元璽精密工業有限公司

I worked there for 2 years and 8 months and have since resigned. The job was basically that of a general laborer: whenever the boss called, you had to be available immediately. The boss was extremely suspicious and often forgot things. If you talked back, he would say, “I’ve seen too many people like you.” He would accuse employees of stealing raw materials and present things he had not witnessed as if they were true. When he knew which employee had made a mistake, he would deliberately shift the blame to other employees. The boss was very fond of overtime. Because work could not be completed, employees would supposedly take advantage of overtime pay. A normal eight-hour workload was deliberately handled through overtime, with two hours of overtime and sometimes work extending past 10 p.m. He would provide boxed meals, which happened to give people with ulterior motives an excuse to work overtime, and then hold meetings to criticize employees for working overtime recklessly and creating costs for the company.

The system for distributing individual performance-management bonuses and benefits was actually based on the moods of the boss and the boss’s wife. A year has 12 months, but if you ever refused to work overtime, he would remove your year-end bonus for the entire year. He would use your failure to cooperate with overtime as the reason to eliminate your year-end bonus, and then say, “The Labor Standards Act does not require me to give you a year-end bonus.” As long as he was unhappy, that was how it worked. If you worked overtime for 10 months of the year and did not work overtime for two months, he would hold a meeting to publicly shame you and have other employees criticize you, saying that you were not qualified to receive the so-called year-end bonus: “Everyone else is working overtime, but you are not—what gives you the right to receive it?” In other words, people who worked normal hours and did not covet the boxed meal or overtime pay were treated as inferior to those who took advantage of the meal and overtime pay. You helped him save money, yet he still treated you like garbage.

He would also alter payroll records—in other words, forge documents. Under the normal calculation, a full salary of 29,000 divided by 30 days, divided by 8 hours, multiplied by 1.33, comes to NT$160. However, the payslip I actually received showed 26,000 divided by 30 days, divided by 8 hours, multiplied by 1.33, resulting in NT$144. When I discovered that my overtime pay had been changed this way and asked the accountant, surnamed Huang, the answer was that Boss Zhu had decided it. When I could not accept this overtime-pay system, he again used it as a reason to say that I was not cooperating with overtime and canceled my year-end bonus. I had no choice but to leave. Only after leaving did I learn from the Bureau of Labor Insurance that the company had been underreporting my salary for nearly two years. Ironically, out of the eight people in the company, I was the only one whose salary was underreported. It was truly frustrating. The person who helped the company carry out this illegal salary underreporting was the accountant surnamed Huang—the very person the boss himself had brought into the company. Personal interests can truly change a person. Everything is stated in black and white, and every word is true. If this is accidentally seen and you believe I am spreading rumors or committing defamation, you may pursue legal responsibility. This is based on my personal experience.

The company is very skilled at using persuasive rhetoric. They will have you sign an employment contract, but read it carefully: what is written on paper is one thing, while reality is another.

There is a lot of scheming among coworkers, so beware of smiling tigers and do not stand in the way of other people’s financial interests.

I liked the boss when he was starting the business with no money and was a good person, but once he made money, he became a bad person. He kept criticizing employees for what they did wrong, yet forgot that he was the one who opened the company’s door and that employees had to go through interviews themselves.