hierarchy, the boss began handpicking people he thought could become supervisors and making them supervisors. For a while, there were more supervisors than ordinary employees. Recently, in order to force employees to work overtime, the company started imposing a pile of bizarre rules, all created after the fact. Rules would be established immediately after something happened. Even if you took leave for a wedding, funeral, or other important occasion and did not come to work, several supervisors would criticize you. The boss also started going back on his word. Even when you had informed the company in advance that working overtime would be inconvenient, you could receive an inexplicable warning several weeks later.

Company management:

There is a particularly clueless assistant manager who often has no idea what is going on. Everything has to be relayed to the boss through him, and sometimes what you explain to him becomes something different by the time it reaches the boss. He was not promoted through performance evaluation; apparently, anyone who stays long enough can become a supervisor, even people who are unsuitable for the role. When someone more capable joins the company, the assistant manager ends up being supervised by that person, and then thinks, “I’ve been at this company the longest—how can that newcomer supervise me?”

Growth gained:

People without work experience might be able to use this place as a stepping stone. Once you have gained experience, I recommend escaping quickly.

Company team culture:

There is a coworker who is constantly badmouthing others. She does not dare say things to people’s faces, insisting on acting like a middle-aged auntie pretending to be young while whispering behind people’s backs and complaining all the time.

Actual job duties:

Since several new employees who started at the beginning of the year began commuting in their own cars, the company has never rented a seven-seater again. Six months later, half of the people who drove their own cars had left.

This year, projects outside the county have started requiring employees to use their own cars to run errands for the company. At most, they reimburse the fuel; you can pay the maintenance costs yourself.

It is a company where you have to do everything. The boss is constantly coming up with flights of fancy, wanting to do this and that, only to discover in the end that it cannot be done and that everyone has wasted their time.

Want my job? If you do, you can have it all—go look for it! I’ve put all the company information here.

And so, all the job seekers sailed toward “Great Industrial Park Road” in pursuit of their dreams, and the world began welcoming the “era of exploitative bosses.”