曜田國際股份有限公司

Aside from the manager being terrible, all the coworkers are very nice. There is free lunch at noon on Mondays, which you can consider compensation for the Monday morning meeting's barrage of noise. There is a break room (does that count as a benefit???). The company complies with the Labor Standards Act and various regulations (although this is required, I still have to mention later how crafty this company is). If you want to start your own clothing brand, this is a suitable place to gain experience—a startup training camp.

To get straight to the point, the salary is NT$27,000 and basically will not increase, especially in the marketing and design department. They also do not hire people without experience. I was initially tricked into joining because I was told the boss was very wealthy, and that NT$27,000 was just the base salary, while the boss handed out bonuses generously. It turns out I was fooled by sales talk again. From your first day here, the boss will take notes on everything you do. Certain personal speech patterns, work habits, lifestyle habits... all sorts of things—the boss records everything. At some meeting, he will bring them up and say that he has noticed you have certain shortcomings. Many of them are simply based on his personal preferences, such as thinking you speak too negatively. Whether someone speaks negatively is also his own judgment. He shows extreme disrespect for employees' professional abilities. When you say in a meeting that you have encountered certain problems with your work progress, he will say that you are being too negative. The boss will say to solve problems yourself and not dump them on him. He is weak and unwilling to take responsibility, hesitates when making decisions, and ultimately blames you for being inefficient.

The manager is extremely scheming. If you really want to join this company to gain some experience in textile printing, first, flatter the boss; second, minimize contact with the manager. If you encounter any problems at work, try not to ask the manager and ask your coworkers for help instead. This manager is basically the tumor of the company. The boss's weakness created the conditions for this manager to become so powerful. She will not help you solve problems; she only puts on a show. She comes to work to perform for the boss, pretending to work very hard and enthusiastically scolding everyone. Basically, she is a salary thief. Every day she comes to the company, she looks for departments to hold meetings with. The meetings consist of scolding people, and once she is done scolding them, she goes home.

She is not very old, probably born sometime between 1986 and 1990. She is a woman. The boss here strongly favors a Western-style work environment (in reality, this is just a company run by an exploitative boss who is spoiled to the core; it is not Western-style at all). Everyone is expected to address one another by English names. This manager's English name starts with “L,” so if you encounter her, take note and be careful. As for the manager, I do not even know what to say. She is garbage. She loves holding meetings, but when decisions made during meetings with her are criticized by the boss at the morning meeting, she joins in with the scolding. She will not say that those decisions were made in a meeting with her. In any case, she puts on a very thorough performance. Even when working from home while camping or getting her nails or hair done, she still keeps up the act. But acting is all she can do. When problems arise at work, she cannot solve them, will not help, and certainly will not teach you. I seriously doubt whether she knows how to do anything at all. All she can say is, “Why should I come and deal with these kindergarten-level problems for you?” Fine, then come work here when your son is in kindergarten. Thanks. In any case, be especially careful if you encounter this person.

Every morning there is a meeting. Mondays are the general meeting, and during the first week of every month there is a monthly meeting. Every Saturday and Sunday, you have to prepare at home the report for Monday's meeting. Your schedule is supposed to be packed to the brim, and the work for the following week or month should also be packed to the brim, regardless of whether it makes logical sense—just fill it up. Then you have to prepare responses, because the boss and manager will start picking apart the report based on its contents. You need to be prepared, or you will be thoroughly berated. If your schedule is very full, ideally you should have progress on everything by the following week, and once something is scheduled, it must be completed. Basically, there is a fairly high chance that everyone takes work home. Some coworkers even take special leave to work from home simply because they do not want meetings to delay their progress.

Meetings here generally last at least two hours. The longest one I saw started after the morning meeting ended and continued until the afternoon. Most of the time is spent scolding people—scolding them for slow progress and for not being able to solve problems. Why is this company a startup training camp? Because nobody above you will teach you how to solve problems. They only know how to scold, not solve problems. They talk nonsense. The boss will say, “I see there are some problems with this proposal. I have thought of a way to solve them, but I am not going to tell you. Let’s see whether you notice them yourself.” The manager will say, “I do not want my ideas to influence your ideas. Come up with something yourselves.” This is how the company drags down progress. When problems arise, they do not help; they just silently watch you and later start assigning blame.

During the interview, they said the boss was very wealthy. I do not know whether he is wealthy, but I do know that the company is constantly losing money, and the boss is extremely stingy—possibly because the company is constantly losing money. The work equipment is not very complete. The computers do not have graphics cards, products are photographed using employees' own phones, and quite a few coworkers bring their own computers to work. The boss has some very bizarre ideas. He thinks the company only needs one good computer, and all the work software is installed on that one good computer, which everyone takes turns using. He says many companies do this (????).

The boss himself has many ideas that are hostile to human nature, and you can experience them if you get the chance to join this company. In any case, if people can bring their own tools, everyone brings their own: computers, tablets, cameras, tripods... and so on. Getting the boss to pay for anything is like asking for his life. He will say that we are not paying enough attention to costs and tell us to solve problems ourselves. The demands are high in principle, while the costs are shifted onto employees. How much are we actually supposed to accomplish with how many resources? Of course, if we had enough technical resources, we could do better. But when resources are insufficient, we are still expected to achieve results beyond what the available resources allow. To achieve those results, we can only use our own resources. Is that normal? If you genuinely love the job, I would not consider it excessive. But we are required to deliver above-standard performance every day and are subjected to psychological manipulation. With resources provided at this level, we are instead criticized for lacking ability. I do not think NT$27,000 is worth doing all this for.

But it really is a startup training camp. The boss and manager may simply be the kind of asshole clients we will encounter: indecisive clients and demanding, impossible-to-please customers. How do we operate when resources are insufficient in the early stages? These can count as benefits, right? Haha.

Finally, I have to say that this company is very crafty. It is this terrible, but all its procedures follow the regulations, so we cannot catch them on anything and have no way to deal with them. All the shitty things are considered part of the company culture. So I can only come here to warn everyone who is thinking of working at this company: if you see this, consider it carefully.

The colleagues are super nice. On our first day at work, they would wait for us newcomers so we could go eat together. The atmosphere was also pleasant, and many former colleagues would still come back to chat with the staff. Coffee and snacks were provided in the pantry, and then... I can't think of anything else.

The main drawbacks here stem from the two top people at this company. The boss has no core philosophy and doesn't know why he started this company. He started a company related to the arts and culture, but has no interest in the arts whatsoever. All he asks is, “Are there any orders?” If the answer is no, he launches into a tirade and a round of workplace manipulation. Then, all design drafts ultimately have to go through his review, resulting in endless revisions. The boss doesn't dare make decisions and is accustomed to dumping responsibility on employees. He only says, “I don't think your work is good. You need to approach things logically.” But he gives no direction and never tells you what he wants. You can only try again and again, get rejected again and again, and endure repeated manipulation. He starts talking about how terrible you are and how you need to grow and change, blah blah blah.

Next, I'll talk about the most tragic part. This endless cycle of revisions and inability to make decisions isn't only stuck with the boss. There are two checkpoints in this infinite loop, and the worst is the manager at this company. She is a workplace champion of over 100 points—a total salary thief. Following the boss's behavior, she endlessly revises drafts at her stage. This manager also gives no direction; she only tells you that she thinks the work is bad. Even after many revisions, she remains dissatisfied. She starts yelling and manipulating employees. This manager can occupy most of your workday with meetings. Basically, none of the meetings have any meaning. She isn't there to solve problems; she is just there to yell at everyone. Then, things already confirmed in meetings with her get blasted by the boss. And this highly “hardworking” manager won't step forward and tell the boss that these were decisions made in meetings with her. Instead, she joins the boss in yelling: “What on earth are you doing? Haven't I had so many meetings with you already? What the hell is this?” It's strange—the plan was decided in meetings with you. This company's manager is accustomed to shifting responsibility downward. She also leaves before 3 p.m. every day, always saying she is going to meet clients. Many times, colleagues caught her going for manicures or handling other personal matters. She never appears on Fridays. Later, we discovered that she marked herself as working from home on Fridays but was actually going camping. She likes to show off and often brags about the expensive things she has bought; the camping trips were also revealed by her own bragging. On a Thursday, before leaving the office before 3 p.m. as usual to supposedly meet a client, she said that she was going to rush out to the camping area again that night. She is simply a manager with an awful personality.

That roughly describes these two top people. Next are some rather bizarre things. Both of these top people have memory problems. The older one forgets what he said the day before by the next day. The younger one forgets the things she herself criticized after they have been revised; a few days later, she will yell at you, asking what kind of awful thing you made, even though it was exactly what she had told you to do. After joining this company, many things opened my eyes—for example, Adobe could only be installed on one computer, so everyone had to queue up to use it. Employees were expected to edit videos, yet the computers had no dedicated graphics cards. When we applied to have graphics cards installed, the boss said, “We’re not a film company.” Huh? So apparently making films is that easy—you just need a computer that can edit videos. When product photos needed to be taken, the company did not provide a camera. They said that phones are very powerful nowadays, so we should use our own phones or bring our own cameras. Other colleagues also brought their own computers to work. He even said that we spent too much time on design, that design should only take 30 minutes, and that our progress was too slow. That is what the boss here is like: his level of technological knowledge has not kept up with the times, yet he is extremely subjective and controlling. When putting a trash bag in a garbage can, it had to fit the bin perfectly, or he would scold people in meetings. There couldn't even be water droplets on the bathroom floor, or he would start yelling. There are many trivial matters like this. Basically, a lot of progress here gets stuck because the boss cannot make decisions, causing constant delays. Then the manager not only refuses to take responsibility but also attacks people behind their backs. In the end, she starts scolding us for being inefficient and too slow, and begins manipulating everyone again.

Summary:

1. The company has no core philosophy and lacks work processes.

2. The boss cannot make decisions, constantly changes his orders, is extremely picky, easily misinterprets what people say, is difficult to communicate with, dislikes what he considers negative comments (though it is unclear what he defines as negative), does not care about aesthetics, and shifts responsibility downward.

3. The manager loves holding meetings to make decisions, but she will not take responsibility and will stab employees in the back. She is very calculating, and you never know what might upset her. She will report minor matters to the boss. She is a salary thief. When she says she will help, she absolutely will not. The only thing she is good at is making phone calls and yelling at subordinates; beyond that, she shifts responsibility downward.

4. The company claims that the probationary salary is NT$27,000, but according to other colleagues, everyone earns NT$27,000, and it does not increase after probation. During the interview, they said the company would look at how hard you worked. We worked on holidays, and the boss did not care at all. The company considered this a sign of dedication, but the salary was still NT$27,000. You also have to sign a confidentiality agreement stating that, upon leaving, you cannot take a job in a related industry for a specified period, supposedly to prevent company secrets from being leaked. In reality, the company does not have any particularly important secrets—otherwise, why would we all bring our own computers to work and use our own phones and cameras to photograph products?