果俐文創行銷事業股份有限公司

Pretty good. It’s located on a high floor, so compared with a typical office building, the view is quite nice. There were two interviews in total. During the first, the supervisor introduced the company’s services and shared examples of past projects. The interview questions were fairly standard: Why did you choose this company? How can you combine your skills with the job? What do you expect to learn here? More or less the same kinds of questions. The second interview was with the boss and lasted quite a while—about an hour or more. He looked quite young and had many ideas. From the conversation, I got a general sense of what the job would involve; it seemed quite challenging. At first, the work involved assisting with projects. Depending on the situation and how well things went, the number and content of projects would be adjusted, and the salary would be adjusted according to the number or size of the projects. After the three-month evaluation, there was a salary increase. The work was interesting, and I got to work with clients from all kinds of industries, including entertainers, executives of large companies, and entrepreneurs. The learning curve was very fast, so if you want to pursue a career in planning, this is a good choice.

The company had fewer than 10 employees, so it was highly flexible and didn’t have the layers of complicated rules found in large companies. Once, on a whim, the boss worked for only half a day and then let everyone take the afternoon off to go out for a meal and afternoon tea. Another time, he let everyone go home, pack their luggage, and take a vacation. It was so sudden that it really surprised me. The coworkers were generally easy to get along with, although some preferred not to talk and quietly did their own work during office hours. We could play music for everyone to listen to while working. The boss’s friends and family often visited the company and brought things for everyone to eat, which was an extra perk. The company dinners were always quite good. Because the work involved brand consulting, new brands would invite us to try their dishes and attend opening events. There were bonuses for the three major holidays and year-end bonuses. The company did not lay anyone off during the pandemic, which was quite fortunate. The benefits were good.

Because the company was small, everyone had to learn to handle most things, including eating, cleaning, and making coffee and tea. Some coworkers did not really like interacting, so newcomers had to be self-reliant. In addition, the boss was rarely in the office, so you had to get up to speed quickly. The company was near an interchange, and it was far from where I lived, so I had to get up early and take the bus. Other than that, everything was pretty good.

It makes you happy when your manager praises you, because that’s genuinely rare.

You have to be a jack-of-all-trades here—not just making coffee and washing dishes; even watering a plant will lead to criticism of your work attitude.

They clearly don’t understand social media algorithms, yet they expect us to achieve very high KPIs at zero cost. It’s a pipe dream.

Whenever visitors come to the company, you have to make tea and coffee to entertain them, which affects work efficiency. I honestly think they could hire an assistant to handle these miscellaneous tasks.

The managers here are too prone to taking out their frustrations on others and speaking contradictorily. You always have to guess what they really mean. They also never clearly tell you what you need to improve; you have to figure it out yourself. As a result, going back and forth repeatedly just wastes time.

The office location and environment are excellent.

1. Even with relevant design experience in this field, the interview salary is NT$22,000. You have to fight for the job—and the salary—yourself, so the interviewer can brazenly tell you to first design two logo concepts for a certain agricultural product and email them in for the design supervisor to review. If they pass, you will be asked to come back for a second interview. Each submission is essentially based on their ideas.

2. Because the turnover rate is somewhat high, the interviewer says you must sign a contract requiring three months' notice before resigning.

Being praised by clients feels gratifying and gives you a sense of accomplishment.

At first, they said there would be no overtime. The end of the workday, originally 6 p.m., gradually became 10 p.m. If there was a meeting the next day, 1 a.m. was about the norm. The key point is that the meeting materials had already been prepared in advance, and I had discussed them with the boss ahead of time. Yet after the boss reviewed them at the last minute, almost everything would be completely scrapped, making every meeting a task that could only be completed through an adrenaline rush.

Gradually, the people who joined at the same time, whose health deteriorated and who could no longer hold on, left one after another! The overtime did not decrease at all. When a colleague made a mistake, they also had to bear the cost of the printed materials. Employees are held responsible for mistakes, but if the supervisor reviewed the materials before they were sent to print, why shouldn’t they share the responsibility? It became increasingly unreasonable that employees had to bear the entire cost of printing errors. They said this was meant to teach employees a lesson by making them pay. The salary wasn’t much, yet they had to shoulder fines of over NT$10,000. How is anyone supposed to make a living like that?

All I can say is, if you want to join and challenge yourself while learning, you need to have the patience of a saint and the skill of constantly flattering the boss. Otherwise, the endless firefighting and meetings full of pointless talk will consume your own time and prevent you from doing the work you are responsible for. Then, when the meeting comes, you still have to step up, and the boss will criticize you for not having done a good job. If you do well, they will take the credit and say, “If I hadn’t saved you at the last minute, how could the client have approved it?”

In the end, I’m still grateful. I did make progress during the time I was there, but at the same time, you need to give far more than you receive—all because the company says, “We’re letting you learn.”

P.S. I really wonder why people leave their own cups sitting there without washing them after finishing their drinks. Why should someone else have to tidy up their desk?

If you don’t do something well, they will also pull you aside for a serious talk, saying things like, “You need to pay attention to the details.” = =

The company is located in a prime location

Management should respect employees more instead of treating them as tools to exploit. The long-term environment of long working hours and low pay has led to high turnover.

If management does not improve its working relationship with employees and continues to sugarcoat matters with rhetoric, it will ultimately lead to more and more people coming and going, further damaging the company’s reputation.