Sources and scope
This page collects workplace experiences, questions and discussions submitted by users. Dates shown are submission dates, not periods of employment. Individual reports do not describe the entire company.
Read the community guidelinesHahaha, are you kidding me?
1. The company probably only gets a few disaster-prevention-related projects. Whether a design proposal passes or not depends not on the client’s wishes, but on whether you can successfully use the ability to see into the underworld on the female boss.
2. Just listen to about 20% of the benefits mentioned in the interview; the other 80% exist mostly in dreams.
3. Employees take turns being the duty person, while the cleaning lady comes approximately once every one to two weeks. Officially called the duty person, but in reality an unpaid cleaner. In addition to taking out all the company’s garbage, food waste, and recyclables, as well as the waste produced by the female boss’s flower arranging, and cleaning various areas, you even have to wipe and clean the wheels of the chairs every two or three days.
4. According to a designer who recently left, they dreamed that one day, after working at this company for three months, they worked overtime until 10 p.m. The next day, at the end of the workday, they were suddenly told not to come in the following day, to pack up their belongings and leave immediately, with a promise that they would receive proof of involuntary termination.
However, the company delayed providing the proof of involuntary termination, severance pay, and so on for nearly a month and a half. During that time, the designer kept communicating with their supervisor, who ultimately told them to go find the female boss.
The female boss’s attitude was unbelievably terrible. Although she was clearly withholding the proof and money the employee was entitled to, she told the employee to look up the relevant laws themselves, and refused to provide what the employee was entitled to under the Labor Standards Act until after the Labor Bureau’s mediation meeting had concluded.
5. More than once, I heard the female boss, who is in her 50s, yelling at employees and the owner inside the company. Both her volume and what she said were extremely psychologically aggressive.
6. Generally low pay. Engineers and planners may be assigned to work at external sites, so you should always be prepared to preserve evidence to protect yourself and to start looking at job websites.
7. No minor mistakes are tolerated, and you will go through a period of questioning yourself.
8. There are no SOPs and no normal work orders—only endless empty promises. This place is not even suitable for spending your retirement.
No advantages whatsoever
Recently, I heard that a friend who had worked there until nearly retirement age was laid off, which made me feel that this company is rather inhumane. Seeing so many people criticizing it here put me at ease.
[Salvation Guide] You absolutely have to read this! What you decide after reading it is up to you—and your fate.
1. After being hired, you may have the opportunity to work as a volunteer:
a. Indoor slippers must be worn. All employees take turns serving as the person on duty to clean, take out the trash—including bathroom trash—sort recyclables, sweep and mop the floors, wipe tables, wipe chair casters, and clean and organize the office.
b. Signing the Labor Standards Act Article 84-1 agreement turns you into a permanent long-term worker, with the possibility of spending the night sleeping at the company.
c. Missed-meal allowances and overtime pay: Of course they exist—as long as you dare to apply for them.
2. If you are good at flattering and playing the sycophant, you may receive the “Boss Lady Feels Good” bonus (the boss lady says she can give it to whoever she wants when she feels like it, without needing a reason).
3. Employee benefits: You get birthday leave, but only if your birthday happens to fall on a day you are not already off. Labor Day is not a holiday because they have to cooperate with government agencies (the boss lady says she wants to give everyone the day off, but everyone wants to come to the company to work).
4. Endless snacks: The two packages of cookies from the offerings made on the second and sixteenth days of the lunar month.
5. Endless coffee: The boss lady says, “No one likes to drink it anyway,” and is considering canceling it.
6. Employee meals, company trips, lavish afternoon tea, endless group purchases, and a rest and tea area: Dreams are beautiful and hope is always with you—please strengthen your ability to dream!
7. You can be quiet or lively: As long as you regularly listen to the boss lady scold people and spout nonsense, your eloquence can improve too.
8. It gives you a homey feeling: The office has a high ceiling and split-level layout. It is rare to see a company with a family-style kitchen and bathroom inside the office. It is located in a residential building in an alley; the guard has to open the door and let you in by card. The streets and alleys are very dark at night, with hardly anyone around. It feels... very much like a home.
9. You may get to see a luxury home’s kitchen: You fill out the forms in the kitchen. For the interview, you are taken to a partitioned second floor. The employees inside look very young. The interviewer is very articulate and talks a lot, and some questions are rather sharp. There are two written tests focused on professional skills. Including filling out the forms and taking the written tests, the entire process takes about two and a half hours.
10. You never know until you compare: Anyone who leaves this place will find a bright, heavenly paradise wherever they go.
I am writing this in the hope that you will not become the second me!
The company uses a clock-in system for arriving at work, but a responsibility-based system for leaving; the hours are long, you learn nothing, and some people even work through the night and simply sleep at the company.
When I resigned, I could describe it as escaping alive. The average workday was 10 hours. Even though work officially ended at 6 p.m., no one dared to leave, so I did not dare to clock out either. On holidays, you were indirectly pressured to work overtime. You were also asked to sign a consent form agreeing to use Article 84-1 of the Labor Standards Act (look up Article 84-1 yourself). Normal working hours became 10 hours. When signing the employment contract, you also had to find a joint and several guarantor to sign and provide a photocopy of their ID. When you started work, you had to provide the company with a wooden stamp for permanent retention. They would also repeatedly emphasize the “responsibility-based system.” Many people left work at seven or eight every day without applying for overtime pay... and so on.
The salary is far below the industry standard. I was making almost the minimum wage. The perfect-attendance bonus was not included in the salary reported for labor and health insurance. You can be late three times a month (within a total of 15 minutes). If you exceed 15 minutes, you have to take two hours of personal leave; if you exceed 30 minutes, you have to take another two hours of personal leave... and so on.
Most employees are young people with little social experience. After only a few days, you can see how chaotic things are internally. They call themselves a technology company, but they use outdated programming languages and still manage projects with Excel. The boss’s wife likes gossip and loves scolding people. She often scolds the boss in front of everyone (they are married). Overtime has to be approved by the boss’s wife in advance; otherwise, she will say she does not know what you are staying at the company to do, and accuse you of forcing her to pay overtime...
In short, it is outrageously absurd—there is too much to list!
1. Gain work experience
2. After working here, you should be able to adapt smoothly anywhere else
3. Young women everywhere—so many young women
4. Every day is lively. If it’s not a couple arguing, it’s the sound of someone furiously shredding paper or a fire alarm. It really gets you hyped!
1. No established SOP for project implementation
Client requirements are only described roughly. Ask too many questions and you get scolded; do too little and you get scolded too. It’s a blame-shifting culture.
2. Meetings lack focus
Even when a conclusion is reached, after implementing it, someone will still say, “I remember the previous discussion wasn’t like this.” The company makes decisions based on people’s memories, leading to an endless cycle.
3. Employee training that is similar to a contract-based system
I think this is very important—this deserves an asterisk. I can’t say much more; in short, don’t sign up for the courses.
4. Endless overtime
Even if you finish your work, the company atmosphere makes it impossible to leave early. You’ll also often be summoned to meetings just before the end of the workday. Overtime between 18:00 and 19:00 does not count, and each month you need to work more than 10–30 hours of overtime (depending on the person) to have a chance of receiving overtime pay.
5. Employee benefits and company trips
Whether it’s benefits or trips, these kinds of things are always brushed aside with all sorts of excuses. I’ve even heard that company trips weren’t held because the R&D department doesn’t like going out, and so on.
One more reminder: if you really decide to interview, make sure to read through the employment regulations. Don’t step on any landmines. I’ve seen young women explode here before—be careful.
1. High turnover and lots of young women, so there’s no pressure getting along
2. We get snacks to eat our fill every month when we worship
3. Colleagues clean the office every week, so it’s very clean
4. The office has a split-level layout with a high ceiling, so you can look up at the ceiling while working
5. You can conveniently take a bag of trash to the recycling center downstairs on your way home
6. Married-couple arguments are often performed in the office, serving as background music and giving you lots of motivation at work
7. You’re often summoned to a meeting one second before leaving work; once it’s over, you can go straight home—so happy
8. A happy company that complies with the Labor Standards Act; you can even come to the company on alternate Saturdays to see your colleagues—how wonderful
9. You still receive company messages after work, staying connected with the company every second of every minute
10. Join the boss’s little clique and ascend to heaven
Perfect—there’s always room for improvement
Pleasant relationships among colleagues and smooth communication between departments.
1. Working hours are 9:00–18:00, with a 1.5-hour lunch break. From September to January, employees are required to work a half day every other Saturday to make up working hours.
2. Overtime pay is not calculated unless overtime exceeds a certain number of hours; it generally starts being calculated after 10 hours of overtime.
3. The boss has poor emotional control and is unable to treat employees equally, which affects the atmosphere throughout the office.
4. Although the company has been established for 17 years, there are still no well-established SOPs from the beginning to the end of a project.
5. Cliques form within the company.
6. Despite being an internet technology company, the company prohibits employees from using cloud-based documents to communicate with the boss.
7. The average age of the company’s employees is relatively low, and most are recent graduates or newcomers to the workforce.
The RD supervisor has strong technical skills and communicates well.
There is an endless list of issues...
The salary level is very low, especially for the information technology industry in northern Taiwan.
The base salary is NT$26,000+, plus miscellaneous items such as 10 hours of overtime pay (meaning that at least 10 hours of overtime per month are expected),
perfect-attendance bonuses, quarterly bonuses, transportation allowances, and so on, bringing the total to approximately NT$30,000+.
However, aside from the base salary, the other items are not necessarily paid out; it depends on the CEO's discretion.
The internal technology is outdated, and project management still uses Excel spreadsheets.
Departments other than RD face very high resistance when introducing information tools.
Project schedules are rushed, and the supervisors responsible for taking on projects rarely assess human-resource constraints when accepting them,
resulting in an extremely high employee turnover rate.
Employees clock in when arriving at work, but after work the system operates under a responsibility-based arrangement. Overtime is paid separately; although employees also clock out, they still have to submit a form and report the overtime in order to receive payment.