艾爾卡科技有限公司

There is a covered shelter where you can park your scooter.

A Chinese-style system: it seems democratic, but is actually authoritarian. It looks like you have a choice, but do you really have one? They try to brainwash employees, and in the end, when things turn out this way, it’s not the company’s problem—it’s your fault, because you didn’t work hard enough!

The supervisors really like to make empty promises. For example, they say they will try to secure benefits for employees, but they can’t come up with even one concrete proposal. Everything is always “we’ll try to get it,” but the prerequisite is that you employees have to do your jobs well first! Aren’t there so many rules because you’re not doing things well?

So it circles back to the original brainwashing routine: everything is your own problem, it’s your fault, and you brought it on yourself. It feels like high-level emotional blackmail.

Also, it looks as though there are lots of standards and SOPs, but in reality it’s a complete mess, without even a basic ABC order. The company’s attitude is also quite heartless. For example, no matter how much blood, sweat, tears, and health you have sacrificed, once you’re no longer useful, or you take too many days off, you’ll simply be discarded without mercy.

The company’s priorities are also very strange. What do they care if the air conditioning isn’t cool and wearing a cleanroom suit is uncomfortable? “Not my problem—let’s all endure these difficult times together!” You’re prohibited from bringing a phone or watch, but they absolutely refuse to provide a clock, while still telling employees to “keep track of the time.” Seriously......

There aren’t even personal lockers. Where are you supposed to put your bag, water, and personal belongings? “Not my problem—can’t you find somewhere to put them yourself?” =口=

Finally, the pay is very low. Although it complies with regulations, it is the bare minimum of the lowest standard. Of course, though, you employees are expected to push yourselves to the absolute limit and devote yourselves completely to the company!

There’s air conditioning, and with each year getting hotter, at least you won’t die of heat. But it never really gets cool.

You can work there until you’re old, even until you die, which is why the middle-aged and older employees say things like “Jobs are really easy to find these days”—the kind of thing only someone who has never actually looked for a job would say.

A covertly exploitative company? That thought instantly popped into my head after I heard comments like, “So what if you work overtime? Are you going to complain to the Labor Bureau? It’s not like it’s all year round...” and “Those dispatched workers cost a lot per hour!”

Also, if someone tells you, “I’m telling you, you don’t usually have to work overtime—just come in and work overtime on Saturdays!” they are absolutely lying. Before Saturday even arrives, your supervisor will already have checked in on you. It’s only you who supposedly doesn’t work overtime regularly; there’s no such thing as us regularly working overtime. What’s more, the company only recognizes overtime forms, not clock-in records, so new employees were never told at the beginning that they had to fill out an overtime form to get overtime counted! What is this? Are you trying to save on overtime pay and get free labor?

No wonder they’re so short-staffed that they have to post recruitment notices outside, yet still can’t retain new hires—and they’re picky about whom they hire! They have no intention of training people up; they just want immediately effective workers. And, as expected of the boss’s wife, she certainly has the bearing of someone in charge: criticizing you to your face without the slightest politeness. She doesn’t care how the other person feels. The boss’s wife really is something else!

And the boss’s wife is a symbol of power! She fires anyone she dislikes. Who can possibly stay under a system like that? It’s not as if the company just opened yesterday, so how is it that even the middle-aged and older employees—the supposedly tough, durable workers—have only accumulated a few months of work experience at this company? (Although it’s also possible they’ll still be working at this company ten years from now.)

On top of that, there’s apparently such a thing as “responsibility-based overtime”!? They don’t pay overtime, claiming that everyone works too slowly, so we have to work overtime out of a sense of responsibility!? If I had been slacking off, I’d accept it, but after spending the whole day with a sore back and aching body, cooperating at every turn, this is what I get told?

Then what happened to what they said a few days ago—that this week’s progress was ahead of schedule? Ahead of schedule to where, the afterlife!? Even if they did calculate overtime pay correctly the previous few times, overtime pay is the most basic of basics—the bare minimum! Who knows whether this will happen again later? I’m here to work and earn money, not to volunteer for charity!

Finally, the supervisor even forgot to submit the overtime forms, resulting in no overtime pay being included in this month’s salary!? Fortunately, they said the overtime pay would be combined with next month’s payment. Otherwise, who would dare stay at a company that withholds wages like this!?

But every time, the supervisor only pays lip service, saying things like “I’m very sorry,” “Everyone has worked hard,” and “This is my responsibility.” But what comes of it? There’s no compensation whatsoever. It’s just their lips moving, with not a shred of weight behind their words—complete nonsense! Anyone can do that, so does that mean anyone can be a supervisor!?

Unbelievable! There are only around ten employees in total, yet five of them are supervisors! So it really is true that anyone can be a supervisor...

The colleagues are very nice, and the work atmosphere is good.

They don’t force you to work overtime.

This company does not have a comprehensive “new hire training” program. It seems to assume that you should already know what to do, including where to get the tools and how to use them. However, it may also be because they rarely have new hires, so they are unfamiliar with these procedures?

Moreover, their concept of time is extremely poor. They say one thing and do another: there is no clock, and no bell rings when it is time to take a break or get off work. And don’t expect to be compensated for extra time worked. It seems as though it is unacceptable for you to quibble over those ten or twenty minutes, yet they do not allow you to be even one or two minutes late.

Not only are you not allowed to be one or two minutes late, they even expect you to enter the production line twenty minutes early.

The staff have the same problem. Someone often shouts, “It’s break time,” but they continue with the work at hand, acting so naturally that it feels as if you were the only one who hallucinated hearing it. This also happens when there are only five to ten minutes left before the end of the workday, but the task in front of you still requires half an hour to finish.

As for overtime, the supervisors and staff behave so naturally that you may think it is not overtime but normal working hours. After overtime ends, the staff also create an atmosphere of reluctance and unwillingness to leave work, which leaves me extremely puzzled and makes me wonder whether they are robots incapable of feeling fatigue.

The environment is clean and bright.

There is air conditioning. Although I still sweat, at least it’s cooler inside than outside, no matter what.

The position in the department I was assigned to requires standing for long periods, which is really upsetting. I clearly said during the interview that I wasn’t very capable of standing for long periods, but the job was indeed originally like this, so all I can do is stand for as long as I can and hope there will be an opportunity to change positions later.

Also, for some reason, this company gives me a very incongruous feeling. It’s clearly a major company, yet it also feels somewhat unprofessional. Since it’s related to “R&D technology,” I don’t dare say too much—maybe it’s just my misconception? For example, there are no utensils or equipment for individual use; everything is shared. Hmm... I hope the previous user didn’t leave behind too much skin and sweat, and I also pray that no one has any skin-related diseases, right? However, a company would of course clean this kind of thing... right? But I don’t know how often it’s washed...

I was just quite shocked when I found a hairnet and gloves of unknown ownership and age in the shared clothing pocket. I got goosebumps all over for a moment.

Come to think of it, masks, gloves, hairnets, and shoe covers are all consumables, so why aren’t these items issued for individual use!? Is this kind of “making do” situation normal because everyone is treated equally, whether they’re new employees or permanent staff?

The above are all my personal thoughts, and what follows is also my imagination. They are absolutely not facts, and I have never had any of them confirmed. They are all things I imagined. (I’m just afraid of getting sued XD)

I feel like this company is like one that has just opened, but doesn’t know whether it can keep going for long. So as long as things can be made to work, that’s good enough. Maybe it will go out of business one day anyway, and wouldn’t it be a waste if the new things hadn’t been used up yet?

This company is also known as Mauritius Shengcai R&D Technology Co., Ltd., Taiwan Branch (this is the name listed on the 1111 job bank).

Located in Annan District; I was hired on the spot.

Since it is almost impossible to find any information about this company online, I decided to leave a record here.

As an aside, the interviewer said that the parent company is in mainland China and that Taiwan is a branch office. They specifically asked whether I could accept that, perhaps because they were concerned about political views?

As soon as I arrived, I saw a sign outside saying, “We are urgently hiring operators; please inquire inside.” I was then told that there had been another interviewee thirty minutes earlier, so I was asked to wait a moment. (I arrived about ten minutes early.)

After waiting for a short while, I was taken to a temporary prefabricated building for the interview. I could see the previous interviewee inside. While I was filling out the paperwork, the interviewee sitting across from me had already received a job offer and was asking about the medical examination.

This shows that the company really is short-staffed. I just don’t know whether employee turnover is very high or the workload has recently increased dramatically. In any case, since I was not asked to leave after that interviewee received the offer, I continued waiting for my interview.

Then, shortly after the interview began, the interviewer kept asking when I could start work. I answered that I could start anytime, so the interviewer happily hired me on the spot. I had to interrupt and ask about basic information such as working hours, the leave system, and overtime before the interviewer would tell me.

Everything—including the medical examination, whether there would be exposure to dust, and whether cleanroom clothing or antistatic clothing would be required—was information I had to ask about myself. In the end, I received a job offer that required preparing a lo~t of documents.

That was my interview experience. Overall, this is a company that is extremely eager to get people to start working. It is also the kind of job with routine overtime, working six days and taking one day off, and chasing overtime pay.

But it’s an operator position! What company isn’t like this?