He’s obviously talking about himself. It’s his personal experience. He’s not stating as an empirical fact the 90% of Taiwan companies are bullshit. He’s just saying, yeah, that figure looks about right.
I don’t think ten per cent is wrong especially if you consider most employers in Taiwan are SMEs and not large organizations, the exact opposite of the US actually.
Yes this is just my personal opinion .
.The thing is also encountered bullshit (in one case a real arsehole manager ) in foreign companies but
A) they paid me on time
B) they paid the full bonus to me due
C) I didn’t have to deal with local colleagues jealousy and backbiting
D) they paid better than Taiwanese companies for the same job
E) more generous holiday entitlement
Completely agree, and a point that I didn’t properly represent. Many complaints at work come from a lack of personal experience with how much work sucks at times. It’s just part of life.
My personal experience is that the movie Office Space represents 90% of every company I ever worked for in five countries around the world.
I didn’t even get any cake at my own birthday party last month.
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Yeah, this too.
Another serious red flag (and you’d think @Rocket would have learned by now, but they said the same thing about women), are cases where a current administration (or management concept) brings in an experienced outsider with “radical” or “outside the box” ideas and capabilities because the place needs a shaking up.
But then, over time (and I’m talking bout 6 or 8 years or even more), the pre-existing staff complement, who, of course, liked things much better the old way, start to grind management down*, and/or there’s a sea change in mangement itself, and the next thing you know, all those things that Management liked about you (and that motivated them to pay you relative shitloads of money and give you a sweetheart package), all those things that were advantages and attributes, you wake up one day, and they’ve all become liabilites and shortcomings, and are now fuel for complaints and general dissatisfaction.
*And never, EVER, make the mistake of assuming the Boss will EVER take your side against local staff, no matter how right you are and how fucked up they are, it just ain’t going to happen.
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teaching here seems not worse than in some states of US overall.
I’m quite satisfied with my current company. They are more flexible than my previous company in US.
Though what is good is very subjective, how many foreigners in Taiwan will find a good place to work by your definition in their home country or somewhere else? If they do, many of them with no tie may not be here.
I started working for a US branch of a Taiwanese company 12 years ago. I traveled here often and established myself as a trusted employee. Two years ago I moved to Taiwan at their request to run a particular department at their headquarters. It has been a wonderful experience and I have no regrets.
It’s a truly global organization based in the sports industry, two reasons that make it fun and perhaps out of the norm of the stereotypical Taiwan corporation. We have fun, spirited meetings and I always push the ones I manage to argue their point. Quite frankly, it’s a passionate group of designers and engineers and we have a blast.
I’m sure there’s a ton of negative experiences out there as well…but to answer the title thread - I can say that working for a Taiwanese company is not really that bad!
Nothing personal, but it’s pretty much been established, either directly or by mutual understanding, that this thread refers to the experiences of local hires only. Foreign hires are a completely separate paradigm, in basically all aspects.
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You should. It would be a best seller amongst forumosans.
Thanks for the praise …
I worked for a large profitable Taiwanese corporation for years. It sucked.
(1) 12 hours a day on mind-numbing churning that neither accomplishes any goal nor serves any purpose.
(2) passive aggressive behavior by coworkers
(3) bosses who think you are out for their job
(4) no chance of promotion once you get in because they want those to go to the “Taiwanese”
(5) when I got there I was able to take vacation, but two years in I just “was no longer allowed”
(6) management who likes to blame you for everything as the scapegoat because “you are the foreigner”
(7) management who doesn’t make decisions because they are scared and then blame lack of execution on everyone below them.
At some point I just had to go over management head and work report up to the CEO, etc. That worked to some extent. Got ahead, got things done, got raises, etc., but then once that got out, it was a free for all with all of the other managers gunning to sabotage everything I tried to do.
They were paying me 6-8 million when I left Taiwan. I had an offer to go back to a different company at 10 million back in February. I was contemplating it for a while, but then a better offer came up in Southern California. Would never wish working at a large multinational Taiwanese corporation on anyone. Truly hell. And I worked at what is considered the “most stressful company” in the US. That is paradise compared to this.
Same thing happened to me. It wasn’t clear in the contract, I said we had agreed it orally.
My manager said 'thats tough ’ and laughed in my face. I learned early on how it can go here.
Prick was selling cosmetics on TV within the year anyway . 
So I have recently met several young people who are studying/finished their studies in the same program I did. They are looking for jobs/internships. What a disaster!
The university has a job office, where companies can present their human resource needs. Well, some are not explicit or do not state they have no idea of the requirements to hire a furriner. And in theory as graduates should be easier.
Salaries are illegal, deplorable and bordering on laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that these people need a job. TBH people in my generation who stayed in Taiwan have satisfactory jobs, both salary and task wise. But the new fellows have it hard. We are talking 10 pathetic interviews, no cigar. For example, one pulled the old bait and switch and changed working conditions from salary to sales commission, from full time to part time and back to full with part time payment…sigh.
To make it worse, these are people who were working for transnational companies, big companies in their respective countries. They were making a bundle, treated with respect. They are not snooty never worked before local graduates.
And at least our university is on the ball and supporting the work search. They chew out the companies for their lack of professionalism. I know of at least one PhD at an allegedly more prestigious place who was also treated to the bait and switch by his PhD professor no less…So he is leaving to go back to work, instead of wasting 4 years of his life. I guess here they are used to guys hiding from military service in academia so they do not mind being left high and dry for years.
Yeah a massive Taiwanese multi billion electronics company wanted to hire me to one of the key managers in a new division. I even met with the CEO who personally approved the hire.
Of course when it came time to sign the contracts something else appeared from HR with about 40% of the salary shoved into sales performance. It wasn’t a hard core sales job either.
Screw them !
Is that happening in Taiwan?
What University is that?
What is happening?
What you described.
The university arrangements of illegal work.
No, no. You misunderstood. The university does not «arrange» for illegal work. They have an office where the companies bring their needs and they try to pair them with current students or graduates. That part is legal and OK. There are even incentives by the government to hire local graduates, both nationals or foreigners. But some of the companies change the terms/allege or really do not know how to hire foreigners. The students are frustrated by the bad experiences. And the low salaries overall. The university scolds the companies and takes them out of their files. Won’t be sending more students their way.
I do notice some stuff with Taiwanese business owners…
From hearing them talk they have almost zero passion in their chosen business or profession. In their eyes it’s a way to make money and nothing more. The neighbor who operates a CNC shop just doesn’t seem like someone who loves mechanical things or making stuff with CNC, he just sees it as a money making opportunity and he’d stop as soon as he thinks he made enough money. His dream job seems to be opening a tea shop and hiring people to do the work while he sits around watching TV all day. He also seem rather unimpressed with me making guitars because he thinks it’s too much work since you can’t just sit around letting CNC machines do all the work. I say if all we’re doing is buying machines and letting machines do all the work, then we’re all out of a job.
I can’t say my dream is opening tea shops because I’ve seen those guys work, and I know it’s very hard work with little rewards. I mean the way I sweat buckets standing waiting for my drink I can’t imagine people wearing uniforms, working 12 hours a day without any AC, and smile while they’re doing it. I don’t see how anyone would ever dream of doing that.
My dream is actually have a combined shop with CNC capability (it’s great for mass production) as well as manual machines, both machine shop tools and woodworking machines like band saw, table saw, etc… I am not looking to get rich doing it but I rather do that for 22k than work with some Taiwanese guy for slightly more and made to feel worse than leeches doing it.
Taiwanese bosses literally thinks they have the right to berate you because they hired you out of the kindness of their heart so you should be thankful they hired you and take any abuse they dish out.
Why do you think so many Taiwanese people own/operate their SME’s? It’s because Taiwanese bosses suck so people just rather be their own boss. Personally I rather have that than the situation that’s going on in the US where big businesses dominate the landscape and they pretty much control everyone’s lives. That and if you found yourself on the wrong side of their grace you are pretty much unemployable. Taiwan being dominated by SME’s actually maintains freedom more than anything. No big businesses dominating the market, and since the cost to start a business is so low, people can choose to say no to Taiwanese bosses if they want to.
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Oh, okay.
Now I got it.