Pros
I would say the pro here is money. It is a fancy sweatshop located in the central area of Hanoi, in a nice building with nice view. The salary is higher than other equally challenging job. We get cars coming driving us back and forth and food for employees. The best part was that there were some amazing colleagues who you can learn from and can never forget.
Kontras
Lured by all the material benefits, the nice view of the building, along with my passion for technology, I said yes to the job without much hesitation. It was fishy in the beginning, as HR made me sign a contract with only one front page, and said it was merely procedure. I did not care much because I was overexcited about the short commute from home to office as well as the opportunity to learn more technical stuff. I signed the contract anyway but it was a bad decision. Turned out the working hours were not as mentioned in contracts. They never mentioned about working on weekends, but we ended having to work on weekends as an obligation. The salary range was wide, it was entirely negotiation based with no fixed range as mentioned hastily over the phone by HR. Turned out there were those who worked harder and had more skills that got lower payment. There were employees who spoke up about that and the main one who had the loudest voice was fired, even though he had the best technical background and could speak three languages fluently, which was the main skill set required for the position. Afterwards, the country manager gathered everyone and said those who don't comply with company's DNA should meet him individually. After a while, three others who ever dared to speak up against management obtained leave passes. I personally was fired, one because I was not a conformist due to my past working for a tech start-up headquartered in San Francisco, with people from Silicon Valley coming in and out of our office wearing sneakers and jeans. Bureaucracy was not in my vocabulary, thus I spoke up when things were not right, and was not a good candidate for the system. I, however, was inspired by the work itself, from which I could learn technical aspects of the job. I was one of the best performers, carrying large workload. I was promoted early due to my good written communication skill, thus was in charge of reviewing other people's work. I worked hard and at one point, had to face serious health issue including internal bleeding of my gastrointestinal system. I had to take time off to heal and could not go to work until I could fully heal, because of site regulation of not bringing food into the working area (which we did not know before signing the contract). I can work under pressure and high workload, but because I could not have snacks and usually skipped meals, I faced these issues. I understood the pressure of an outsourcing call center, but I could not sacrifice my health anymore. The last meeting with one team manager was another moment of disillusionment for me. He said for the company, employees' health and well-being are not important, it's operations over health. And it does not matter how much I have contributed for the company, or how good I was at the job, if I had to take healing periods, I'm out. Operations was said to be affected, but the truth is it was not, since the number of employees has almost doubled, and I have carried much more workload beforehand. I'm not an irresponsible person and I did work when I had health issue, even when my tummy was in pain, and only asked for leave when there were people to cover for me. I, nevertheless, was fired. If I were a bit more obedient, I would have been promoted to SME, as the site manager proposed before I started voicing my thoughts, I was suggested to be shift lead and QA trainer as well. I also had very good feedbacks from clients. There were other office politics as well. There were people who knew how to get ahead and people who don't. Promotion might not be entirely merit based. Some are very accurate, some are just nonsensical. I do wonder if it is my fault to be critical, to be unhealthy. I wish I could be nicer and more tolerant towards bureaucracy, office politics, and absurdity. I wish I could stay stoic to withstand this harsh working environment. All in all, it's a competitive world, and those who can cope with bullshits, even with entry level jobs, are the ones who prosper.
