Sources and scope
This page collects workplace experiences, questions and discussions submitted by users. Dates shown are submission dates, not periods of employment. Individual reports do not describe the entire company.
Read the community guidelinesThere are absolutely no advantages.
Going to the restroom or eating is extremely inconvenient.
You can only order delivery for meals, which is extremely expensive.
After deducting meal and transportation expenses from your salary, there is practically nothing left.
You can only have one day off per month on weekends.
Even urgent matters cannot be accommodated.
In any case, the compensation is extremely poor, and you often have to pay out of pocket.
If it is discovered that something is broken or needs repair,
the cost is charged to the employee themselves.
The company will not cover it for you—don't be naive.
You are responsible for maintaining the jewelry, and if it breaks, you have to accept the loss and pay for it yourself.
If you think you have a lot of money, come and give it a try.
No advantages at all…
I was a retail store employee.
Less than three days after joining the company, because they were short-staffed, they left a new employee who knew nothing to look after the store alone.
The company is very good at finding excuses to deduct employees’ pay.
If merchandise in the store malfunctions (even when it was absolutely not caused by the employee), merely discovering the issue is enough for them to charge it to you.
There is a NT$1,000 ear-piercing allowance for piercing ears.
But if the piercing gun malfunctions, even when it is not caused by human error, we still have to absorb the cost ourselves, and the NT$1,000 bonus is gone too.
After the performance-based pay system was changed, we could only receive a fixed salary.
It’s not that we weren’t working hard or taking responsibility.
The company deliberately set the threshold very high just to save on those bonuses.
Originally, it was normally possible to earn some performance bonuses.
But the boss changed the performance-based pay system to make more money.
There is a NT$2,000 allowance for the northern region.
It looks generous, but in reality, NT$1,000 is only paid if you meet the performance target.
The other NT$1,000 is only paid if you receive enough five-star reviews.
On top of that, you have to provide documentation to take menstrual leave.
Otherwise, they won’t let you take it. What, are we supposed to show them a used sanitary pad…?
Also, before resigning, we completed the handover. We took inventory of everything that needed to be counted and paid for anything that needed compensation. But nearly a month after leaving,
we unexpectedly received another deduction from the company. The reason was that they had found problematic merchandise after we left, and charged it to us (at that point, we had been gone for nearly a month).
Who knows whether the company itself damaged the merchandise? We were no longer even working at the store, yet they still charged this money to us. Isn’t that ridiculous?
You can’t even mark red dates on your annual leave request. Then what is the point of offering annual leave as a benefit to others?
I went back to collect my pay and asked a store employee (who was also one of the managers) why the money had been deducted. The store employee replied: “These defective items were found two days after you left.” They themselves admitted that it was after we had left… so how could they still deduct it from us? We had already been gone for almost a month. Talking to them was like talking to a brick wall. They answered questions with unrelated replies… It was impossible to get any answers, so in the end I could only ask the labor bureau to handle it and protect my rights!
In short,
if you have plenty of free time, a very good temper, enjoy being bullied, and like giving people money for them to deduct for no reason,
and you really don’t need the money, you can give it a try!
It really is a place that will open your eyes.
No advantages at all
The boss is stingy and loves making arbitrary deductions from our pay! They like exploiting loopholes and operating in the gray areas of the law.
① I was a retail store employee.
In my first year, there was still a small gift box for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
In the second year, the company distributed a box of Mid-Autumn Festival cookies they did not eat to the retail store employees. Each store got only 2–3 small packets of cookies to share among everyone. We were stunned when we saw them.
In the third year, they simply stopped giving them out. They only gave gift boxes to internal company employees and forbade them from telling the retail store employees, instructing them all to say that there were no gift boxes.
② The performance-based compensation system was also changed again and again, making it look as if they simply did not want to pay employees! Originally, we could earn at least around NT$3,000–4,000 in monthly performance bonuses. After they changed the system, we could forget about receiving a single cent and could only earn our base salary. Thanks a lot!
Of course, if the company were not making money, we would not think so much of it. The point is, the company makes a lot of money… Last year, the company made NT$90 million!!
Every colleague knows this because the figures were available. The bosses even bought new cars, went to Europe, speculated in real estate, and so on.
Yet they would not provide even the slightest employee benefit!
After she changed the system, nearly NT$200,000 less in bonuses was paid out in Q1 (putting it into the boss’s own pocket).
She did not even think about how many employees had earned that money for her…
Because many employees could not accept the changes to the performance system and resigned, the boss then berated all the employees in a meeting room, saying that we were bullying his wife (the chairwoman). He said that he personally had hundreds of millions and did not lack money for a minute, and also said that those of us who resigned were short-sighted and focused on immediate gains… “If you want to resign, then get lost quickly”…
After that, the chairwoman came in to play the good cop, speaking until she choked up… I have no idea what kind of act they were putting on.
③ The retail stores provide ear-piercing services.
After passing the test, employees can receive a NT$1,000 monthly allowance.
However, if there is any problem with the earring needle, the entire ear-piercing allowance is deducted for that month.
I find this extremely unreasonable! The products all come from an automated capsule-packaging production line, so malfunctions are bound to occur occasionally.
It is one thing when experienced employees accidentally have money deducted, but new employees need some time to adapt. If they keep having money deducted every month, people cannot be retained—and then senior employees are blamed for supposedly bullying the newcomers (?).
④ After I resigned, I went to collect my final paycheck and discovered that NT$1,000 had been deducted.
After I questioned it, I found out that a customer had returned to file a complaint.
It turned out that certain unpleasant colleague 🐲 had directly escalated the matter to the boss, bypassing the chain of command (there was also a department manager in between), saying that there had been a problem with an ear piercing six months earlier. The boss deducted the money without saying anything. It was completely absurd! In the past, customer complaints did not result in deductions. They were obviously just looking for any excuse to make arbitrary deductions!
⑦ Before other employees resigned, they took photos to document the condition of the store’s products.
There were no problems with the products when they left.
Yet the same unpleasant colleague 🐲 took over and deliberately searched for defective products (a total of NT$1,160 was deducted).
That employee 🐲 loves snooping around for gossip and also really likes forming cliques. Whenever someone does not suit her or cooperate with her behavior,
she pulls other retail store employees into group chats to speak ill of and defame that person.
(I really do not understand this behavior. Everyone is just out there trying to make a living.)
She also loves whispering malicious gossip, sowing discord, and spreading unverified rumors in the boss’s ear.
The chairwoman is also very unreasonable—she does not verify anything and simply believes them, then joins them in disliking other employees…
They are basically a combination of Empress Dowager Cixi and Li Lianying!
⑧ They claimed that they felt sorry for how hard the retail store employees worked and wanted to provide a NT$2,000 allowance raise.
But then they required each store to receive more than 60 five-star reviews every month; otherwise, they would withhold NT$1,000 of it.
If the performance target was not met, they would also withhold the other NT$1,000.
⑨ To take menstrual leave, you must provide proof; without proof, the leave will not be approved.
(This should already be illegal, right?)
If it happens to be a day you want to take off—a public holiday marked in red—they will also think that you have no commitment to your work…
Even when an employee tested positive and could not come to work, they still tried to force the employee to report for duty, then lost their temper around the office… As a result, the unfortunate office staff would get caught in the crossfire.
①⓪ The store inventory system is unreasonable:
Boxes and bags were not originally counted as costs because they were considered promotional items.
Then they suddenly said that the store quantities were always inaccurate
and changed the policy to NT$70 for each missing box and NT$30 for each missing bag
(the cost may be less than NT$10 each…)
The quantities of large and small paper bags cannot even be offset against each other. It is obviously just a way to make money and squeeze employees dry!
In conclusion: Do not come work here under any circumstances! Whether in an office position or at a retail store! You will definitely regret it!! If the boss does not drive you to death, that colleague will!