誠品生活股份有限公司

Friends would think it’s great to work at Eslite Spectrum.

Low pay

Long working hours, with supervisors hinting that you can only apply for compensatory leave

Not a single boss is willing to take responsibility

The internal culture is all about passing the buck

The computers are slow as a turtle. They say the general manager won’t let everyone replace them and that they have to be used until they break. The old laptop I was assigned to even requires an external keyboard.

After working there recently, I found that it was very different from its public image, so I chose to leave.

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The salary is insulting enough, but the culture of pressuring employees not to take leave is also severe. They make all kinds of excuses to prevent you from claiming overtime and find all sorts of reasons to eat into your leave. If you cash out your annual leave, you’ll immediately be blacklisted.

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The supervisor's mood swings are extreme, and they speak to subordinates as if calling for maids or laborers. Veteran employees bully newcomers. Every day, they keep messaging on LINE and demand an immediate response—even at noon, on holidays, or in the middle of the night. The working hours are long. Every so often, the supervisor pesters people past the end of the workday, and there are even occasions when work is assigned at 6:30 with the expectation that it must be finished immediately! The department's work is completely unplanned, with frequent last-minute meetings and business trips. Scheduled meetings are always delayed by more than an hour. I thought this kind of unpunctuality only happened in Africa. They do not treat other people's time as time. Project plans are never on the schedule, but the supervisor has no sense of responsibility whatsoever; whenever another department gives an order, everything must be carried out on time. So delays earlier in the process do not matter—just force people in our own department to compress the timeline and work themselves to death. The supervisor's salary is astonishing, while an ordinary specialist earns only 25K. The year-end bonus is one month. Employees have to pay travel and accommodation expenses upfront themselves, and overtime can only be converted into compensatory leave. Even after working overtime the previous day, employees are still required to report to work normally at 9 a.m. the next day. Joining this company will only gradually wear away your love for the brand. In one word: awful.

I can't think of anything despite racking my brain.

In theory, overtime can be claimed as compensatory leave or overtime pay, but aside from being able to apply for compensatory leave at the beginning of the month, all other requests are rejected. This is a company that exploits loopholes. Salary increases are extremely small: after working here for more than a year, I received one raise in the three-digit range, which completely shocked me. Performance bonuses for the previous year are not paid until November of the current year, and the amount is astonishingly low as well. The benefits are terrible. Members can buy books more cheaply than employees using their employee ID cards. You only become eligible for a health check after three full years, and it is held in the office, with a bunch of people's urine samples sitting there—it's absolutely disgusting. There are no employee trips. The year-end party is organized by each department and is extremely unappetizing and boring. The employee welfare committee only ever holds special sales for items the company failed to sell. Money is deducted from our pay every month for the welfare fund, which is incredibly irritating! Before the Lunar New Year, they move a radio and a card reader into the meeting room to sell holiday goods and make money from employees (they are not any cheaper). In short, this is a terrifying company that says all the right things on the surface—supporting young people in starting businesses and helping them realize their dreams—but is actually extremely harsh toward its employees. Don't be fooled by its reputation! Unless you want to come here and see whether you can find its supposed advantages.

If you're lucky, you get to work alongside passionate and professional colleagues. Completing projects is exhausting but highly rewarding, and you can build your skills and make friends.

1. Low pay, long working hours, no overtime pay, strict evaluations, promotions not tied to salary increases, limited salary growth, and high turnover.

The company isn't afraid of people leaving because it's the company most graduates want to join, so there are plenty of fresh graduates to replace them.

2. Quite a few violations of labor laws—it's just that no one dares to report them.