三民書局股份有限公司

Convenient transportation

Employees are required to leave half an hour later after work (without overtime pay)

Employees must work on typhoon days. If they do not work, they must take leave, which is counted as personal leave.

If a problem is discovered, reporting it to the supervisor immediately will result in the supervisor saying that they also need to save face. Even if there really is a problem, do not point it out on the spot.

Employees may be fired by the company at any time. As long as the supervisor says to leave, they must leave that same day immediately. In addition, they need to ask and notify the company in order to receive severance pay.

There is a probationary period, but after it ends, the basic salary is different from what was agreed upon and is much lower.

There are many ghost stories within the company. It is basically a traditional manufacturing business, with all kinds of strange incidents.

It’s more or less compliant with the Labor Standards Act. You can almost always leave work on time, with a 1.5-hour lunch break (which has its pros and cons).

Conveniently located next to an MRT station. There’s a refrigerator, water dispenser, and microwave.

As long as you finish your work, taking leave generally won’t be made difficult.

The boss is extremely emotional. When angry, he belittles employees, while believing that he treats them very well and is generously giving jobs to people who aren’t particularly capable—he’s basically a textbook example of PUA. It’s understandable that the company needs to lay people off when it isn’t making money, but forcing out long-serving employees through belittling and sarcasm is truly heartbreaking. He says things like, “If you’re so capable, go start a company yourself,” as if this company wasn’t inherited from his father.

The company has almost no marketing budget. The marketing department may even consist of zero to one person (I’m not sure what the situation is now), with the editorial staff also handling marketing. Even the best book can’t sell when there’s zero-dollar marketing, few distribution channels, and little public discussion. Not to mention the piles of obscure old books being reprinted. When sales are poor, the boss just gets angry and gives the senior management, editorial, and graphic design staff a thorough scolding. In the end, poor sales are always blamed on the book selection or the cover design. Whenever the boss is unhappy, he summons the entire department to his office to listen to him lecture them. He seems to think employees don’t stay long because the news about Sanmin fighting over an inheritance has made everyone feel no sense of belonging or solidarity with Sanmin, and he even said he would sue the news reporters???

Because they want to streamline the graphic design staff, the boss and senior management now require editors to first come up with the book cover design, and even use AI image generation to create the style for the cover illustration. They then take it to the boss for discussion, and only after he approves it can it be handed over to the graphic designer for completion. The graphic designers have it terribly—they’re basically just software operators, only able to produce ugly things. Oh, and the cover designs previously created by the graphic designers themselves were also criticized by the boss’s supposedly refined taste.

Salary increases are extremely slow. A fresh master’s graduate earns the same salary as a supervisor with a bachelor’s degree and three years of work experience. It’s awful.

The benefits are pretty poor. The gifts for all three major holidays are bookstore gift vouchers, and they can even be canceled after three tardies. You can read the Dcard article (https://www.dcard.tw/f/job/p/240281624)

People who don’t get angry about the boss, senior management, or the system, and who can become numb while working just to earn money, may be better able to tolerate working at Sanmin.

If you can’t stand injustice and unfairness, don’t enter lightly.

(Oh right, the current graphic design supervisor doesn’t understand design or printing at all. It’s terrifying lol)

Convenient transportation

Turn left at Zhongshan Junior High School MRT Station and you'll arrive right away.

Interview: Administrative Assistant

At the beginning, an HR staff member came to the first floor and took me by elevator to the fifth floor, where I started filling out the company's own resume form. There was also an autobiography section on the back, and by the time I finished, about half an hour had passed.

After I handed it to HR, she asked me to wait in a seat. After waiting for half an hour, no one came to tell me that it was time for the interview. I glanced at the HR staff member, who was busy with various things and chatting and laughing with her colleagues. I wondered if I had been forgotten, but waiting for an hour exceeded my limit.

Me: I'm leaving now.

HR No. 2: Or should I explain the job duties to you now?

Me: No, thank you. Do I just take the elevator down from here to leave?

HR No. 1: Yes.

Later, when I went to wait for the elevator,

HR No. 1 chased after me: So, are you highly interested in this position?

Me: Since I still don't know what the job involves, I guess not very interested.

HR No. 1: Since you've already come in for the interview, why don't you learn more about it before you leave?

Me: No!

Her: I'm sorry. The company happened to run into a problem today, so we were dealing with it just now.

Me: No, thank you.

In my head: If something unexpected came up during the interview, you should have come and told me! You left me waiting there for nothing, and only now are you apologizing. The time you wasted was mine, not yours!

1. Very convenient transportation

2. The HR person was quite nice

3. Received the result within three days

Applied for a graphic design position

1. The salary was the same as listed on 104, so there was little room for negotiation

2. There was no interview, so it was difficult to determine the company culture and the manager’s style

Pros: Convenient transportation is the only advantage (the company is right next to the exit of MRT Zhongshan Junior High School Station).

Cons: Extremely disrespectful toward job applicants, wasting applicants’ time, money, and other resources.

The application process was as follows:

After seeing the “English Teaching Materials Editor” opening on 104 Job Bank, I emailed my résumé to San Min’s HR department. About two business days after submitting it, I received a call from HR to arrange a time and was told that the written test and interview would take place on the same day. I subsequently received a formal invitation email.

After arriving at the San Min Bookstore building at the agreed time, I followed the instructions in the notification email and first told the cashier at the store that I was there to see HR. A woman who appeared to be from HR then came downstairs to escort me upstairs. (Since she did not introduce herself or state her identity, I will refer to her as “HR” below for convenience.)

Once we were seated, HR gave me a written-test paper and a form to complete (including an autobiography section). She also provided a Chinese-English dictionary published by San Min and said I could consult it if needed.

The written test consisted of six essay questions related to the position of English teaching-materials planning editor (such as: What is the definition of a planning editor? What should be the subject matter and marketing approach for a bestselling language-learning book? What are the similarities and differences between textbooks and general books?). I was given approximately 1.5 hours, and all answers had to be handwritten. Since both the test paper and HR said that I could answer in either Chinese or English, I wrote all my answers in Chinese. After I finished, HR took the test paper away for the supervisor to review, and asked me to continue filling out the personal-information form and handwrite an autobiography.

When I was almost finished writing my autobiography, HR appeared again with a guilty-looking expression, holding the test paper she had just taken away and another new test paper. She told me: “Because you wrote all the previous questions in Chinese, the supervisor wants to know how good your English is, so I got this new test for you (inner thought: Then why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning that the test had to be answered in English!). But I also understand that you’ve already worked very hard writing so much from earlier until now (inner thought: My hand really is sore from writing so much = =), so you can look over these questions and decide whether you want to do them, because this will take some more of your time. In that case, the supervisor won’t have time to interview you today… (inner thought: You were the ones who said the written test and interview would be on the same day, and now you’re also the ones saying there won’t be an interview today ^^).”

While I was stunned, HR continued: “I’d first like to understand your salary expectations for this position. I can explain this part clearly to you first, and then you can decide whether you want to continue. After all, you came from another county, and I don’t want you to have to make a special trip again for an interview later.”

Since the salary range listed on 104 was NT$31,000–37,000, and based on my three years of relevant publishing experience, I stated a somewhat higher figure. After hearing it, HR said very directly that San Min was only willing to offer a new hire the minimum of NT$31,000, and that even after the three-month probationary period, they would add at most another NT$2,000–3,000—still below my expected salary.

After learning that the compensation did not meet my expectations, and that the company had given me the impression of being very insincere throughout the process, I told HR: “Since you’re not considering my past experience, there’s no room to negotiate the salary, and I won’t be interviewing with the supervisor today, I no longer wish to continue answering the test questions.”

After hearing this, HR seemed to have finally achieved her objective, stood up, and proceeded to escort me downstairs. Along the way, she even said: “Why didn’t you just look for a job in your hometown? You could do blah blah blah and still earn a decent income! (Inner thought: What business is it of yours? And are you really HR hired by San Min? Do you actually intend to recruit anyone… How incredibly rude.)”

Although I was stunned and extremely upset inside, I still politely said goodbye before leaving the company.

I have interviewed with quite a few companies during my job search, but San Min Bookstore is truly the company that has made me feel the most disrespected so far. HR appeared polite but was extremely unprofessional, seeming uncertain and lacking confidence about everything. Moreover, she repeatedly changed what had been said, causing the applicant to make a wasted trip without even getting to interview with the supervisor, thereby wasting the applicant’s time and money.

I sincerely advise anyone interested in applying because of the reputation of San Min’s long-established brand not to put themselves through this ordeal for nothing. It will only waste your time and money and leave you furious.

There is an employee cafeteria

There are many strange rules: men and women receive different pay for the same work, and you may have to work on typhoon days.

The editing software used is web-based markup—I’ve forgotten exactly what it was, something like HTML—rather than the commonly used industry software InDesign.

Anyone thinking of joining should Google it first and they’ll know.

Salary deductions violate the Labor Standards Act.