艾美時尚國際有限公司

I got to meet foreign models and improve my English. Being able to arrange time off fairly easily is probably the only other advantage.

🖤As the senior colleague said, if you develop feelings for the foreign models, you’ll sympathize with them being charged unreasonable and excessive fees. The company’s main source of income isn’t projects at all, but the fees collected from the models...

🖤Before I joined, they said that my salary would be adjusted after three months. That never happened. When I complained to the boss, I was told that the company’s performance had not grown, so there would be no raise. What were they thinking? This was something they had promised from the beginning—otherwise, why would I have agreed to join? In the end, when we couldn’t reach an agreement, the boss lost their temper and fired me on the spot. They said my severance pay would be transferred the next day, but it still hasn’t been sent. The company has absolutely no integrity.

🖤No matter what your position is, you ultimately have to find clients yourself. The company has been operating for several years, yet it still has no complete system. Everyone is expected to do multiple jobs—how high are they expecting efficiency to be...? I was paid an administrative salary while doing sales work, treated like a general laborer. They demanded immediate results from marketing plans—where do they think such miracles come from? They insist on maintaining a lofty, high-end professional image, so where are the other customer segments? Only understanding vertical development is an outdated business model from the previous generation. How is the business supposed to grow this way? Are they going to keep using old contact lists and making phone calls?

🖤They ask employees to come up with marketing methods, but then reject one idea as unsuitable and another as unacceptable. If you don’t trust your employees, then please don’t hire anyone... Everything is constrained. This was the most torturous job I’ve ever had. They wouldn’t listen to opinions, yet claimed they wanted to communicate with employees. They had no understanding whatsoever of team management or online marketing. Toward the end, I had already given up on putting forward my own ideas—since they would all be rejected anyway, I simply followed their instructions obediently.

🖤What I found most unacceptable was the empty promises and going back on their word. Besides the promised salary adjustment mentioned above that never happened, they also told us that employees had received various amounts of money, but when I actually asked those employees, that wasn’t true at all. They also said that if the models didn’t make money, they wouldn’t charge them certain fees, so the company was losing money. I get along very well with the models, and when I asked them, their answers were not like that either. I sincerely hope this situation can improve in the future. Honesty is the foundation of doing business, and only then can a business prosper.

Originally, I thought that compared with my previous company, although my salary would be cut in half, I would be twice as happy. It looks like everything was cut in half, haha.

I strongly recommend that anyone considering joining this company insist on having all employment rights and benefits put in writing. When joining, make sure the salary is agreed upon and signed for, and file a complaint if anything seems unusual.

Finally, I sincerely hope this company can learn from its experience and continue to improve. Building a brand is not merely about maintaining the status quo and generating revenue. Managing employees and taking employees’ and models’ feelings and needs into consideration are the foundation of long-term development. After all, for a talent agency, people are also your capital. Otherwise, you will remain stuck in place. Keep going.

I originally wanted to say more, but I hope to end this job on a kind and pleasant note. 🙏

Only recommend it to friends in their thirties or forties and older who are looking for part-time work—and who have a mind of their own and know how to protect themselves.

I do not recommend making this your first job, because you do not know anything yet, and neither does the boss—and she will also pretend not to know.

An employee from 2019 says everything remains the same.

1. The boss has absolutely no idea what she is doing and only makes grand promises. When business is affected by employees leaving, she only panics and makes things worse; she does not understand employee management or work allocation.

2. She is unbelievably stingy in every aspect, yet charges the models excessively high fees (rent, residence permit application fees, model cards, and so on).

3. The boss is very difficult to respect, so her mother constantly tells employees not to form little cliques. As long as you chat casually with a colleague, the boss will say that you are not working seriously.

4. The food cooked by the boss’s mother is just as frightening. Besides being unappetizing, she has no understanding of food or nutrition at all.

5. Except for the accounting staff, every other position involves multiple duties. The ultimate goal of graphic design and social media management is to call and contact vendors, but the boss will not say this directly because she does not know it either. She expects employees to increase business solely through graphic design and social media management.

Her aesthetic sense is just as nonexistent as others have said. She does not know how to appreciate work or respect professionals; the photography team’s ideals mean nothing to her.

She has very little understanding of technology, like someone in their sixties. She does not know what a hashtag is or what shared traffic means. She shares models’ advertisements for major brands and then says that doing so will cause the traffic to be divided. Ignorance is truly frightening.

6. The items in the company’s wardrobe room are either clothes the boss no longer wants or clothes discarded by models and picked back up. If you get the chance to interview there, take a good look at the boss’s taste in clothing. She always makes models wear heavy makeup—then even heavier makeup—while she herself goes bare-faced all year and wears plaid shirts.

7. Because she does not want to spend a lot of money hiring good models, there are often amateur models aged 16 or 17. Amateur models are not very good at applying makeup, and some do not even have cosmetics or attractive clothes (the company often takes low-paying jobs that require models to provide their own clothing). The company could clearly set requirements and enforce them, but it always pretends not to know and does not manage them.

8. The models’ dormitory is like a slum. The boss always chooses models who are unsuitable for the Taiwan market, then complains that employees are not working hard enough to find jobs. The models have no work and live in terrible places; every one of them says they do not want to come back.

9. When you suggest ways to improve the company, the boss only says, “We’ve never done things that way before,” and then says, “If you care and are passionate, you’ll think of better ways.”

Please, really, don’t let us meet again—words from former employees and past models

Dear job seekers,

This company is not entirely an option that should be ruled out, but interns, please do not come here. Even though you are paid by the hour, the work is still treated as if it were a responsibility-based position.

I previously held the internship position.

The company does indeed offer opportunities to meet many foreign models,

and being able to become friends with models from different countries is a very enjoyable experience.

Because of this job, I made friends with foreign models, and it changed the way I look at many things.

If you are a full-time employee, communicating with clients and handling related tasks can also be a very good job.

However, all work should be built on a good system.

Even if the system is not perfect, there should at least be one.

But our dear Amy Fashion

has absolutely no system whatsoever,

which is truly regrettable.

First, I will talk about my personal experience, and then we can discuss the company’s problems more broadly.

My job duties involved taking models to auditions and finding clients for the company by phone and online.

Note: They did not include negotiating business deals or discussing performance targets.

On the day of the interview, I could not find the location because it was on the fifth floor of an alleyway building with no doorbell.

Why did the doorbell only go up to the fourth floor?

You can imagine.

The boss was therefore preparing to move to a new office, which I will mention later.

That day, the accountant, who had to handle all kinds of miscellaneous tasks, came to receive me first. Then I was interviewed by the boss, and afterward I was asked to come back for a second interview with the boss’s mother, who was presumably the majority shareholder.

During my first interview with the boss, I already felt that something was strange. She faced me and spoke with me, yet at times seemed absent-minded. It was as if she wanted to get on familiar terms with me, but her attitude was also mixed with a dismissive air. Either way, it did not resemble the attitude one would expect from a supervisor, let alone a boss.

I later learned that this was simply her personality.

On my first day at work, I merely sat at my desk.

The boss gave me the company’s official websites and social-media accounts, as well as the shared email account.

She also gave me a client list that was more than 80 percent outdated. Even the addresses on it still referred to “Taipei County.”

The company had only been established for a little over two years.

The list had never been updated; more than half of the numbers were disconnected.

The rest were wrong numbers, contacts who had changed, or otherwise ancient information.

I was told to call every number on the list.

Next, I was told to send a large number of standardized, spam-like Facebook messages to every photographer, stylist, and others whom we could connect with.

Auditions were arranged entirely without warning. Full-time employees were normally sent out, but depending on the boss’s mood that day, I would be assigned to go to auditions.

I could accept all of the above, but the later Photoshop work was also extremely outrageous.

Sometimes photographers’ unedited files were simply handed to me with instructions to retouch them professionally—professionally.

🔴 Problems with the company’s client list

When I was calling the client list, another colleague in the office was calling the exact same list, and the boss herself was calling it too.

The difference was that my copy was especially old; everyone else had their own version on their computers that they had updated themselves.

Everyone was frantically calling the same numbers. Companies had to answer three calls a day from three different people at our company.

When I asked the boss about it, she said it did not matter if other people found it annoying; I was calling because I wanted to obtain the information myself.

Even though we were all from the same company, information was not shared at all. Everyone held onto their own list and called it obsessively, without developing new clients or caring about the clients’ feelings.

One colleague would even repeatedly call cooperating clients to confirm one thing after another, splitting matters that could have been resolved in a single call into multiple calls just to look busy.

🔴 Office location and environment

The rooftop addition was extremely hot, yet the air conditioning was not turned on. When Taipei experienced several days with temperatures in the 30s Celsius and perceived temperatures in the 40s, we were all sitting inside an oven.

I did not complain about having to climb to the fifth floor.

But the boss would always assign me without warning to go out for auditions or client meetings.

As someone representing the company and taking models out, I would put on a polite, presentable makeup look, but because the office had no air conditioning, it would all melt in the stuffiness. I would then go to auditions covered in sweat.

The models were also unable to turn on the air conditioning at night, even when unbearably hot, and had to sleep covered in sweat with only a fan blowing.

The next day, some would become ill, others would look unwell, and their skin would be in terrible condition. They could only try to manage it by exercising intensely at the gym and maintaining a balanced diet.

The office location was quite unsuitable, and the boss naturally knew that staying there would not be feasible if the company wanted to expand.

So she spent money buying the second floor on a nearby corner. After construction work, she had the walls opened up and hired an interior designer.

She told us that the company had never made any money, but the boss’s own brother let slip that the company had been profitable for a long time and was finally moving to a more respectable office.

🔴 Model management

As someone in another review mentioned, the boss charged the models a high daily rent of NT$600–700, but the models’ actual living space was extremely small and had no living room. The models could only chat with one another in the tiny hallway.

She even refused to let them turn on the air conditioning!

The boss kept giving the models motivational speeches, saying that the air conditioning would be turned on in June. May also involved many extremely hot, sleepless nights.

When you start working there, the boss and her most loyal employee will constantly brainwash you, saying that the models are young and very willful, especially the female models, who always make unreasonable demands. They will tell you many exaggerated stories, giving you a preconceived bias toward the models’ requests.

When a model became sick with a high fever because the air conditioning was not turned on and she had to sweat while relying on a fan, the boss’s response was actually to criticize her for not taking her work seriously. This model was clearly very dedicated and went straight to Taichung for work the day after falling ill.

The apartment was also nearly a ten-minute walk from Dingxi MRT Station. After work, we would close the kitchen, and the models were not provided with access to it at night or on holidays.

The models paid an extremely high monthly taxi allowance, which could only be used for taxis to auditions. It did not cover transportation to their jobs. They even had to absorb the cost themselves when they were required to arrive at Taipei Bus Station at four or five in the morning. They were given only NT$2,800 per week in spending money.

If you developed some affection for the models and felt these things were unfair, it would probably be impossible to stay in this job for long.

🔴 The boss’s aesthetic preferences and employee competition

I have to say that the boss’s aesthetic judgment is genuinely quite problematic.

If you are interested, you can look through the fan page’s past posts and examine all the model cards.

Every Facebook post had to be reviewed by the boss. She would nitpick the photographs taken by photographers. If a photograph had artistic lighting and shadows, she would say, “It’s too dark; you can’t see her face. Are there any other photos?”

She showed no respect for professional expertise and acted as if everything could be handled without any budget whatsoever.

For a job worth more than NT$10,000, she was unwilling even to pay NT$159 for athletic shorts as part of the wardrobe, insisting that she had a pair of athletic shorts at home that the model could wear. Why had she not said so earlier? In any case, those shorts became the company’s property.

The Russian model was so thin that she probably could not fit into shorts designed for your body type.

After dismissing a full-time colleague, the boss began aggressively demanding that I bring in signed contracts, telling me to set a goal of achieving tens of thousands in monthly sales.

After I reached twice the target, the promised bonus was treated as if it had never existed. She repeatedly said that I had misunderstood and that there was no such thing as a bonus.

She cultivated a colleague whose specialty was taking the last piece of the credit. The sales results we had been promised would be taken away; even if you were a full-time employee, the clients you contacted would be aggressively called by this colleague and taken over.

But don’t worry—you do not need to report it to the boss. She will tell you that clients were taken away because your abilities were insufficient and that you need to build up your skills. When the company makes money, everyone makes money.

The same person listed eight drawbacks above. Thinking about it, that felt a bit too harsh, so I tried hard to remember the advantages.

Basically, taking time off was relatively easy to negotiate, though it may also have been because almost all the employees had left at the time, so they had no choice but to soften their attitude.

Although if you take sick leave, the female boss gets a little annoyed, as if you chose to get sick voluntarily = =

If you want to work here, you really must be very willing to stand up for your rights; otherwise, you’ll just keep being taken advantage of.

None.

Of course, they made it sound very good during the interview, but after I joined, it was completely different.

1. The bosses are a mother and daughter. The daughter apparently couldn't stand her supervisor at another modeling agency, so she decided to start her own company, but clearly she isn't any better as a boss herself. They are both extremely concerned with saving face (this is true—during a meeting, they even said that the most important thing for a modeling agent is to maintain a good image in front of the models, huh? = =). Whenever they do something wrong, they blame it on someone else and never admit their mistakes or reflect on themselves. They don't have the sense of responsibility expected of bosses, yet they love putting on airs like bosses, constantly ordering people around and dumping responsibility on others. I guess, to them, being the boss means standing in front of everyone, angrily barking orders and scolding people. Do they think that acting this way will make everyone think they are so fierce and impressive and then respect them? = =

2. During the interview, they made the job sound very easy and straightforward, saying there would only be a few things to do and that they would teach me everything. They also said that although the pay wasn't much, I would be able to learn a lot. But after I actually started, they kept throwing inexplicable troublesome tasks at me. Whenever I asked how to do something, they would put on a superior attitude and tell me to figure it out myself.

3. When I started, they did not enroll me in labor and health insurance on my first day. When it was time to enroll me, the boss (the mother) kept trying to deceive me into being insured based on a salary lower than my actual salary. She kept saying, “The government is so awful. If you insure based on your actual salary, more money will be deducted from your pay too” = =. There were also two colleagues who joined after me, and they were not enrolled until a full month later.

4. Even though the boss (the daughter) is already a boss herself, she acts like a little girl, gossiping about or mocking employees with other staff members.

5. They treat the models terribly, completely using them as money-making tools. The dormitories are poor and cramped. At their most crowded, three people are squeezed into a tiny room of less than ten ping, and some rooms even have broken door locks. In the summer, to save money, they do not let the models use the air conditioning and even secretly unplug their power cords. After the models discovered this and plugged them back in, the bosses actually cut off their power again and taped the electrical panel shut so they could not open it = =

6. The actual office where we worked was not at the company's registered address; it was an illegally added rooftop structure. They also refused to let employees use the air conditioning in order to save money.

7. Employee dinners often consisted of the boss (the mother) cooking things that were not particularly tasty, and she would keep insisting that the models show their support as well. If the models did not want to eat, she would stand there complaining = = (The models are foreigners, and some of them are not accustomed to Taiwanese food. The women also need to maintain their figures, so of course they cannot eat carelessly.)

8. When I was about to resign, they even asked me whether I had learned anything. Learned what, exactly? I had painstakingly figured those things out myself and made phone calls to other organizations to ask until I finally got the answers. It wasn't something you taught me = =

Damn, I really can't think of anything...

I am a former employee, and everything written below is true:

This mother-and-daughter owner duo is incredibly stingy. They only make empty promises, and even the bonuses promised for meeting performance targets never materialize. They completely treat employees like general laborers! They make us do this and that without increasing our salaries! They claim they aren't making money, yet they clearly exploit the models, charging them over 10,000 a month for a lousy dormitory. In the summer, they don't even allow the models to turn on the air conditioning, and they don't turn on the air conditioning in the office either!

There are many more infuriating things, but I won't go into detail. Everyone, please be sure to choose your company carefully. I hope they will mend their ways and do better!