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 guidelinesFlexible working hours
Can train your temper and patience
Being able to hold back from rolling your eyes at how much you want to do so when dealing with colleagues
1. There is no clock-in system, so working hours are based on subjective judgment. Being late is no problem, but the end of overtime is nowhere in sight. Basically, you only get off work after completing the day’s assigned progress.
2. There is no overtime pay. Colleagues and supervisors will tell you that the company operates under a responsibility-based system. Since there is no clock-in system, no one knows how long you work overtime, and if you report it, you cannot prove that you worked overtime.
3. There are no project bonuses. No matter how hard you work like a dog, your salary is still laughably low—and you still work overtime every day.
4. There are peak and off-peak seasons. During peak season, you work so much overtime that you forget who you are, where you are, and what you are doing. During the off-season, there is nothing to do, and the supervisor says you can leave early. But then you leave 2 or 3 minutes early—hello? I need to exchange the dozens of hours of peak-season overtime for just a few minutes of leaving early in the off-season? Do you think I can’t do the math? And there is still no overtime pay.
5. Projects get passed around. For example, designer XX is supposed to discuss something with a client today, but XX is on leave, so designer OO handles the discussion instead. After the discussion, the project becomes OO’s. Sometimes the business staff do not notify you in advance, so you have to check the progress chart yourself to find out that you suddenly have someone else’s half-finished project on your hands. ^^
6. During peak season, there are an absurd number of projects, and you work “unpaid” overtime almost every day. The business staff and supervisors do not consider staffing levels or whether the workload is manageable. They just keep accepting projects until everything is overflowing and expect the designers to work overtime and finish them.
7. The supervisor does not act like a supervisor. They are very proactive when pushing for progress, but slow to reply to work-related messages, sometimes even reading them without responding. They also do not know how to protect employees. For example, the rule says clients have only two opportunities to request minor revisions, but clients are repeatedly allowed unlimited revisions, causing the designers’ schedules to be delayed.
8. Employee benefits are watered down. During the interview, they said there would be a monthly employee dinner and gifts for the three major holidays. After joining, the employee dinner became eating cake at the office, along with food delivery. Maybe I had simply imagined something too good. You have to ask the supervisor about the three-holiday gifts yourself because the supervisor forgot—or still does not dare to remember.
9. There is a hidden boss behind the scenes who has never shown up. The supervisor gets in touch very quickly when they want to fire someone, but when you ask about the three-holiday gifts, the response is: “Ask the boss again at the end of the month.” I have no idea how this company operates.
10. Work responsibilities are vaguely assigned. Designers have to take on business-related tasks, such as chasing clients for materials and sending files to clients for checking.
11. The turnover rate is extremely high; roughly one batch of people leaves every year.
On the surface, the colleagues all seem very friendly, but after spending more time with them, they are genuinely unpleasant. They keep forcing conversations and showing concern for you, then dump a bunch of work on you. When you first join, they all say, “You can ask me anything if you have a problem.” But when you actually ask, they immediately ignore you and turn to someone else, saying, “XX, you answer this question for them.” It feels extremely uncomfortable and rude.
They pretend to have your best interests at heart, saying that you should try to save time when making designs and not spend too much effort. But after you finish the work, they make hindsight criticisms that it is not refined enough, even though their own abilities are not particularly good—they ask questions like how to export a PDF from InDesign.
There is also a designer who considers themselves very senior and keeps coming over to ask how your work is going. If you really need someone to constantly check on you, you can come work here. Their manner of speaking is often self-important and rude.
The salary is calculated arbitrarily. When laying off employees, the supervisor calculates severance pay quickly and precisely. But when a full-time employee resigns, the supervisor selectively acts as if they have lost their intelligence and calculates the departing employee’s salary however they want. Although the employee is paid on a monthly salary basis, their final pay is calculated using a daily wage. Only when the employee raises questions do they pretend nothing happened. Was it intentional or unintentional?
That is basically it. The company has little to no prospects. There are many ways to waste your life; you can make a better choice.
Enjoyable relationships with coworkers
1 The company forces employees to work overtime but has never paid overtime compensation. (The interview did not mention mandatory unpaid overtime; after starting work, it became a system of required overtime, with unpaid overtime every day.)
2 The company places great emphasis on the mandatory overtime system. If a product has problems, employees may be required to pay and bear the costs themselves. (When employees are covered by labor insurance, they must not be made to pay compensation.)
3 There is no time clock to document working hours, and everything is based entirely on subjective judgment. (In other words, there is also no relevant evidence of overtime, which appears to leave room for loopholes.)
4 Part-time employees may be laid off at any time. During the interview, the company mentioned that the industry has busy and slow seasons, so part-time applicants considering this company must be prepared to leave at any time.
5 When facing the pandemic, management's attitude was extremely passive.
(Employees asked management to provide documentation for unpaid leave. For personal reasons, management forcibly changed the mutually agreed-upon unpaid-leave arrangement to termination through involuntary dismissal.)
Summary: This job may seem decent, but it actually involves many matters related to and in violation of labor laws. Working here is genuinely not bad, but management's inability to properly handle personnel management and communication has resulted in employees having relevant concerns without being able to properly provide evidence. If you are considering applying for this job, you may first need to assess whether your own circumstances allow you to tolerate such things happening.