Lunch box for 50 yuan, and a one-and-a-half-hour break
In the morning, we have to attend a morning meeting and recite the Heart Sutra. It feels like joining some kind of cult.
There is no overtime pay. Even if you leave work on time, you will still be reprimanded.
There are restricted days off; on certain days, you cannot schedule leave.
Most employees are older, so there are people who talk badly about others behind their backs.
I don't know why they hire people to clean if employees still have to take turns cleaning the toilets.
They didn't tell me during the interview that there would be product expos. There are more than two of them every month, and there are a lot of people then—it will exhaust you.
The boss keeps bringing in large quantities of goods for no reason, especially for the product expos. They cannot sell it all. When will they ever learn their lesson?
You pay 400 for the uniform, and they say it will be refunded when you leave. But they don't refund the full amount; there is a cleaning fee.
1. The interview is not difficult, and it is easy to get hired.
2. The boss is not often in Taiwan.
3. Employee lunch boxes are available at a discounted price of NT$50.
4. The company places importance on product quality.
5. If you are frequently transferred between departments, you will get to know quite a few employees and learn many skills.
6. There is a generational gap among the company’s employees. The turnover rate among younger employees is high, but many senior employees have more than 10 or 20 years of service, because it is not easy for older employees to find good jobs.
7. Unpaid leave is not imposed.
If you have a better job opportunity, you really should not join this company.
I worked at the company for several years or more. The following are things I personally experienced and unreasonable situations I observed:
1. Taiwanese workers are treated worse than foreign employees. Foreign employees receive overtime pay when working overtime, while Taiwanese full-time employees are classified as being under a responsibility-based system and do not receive overtime pay.
2. The boss schedules meetings one hour before the workday begins. No overtime pay is provided, and employees cannot leave early. Once, for a meeting at 6:30, everyone was required to gather at 6:00. Employees were required not to bring their phones into the meeting because a former employee had previously recorded the boss and filed a lawsuit.
3. The boss speaks negatively about former employees during meetings and even distorts the facts.
4. The company has arranged many informants around the workplace. Even when the boss is not at the company, the boss will, based on one-sided accounts from informants or favored employees, develop a dislike for employee A and speak negatively about employee A to surrounding employees, even brainwashing them and spreading rumors with the intention of causing them to ostracize employee A.
5. If the company wants to lay off employees because of poor business operations, the boss will listen to favored employees and try to make things difficult for the employee in question—for example, forcing a department transfer, having HR maliciously cut the employee’s salary, finding fault with the employee, and threatening to sue them—to force the employee to resign voluntarily.
6. Some employees occupy their positions without doing their jobs. They receive relatively good salaries and can leave work on time; no one even dares to stop them from extending their lunch breaks. Once, another employee reported this person to a favored employee. However, the employee had the boss’s support, so nothing could be done to them. The employee then began framing other employees, magnifying and scrutinizing even minor matters, and even distorting the facts. The company atmosphere became one of white terror.
7. During my employment, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to close for more than two months. Since the company was not operating during that period, salaries were reduced or paid at the statutory minimum wage under the Labor Standards Act. Before reopening, the uniforms were redesigned, and several thousand NT dollars were deducted from our salaries as a deposit. We were told that the deposit would be returned only after continuing to work for several months. If someone resigned during that period... not only would they be unable to recover the several thousand NT dollars, they would still have to return the uniform and would also be charged a uniform-cleaning fee.
8. The company is unfriendly toward senior employees. After I had worked for several years, my salary was increased by only NT$1,000 and then frozen. I was subsequently transferred to another department. When the company hired someone for the position in my former department, the starting salary was higher than my salary after the raise. At that moment, I felt that senior employees were considered less valuable than inexperienced newcomers.
9. After working for several years, I received an annual bonus only about two or three times, generally around NT$3,000–7,000.
10. The boss is very generous to certain clients and frequently gives them gifts, believing it is advertising, but then turns around and says that the company is not making money...
11. If the boss has your personal LINE account, you will be bothered by the boss’s LINE messages on your days off.
12. My salary was frozen for many years, and I was forced to transfer to other departments more than once. At one point, I only received a raise and a retention offer after submitting my resignation. However, I saw many employees come and go, eventually resigning for various reasons—when the fire was about to reach them personally.
The work process was pretty good overall.
It’s understandable to charge a uniform fee when you join, but when I resigned, they only told me while I was signing the resignation form that they would deduct the uniform cleaning fee (cleaning charge) from my salary. That made me realize the uniform fee I paid when I joined could never be fully refunded. What’s more, the cleaning fee for just two accessories, without any clothing, was already several hundred. If clothes or a vest were included, wouldn’t that mean the uniform fee was basically a donation to them? The uniforms weren’t even new, and I have no idea how many people had worn them before. Normally, when leaving a job, unless the uniform is damaged or lost and needs to be paid for, I’ve never encountered a company like this that charges a cleaning fee. :) There were also some jaw-dropping rules that weren’t disclosed or explained during the interview and were only revealed after joining… It was only after I started that I found out they often hire hourly workers. There’s a reason the turnover is so high~~ Sigh.
Local Taiwanese workers are inferior to foreign workers.
They often hire part-time workers, then tell them to resign once there is an excess of staff. They insist that you sign a resignation form before they will pay your wages, even though you did not resign voluntarily, because the company wants to avoid paying severance. They also inexplicably deduct a uniform-cleaning fee from your pay. The uniforms provided to employees were clearly secondhand, yet they do not calculate depreciation; a single uniform may have been worn by dozens of people, and they still charge you a cleaning fee (all part-time workers are charged this). Full-time employees have it even worse: overtime is treated as part of their responsibilities, so they are worse off than foreign workers. The boss places great importance on foreign workers, and only foreign workers receive overtime pay. Pathetic~~~
The company provides employee housing for staff from outside the county or city to rent, costing only 600 per month. It offers employees discounted lunch boxes, and its products are diverse, carefully made, and of very good quality.
In the meat products department, graduates of animal science–related programs start at only 26K. The work involves labeling and selling products, introducing them, and conducting tasting events. The supervisor is not from a relevant field and has no related professional knowledge. Before the one fixed day off and one flexible rest day policy, employees were required to work overtime without overtime pay; instead, they were given only a 100-dollar early-shift allowance.
There is one problematic part-time coworker. Even if you are a full-time employee, as a new hire and newcomer, they will make things difficult for you under the guise of being a veteran employee.
The promotion path is unclear. Most coworkers are local, and there is a significant gap in ideas and perspectives. This is a job that values seniority rather than professional expertise; only after working there for a long time will it truly become yours.