I would give you 10 likes if I could
Indeed, the 7-11 workers here are on another level. I don’t even know how they manage the amount plates they have to spin.
But I would choose an air conditioned 7-11 over working in the local Yonghe soy milk breakfast place in summer.
5 Likes
That’s because in Taiwan to get highly paid jobs you must pass exams. Exams that tests knowledge in irrelevant things. Nothing to do with intelligence or capability.
And maybe people work at 7-11 because it’s not too hard of a work, and it still pays minimum wage.
In Taiwan there are a lot of barriers for those highly skilled jobs.
I reckon a lot of people have inheritances lined up, but just work these jobs to keep someone happy they are doing something. Especially if they are male. “Face working”. Another term I just made up right now by the way.
2 Likes
Anyone with parents who bought a house before they were born is pretty much set for life until the housing bubble inevitably bursts. That might be tomorrow but it might not be for a few more decades
2 Likes
Is a damn good thing I don’t have a wife!
Come on TL. I know three business-owner women on this board, several single guy business owners too, and I don’t know many people.
8 Likes
I’m not sure a lot of Taiwanese have huge inheritance lined up.
But if you aren’t one of those, and say you graduated college in some random field, what job would you get?
Work in an office with uncertain work hours (means you work overtime whenever the boss feels like it) and get paid maybe 30k.
Or work at 7-11 where you’re paid hourly and have a set working hour, and if the boss told you to work more you’d get paid more. And you have little to no responsibilities. You’re paid more or less the same, if not a few thousand nt more.
I think the choice is pretty clear…
2 Likes
Yeah, all the foreigners I know who run their own companies (founders), are single women. Now, that’s five women in total, but it’s still all of them 
2 Likes
And more and more 7-11 (and Family) it seems open every week (here) that are bigger and more complex. That being said, as mentioned air-con, and you can see people and not have to think too much as the systems in place so most staff just follow directions (there are a still a few that can do not that or read well). Starbucks also has staff mostly with degrees (now I ask what did they study instead of are they a student) and they work there as very loyal and hard working and have meetings like a church (what I call there meetings as my friend would go team meetings)
3 Likes
You get paid based on your replaceability.
You don’t get paid based on ‘hard work’
When you make yourself irreplaceable, you make yourself untouchable.
6 Likes
Join, a Union, be active in it and encourage others to join too.
There is no union in Taiwan.
There are 20 million others who will replace you anyways, so how are unions going to fix things?
Starbucks TW only hires college students as interns. Full time staff are required to have a college degree. No college degree = no job at Starbucks for you
Edit: source: friends I have who work at Starbucks here
6 Likes
Gotta start somewhere. If you don’t have a Union in your field or country, the IWW is the place to go for you.
There’s a lot of crusty old industries ripe for disruption. Government could do a lot to enable that, with some proactive policy making. A new generation digital/online bank would rattle some cages!
1 Like
If I could be devil’s advocate, I hope that doesn’t happen. I like the privacy of cash. Some digital if optional is OK. I’d prefer not doing it China style making digital everything.
To quote oldversion.com
Newer is not always better.
1 Like
In Taiwan…That’s very debatable .
And eventually we are all replaceable.
The question is…When you become replaceable…Does that mean you should be replaced or your pay cut ir fired before your pension kicks in etc ?
We need to go back to core ethics and values a bit.
And yes these issues definitely exist everywhere…But I’ve seen a lot of very poor treatment of workers here mostly because of the number of SMEs and stubborn, unprofessional and asshole bosses and a cut throat friend one minute , enemy the next biz culture.
2 Likes
That’s very interesting and also to me, stupid.
But they have a right to set their qualifications threshold especially if college students want to work for them.
1 Like
If they do enough runs a day.