台灣番薯傳播事業股份有限公司

Considerate: The company provides toilet paper for wiping your butt.

Fun: You must listen to the company’s own broadcasts throughout working hours, including breaks (you are not allowed to turn them off). The company operates two types of media outlets at the same time.

Benevolent policy: Deductions for being late become part of the funds for employee gatherings, so if you are late, you can go eat your wages back.

Grateful: The head of this unit accidentally revealed that in thirteen years they had only issued Mid-Autumn Festival gift money twice. Knowing in advance about the boss’s Taiwan-style management practices is truly exemplary.

Energy conservation and carbon reduction: There is an indoor parking lot, but parking for employees at the basic level is not provided; only motorcycle spaces are available.

Time-conscious: Overtime is not encouraged. If you do not finish your tasks, that is your own problem.

Excellent equipment: The exterior looks grand, while the salary is so lean that it is extremely sexy.

High quality: They hope to recruit administrative and communications professionals with university degrees, so they can produce large quantities of sales advertisements in a short time. In addition, their administrative abilities must be exceptionally strong.

This only targets the unit that is both stingy and exploitative.

No comment on the other units.

This situation has persisted in the unit for many years. The secretary and company veterans are fully aware of it, so there is no need to waste energy communicating or expressing dissatisfaction. Simply consider your physical, mental, and spiritual condition when deciding whether to work here.

Also, during a meeting, the head of this unit once publicly stated that if working here caused someone to develop problems, he could introduce psychiatric resources that he personally considered good. If you feel unwell while holding this position, you can ask him directly for relevant information.

1

One of the company’s privileged insiders; this person is extremely strong-willed.

They like to blast air conditioning with the coolness of a department store, ignoring the fact that the vent is not above them, and even making personal attacks, asking whether someone is on postpartum confinement because they are physically weak.

They will tell you to speed up because there will be many ad hoc tasks to handle (?).

They are prone to becoming emotional at work. Any matters related to them must be completed according to their self-defined specifications; if a colleague says they have other tasks on hand, they will be reprimanded.

Any work this person does not want to do becomes someone else’s work. Their own work consists of supervising whether you finish within the deadline they demand.

They desperately want to produce programs but keep getting rejected. Therefore, if you graduated from a related department, or if the company says it will train you to produce programs, they will be extremely hostile toward you, demanding that you demonstrate your professional abilities while making you do even more miscellaneous tasks.

They will photograph people and upload the images to their own social media without the subjects’ consent. If they ask you to help photograph what they want to shoot, consider your own finances carefully so you do not end up facing a lawsuit—or unexpectedly appear on their social media without being informed.

2

This person appears very courteous and friendly in dealing with others, but likes investigating other people’s privacy. Their personal network of informants is distinctive. They especially like taking care of new employees, ensuring that the person does not know how they were ruined until the day they resign. When speaking with them, it is strongly recommended that you retain relevant audiovisual and written evidence. Do not take this lightly merely because you are new.

They like a certain rice-themed internet celebrity. In meetings, they have used the influencer’s articles to lecture colleagues and may have the power to transfer people between units. Their actual power exceeds that of the supervisor. They frequently assign work to other colleagues without authorization, causing them either to do unpaid work or to misunderstand that something need not be done and then be reprimanded.

At first, they may use the pretext of managing the company’s social media to ask for your private social-media accounts. They will then search into your daily life and turn it into conversation material with others; their storytelling ability is outstanding.

If you want to work here, under no circumstances interact with them—but that is extremely difficult in the same unit. Try not to eat lunch with them. Your image, as described by colleagues in other departments, will be completely different.

They can say things in front of others that are completely inconsistent with the facts simply because this person personally believes them. Because the unit head trusts them immensely, they once falsely accused another colleague of going out to buy breakfast after clocking in. They could even pretend in front of this person that they had not been the one spreading the story, then privately report it themselves, ultimately causing the supervisor to be publicly humiliated.

They fabricate many stories. They may occasionally apologize, but their method is “beat someone in the middle of the street, apologize in a back alley”: spread the story first, then say privately that they never expected it to turn out this way.

They also like privately messaging you to ask for help with their personal work, while telling other superiors that they completed it, displaying their extraordinary abilities.

The unit had originally tried to find someone to rotate into this employee’s duties. During the newcomer’s evaluation, they told the supervisor that the person was incompetent. When the newcomer learned and asked questions, they said the person was too nervous; when the newcomer offered opinions, they said the person was uncooperative.

The unit head follows this person’s every word to an unbelievable degree. During meetings, the two of them take turns speaking and echoing one another. It is recommended that you also retain audiovisual and other relevant evidence during meetings.

3

The head of this unit appears extremely ambitious and very busy. They will tell you that there is great potential for development here and that you can learn many skills—ones that are of no use outside.

Later, however, you will discover that talking with them can feel like going around in circles. As for what they are busy with, you will have to work here yourself to find out.

Opinions raised by subordinates and problems with internal company execution will be ignored. If they speak faster and faster while you understand less and less of what they are saying, it means they can no longer persuade you and can only raise their voice.

They contribute greatly to the company. They take on many special assignments and even tell their superiors that they can complete them within a certain timeframe, yet they do not dare ask the first two people to handle these assignments.

As a matter of course, after excluding those two people, they require others to complete additional tasks within their existing work schedules. If they are not completed, it is your personal problem.

They follow the informant employee’s every word and therefore often use their authority to make other colleagues—excluding the previous two—clean up the messes those two created themselves.

They most often say that everyone is one team and emphasize what they consider fairness. At such times, employee 2 will echo them from the side, but unfortunately they cannot win public support.

Taking annual leave depends on this supervisor’s mood. If they do not want you to take leave, there will be all sorts of absurd reasons. One group, multiple sets of rules—again excluding the first two senior employees.

Overall culture

Every system represents the extreme of Taiwan-style enterprises. They will require you to sign confidentiality and employment contracts but will not give you a copy to keep, so some incidents cannot conveniently be looked up online.

The big boss likes lecturing employees in group chats; imagine the wording yourself. They have no concept of working hours.

Senior employees remain in their comfort zone. When an employee who has been worked to the breaking point is about to escape, they start finding ways to pressure them into staying, until one day a genuinely naïve newcomer comes to put out the fire—an endless cycle.

People in the relevant field will be very disappointed and unable to accumulate the skills and work they expected, because graduates in the field already surpass the unit’s senior employees professionally. They will be asked to share their materials.

Coming here lets you serve as toilet paper and disposable chopsticks. It is extremely, extremely fulfilling: you can enjoy a life of the ultimate imbalance between salary and workload, while also having to retain as much evidence as possible of assigned work to protect yourself.

✅ Free meals

The company occasionally provides free group meals (part of the meal expenses comes from money collected from employees who are late). Of course, you also need a little bit of luck to happen to be employed during a period when a group meal takes place!

✅ A wide variety of skills

First, you need to be able to accept that the actual work content may differ from what was described when you applied, and you should enjoy learning new things. Then you can learn all sorts of miscellaneous tasks at this company and build up a wide variety of skills—an experience that is not easy to encounter in other workplaces!

✅ Full marks in stress tolerance 💯

As long as you can accept all kinds of criticism, whether reasonable or unreasonable, continue receiving work-related LINE messages after working hours, withstand an environment where more people means more conflict, and be prepared for your every word and action to possibly be distorted… even when you are in dire straits, if you can still stand firm, you will become invincible at handling stress! (You’ll be an invincible Iron Man :))

✅ Able to work independently

You will be responsible for a wide range of things, and many tasks have no SOP. You will have to take your own notes, figure things out for yourself, and try things through trial and error… After repeatedly fighting and losing these battles, you will gain the ability to handle things independently and become indestructibly capable!

✅ Expand your network and improve communication skills

Communicating about work with people from different departments not only lets you add many colleagues on LINE and expand your network, but also requires you to interact with all kinds of colleagues due to business needs. Through communicating tirelessly and doing everything possible to make the other person understand you, your endurance and communication skills will also improve!

✅ Develop adaptability

The media industry changes in an instant, and there are often new possibilities and changes. You must be able to accept sudden new assignments, understand priorities, carve out time from your originally scheduled work, and handle the new tasks. Regardless of whether the new assignment leads to anything afterward, the process will force you to draw out your own potential and complete it, thereby improving your adaptability!

✅ Exciting, novel, and full of challenges

Regardless of which department you are in, you may be invited or required to support filming (for example, by acting as a passerby). At the company, you may see celebrities from television and radio, as well as notable people from all walks of life. You can learn how to receive important guests (welcoming celebrities, making coffee, etc.) and how to interact with them. It is a challenging job. There are many uncertainties in this work, so every day at work is full of the unknown, excitement, and novelty!

It is not recommended that you express your personal ideas. Ideas or opinions you put forward are easily regarded as a failure to cooperate with the company’s operations, let alone whether they will be adopted :) Of course, you can also become more determined with every setback and work hard to fight for the right to express your opinions and exercise your rights. Then your coworkers will look at you differently! Just be prepared to become a lone wolf before you speak up :)

I can’t think of which drawback to mention first for the moment. In short, regardless of whether you have ability or competence, this department wants people who can fit into the company system and department culture and cooperate all the way. As long as you can accept and compromise on everything, this will be a company where you can work steadily until retirement :)

The last point: If you have your own ideas, sensitivity, empathy, and moral principles, it is recommended that you think twice before applying. This place may completely overturn your worldview!

Seeing how much everyone complains, maybe the place I work is different because it's a factory. It doesn't feel that bad to me—it's just that I feel a bit distant from my colleagues. I don't know whether it's them or me, haha.

Sometimes the work is pretty relaxed. It gets very busy and tiring around holidays, but it's still manageable. Maybe my previous work environment was so bad that I think this company is pretty good by comparison.

The factory has no air conditioning, so it gets very hot.

When I was applying before, I saw that the reviews on Tianyancha were terrifying. After thinking about it for a long time, I decided to give it a try anyway—and unexpectedly got an offer.

I’ve been working here for over a year now, and I think the company is actually pretty good, so I thought I’d write a review.

1. The company has many departments, spread across various floors. There are TVs in many places playing company programs, but they’re muted, so they don’t affect work. Some offices do play the programs with sound, but it’s never very loud.

2. The restrooms are quite nice, almost like those in a hotel. I was surprised the first time I came here.

3. People leave as soon as the workday ends. There’s no mandatory overtime. At six o’clock every day, everyone turns around, switches off the lights, and disappears.

4. The bonuses for the three major festivals are all NT$2,000. At the year-end party, you can play games to win cash prizes. Employees with more than five years of seniority can draw prizes of NT$200,000 or NT$300,000.

5. In my department, being one minute late results in a NT$2 deduction. The company doesn’t have an attendance bonus system, so there’s no disgusting perfect-attendance bonus. If you take personal leave, they only deduct that day’s pay. There’s a company dinner around August or September every year. I’ve heard that they use the money deducted from late employees to pay for it, but they usually go to buffets like Hi-Lai or other all-you-can-eat restaurants. If you’re one minute late every day for a full year, I guess you still come out pretty well ahead.

6. Typhoon days are paid holidays with no salary deduction! Love it ❤

7. There are courses available every year. This year, there are courses on AI, marketing, health education, customer service, and so on. You can learn new things while working, which is pretty great. You do have to write a reflection and explain how you’ll apply it to your work, though.

8. Motorcycles can be parked in the underground parking lot. After parking, there’s a clock-in machine where you can swipe in and out directly. (I’m not sure whether this counts as a benefit—it’s just that at my previous companies, I had to fight for a parking space on the roadside and then hurry to the company floor to clock in, qq. So I really like this. Cars seem to be restricted to hosts or managers, though.)

9. You occasionally get to see celebrities like Huang Hsi-tien or Chen Shui-bian.

10. There are sometimes food and snacks in the pantry that you can take.

11. Public holidays are observed, and the several new holidays added this year are also days off.

12. Managers like to fatten up the employees. From time to time, there’s Angel fried chicken, drinks, or cake. (It’s not very frequent, but there was a period after the year-end party and Lunar New Year when fried chicken was especially common.)

13. The company has cleaning staff, so you don’t have to sweep, mop, or take out the trash.

1. The year-end bonus seems to depend on performance. However, when you receive it, you have to thank the boss in person and wish them a Happy New Year.

2. There are no company trips.

3. There’s no birthday cash gift.

4. The uniform is a little ugly. It looks a lot like Father Hsi’s clothes, but you only have to wear it on Mondays. I’ve heard they’re planning to redesign it.

5. The office doesn’t provide toilet paper (but there is some in the restrooms, so you don’t need to worry).

6. Although the company is downtown, there aren’t any restaurants or convenience stores within an easy walking distance. You have to rely on delivery, bring your own lunch and microwave it, or ride somewhere to buy food.

7. The company’s political color leans toward RGB 0, 255, 0, but when the museum opened, I saw a flower basket from Director Han, so perhaps it’s not that extreme.

1. Endless learning.

2. No matter what work is thrown at you, you will be told that it is an opportunity for you to learn (but on the premise that no one will teach you—you have to figure it out yourself).

3. The supervisor’s ability to express and understand things is extraordinarily peculiar and illogical.

4. Problems in the department cannot be communicated; anything communicated will be distorted.

5. The employee cafeteria does not provide meals.

6. Sunlight is not allowed to enter the office. The curtains must remain closed all day, leaving the entire office pitch-black. Those who want to whiten their skin can give it a try.

7. The balcony corridor cannot be accessed and is fully locked. Even ventilation is not allowed; if a fire breaks out, fend for yourself.

8. The employee parking lot is only for motorcycles; employees cannot park cars.

9. Once you enter that company, you will suddenly find yourself in many more group chats. You can continue having learning opportunities even after work—24 hours a day, 365 days a year!

10. You can learn the very basic skills of making tea and coffee. Cups are required not to be at different heights, and you must kneel while serving them to guests.

1. There are three senior employees in the department. No matter what happens, it is never their responsibility. The department head and deputy department head cover for each other, and one of the others simply dumps everything on colleagues while only supervising them.

2. The deputy department head loves assigning all official business through private LINE messages. When something goes wrong, it is never her problem, because no one knows how she randomly assigned the work.

3. Every task is decided on a whim and demanded immediately, regardless of whether you know how to do it or whether you are busy.

4. Salaries do not increase, but the workload keeps growing! (The concept of more work for the same pay.) One person is used as five!

5. It is a group of companies with extremely strong family connections; having the right background makes all the difference.

6. It looks glamorous on the outside, but there are serious internal problems. The connections between people are very dark.

7. Extremely unfriendly.

8. A certain colleague with a baby-like voice especially loves to lie! The extent of the lying is unmatched, and every day they lie to harm colleagues.

9. The colleague with the baby-like voice puts on a daily performance of making sure everything they do is visible to management!

10. When someone voices an opinion during a department meeting, the supervisor summons them for a concerned talk, asking whether they are unwilling to cooperate or not proactive. The department head and deputy department head love whispering to each other off to the side, and the colleague suffers the consequences the next second.

11. You learn nothing; you only learn how to pass the buck and protect yourself.

12. They promise weekends off, but sometimes ask you to work overtime on holidays, and overtime does not comply with the Labor Standards Act.

13. A high turnover rate does not matter; they can simply hire more people. Employees who truly cause problems are not punished.

14. Extremely severe double standards!

15. There are unreasonable things almost every day—it just depends on whether you are optimistic enough.

16. Within just a few days of your joining the company, the deputy department head will ask for your private Facebook and LINE accounts and search for information about your personal life.

17. The deputy department head is very particular about being called “older sister.” Calling her “sis” will get you corrected.

18. The deputy department head once complained to a higher-level department over someone else’s joke. However, she was the one who interrupted and tried to joke with that person. All one can say is that this deputy department head is extremely sensitive, so you need to be careful when speaking with her.

19. During meetings, the deputy department head’s remarks sometimes even overshadow the department head’s. She also searches for posts on the Facebook page of a certain “Mr. Rice” and then performs them for colleagues word for word, as if reading from a script.