A story which a programmer fight in the court alone against a company, with a lawyer and a forged evidence.
In 2018, I decided to quit my job at Intel to join a newly startup company, Boostorder (parent company: Instanture, sister company: Mango Fintech) believing their promise and future potential. Before that, I do all my homework before joining the startup. The company have received a new funding from a multinational company, financial check. One of my friends recommend the director as trustable, leadership check. I even visited the company myself to understand their work and product, all check. Obviously, they promised a lot, but do they actually deliver them is another story.
October 2019
After many empty promises and disappointments, I decided to resign and submitted my resign email on 10th October. The director, Chuah Teong Kee and I have a small, heated exchange when he known that I had resigned. In the end, we verbally agreed that if the company still need my assistance on my final week in the company, I will continue to work at the office and company will cash out my remaining annual leave if it happens.
December 2019
After discussion with my direct manager, he determined that my assistance was not needed in the final week. So, I applied my annual leave on 1st December as planned and did not went to the office from 2nd to 6th December. This is where the horror story start.
At the end of December, I found out that I did not receive my remaining salary and some of my parking expanses. I sent two reminder emails to the director on 24th and 30th December. No reply from both emails.
January 2020
On 7th January, I sent a Whatsapp message to the director to remind him about the email and salary. Read but no reply.
On 13th January, I message my direct manager and another director in the company and explain to them what had happened. My direct manager replied that he already informed the director, but no reason is given, and no action is taken. While the other director in the company, Khoo Ta Kang refuse to help me citing that he is powerless against another director and do not want to get involved in this.
On 17th January, I went to office personally to seek a valid reason. The director refused to speak with me and told me that he will call police to get me arrested for trespassing private property if I did not leave the office immediately. I leave the office immediately.
February 2020
With advice from friend, I filed a small claim against the director of the company at Balik Pulau Court on 24th February. I naively though the company will just pay me back after they got the court letter. I was dead wrong.
Side note: Why small claim? Because it does not require a lawyer representation. Why not seek help from Department of Labour of Peninsular Malaysia? I tried but they cannot help me due to some law that written in year 1955 and did not get updated ever since.
No reply from the company after they received the court document. On 28th February, the director shows up with a lawyer in the court proceeding. Surprise! They claim that they refused to pay my salary because I did not apply my annual leave on time as written in the employee handbook: “All annual leave must be applied one week before”. I checked the employee handbook; this rule does not exist. They also claim that I did not submit my parking expanses, which I did, and I can easily prove them. Then I realized that this is not going to end without a fight, and they are not going to play fairly.
Side note: The small claim should be file against the company instead of the director because it is company that own my salary, not the director personally. This is corrected by the judge on the proceeding.
March 2020 – February 2021
MCO 1.0 and 2.0 hit. Court close and case get delayed multiple times. Still, I must go to court personally multiple times, sit in the court room waiting to get a new date and time for each time the case gets delayed. Unlike the lawyer, I do not get pay for this.
April 2021
Court hearing finally happen on 22nd April. Unsurprisingly, the director and lawyer show up in court hearing with a “updated”employee handbook which contain the new rule: “All annual leave must be applied one week before”. Surprise, surprise. Luckily, I have the old employee handbook and debunked their claim. I also have all my parking expanses digital report to backup. Their defends is down from “This employee break our company’s rule when he applied annual leave less than 1 week as required” to “The 1-week rule is not really relevant, it is unreasonable to approve leave on Sunday because it is hard to find a replacement”. Nice U-turn, Mr. Lawyer. I never know software engineer / developer need a replacement when they are on leave. Also, startup company don’t work on Sunday you say?
I also pointed that if the company honestly think that I broke the company’s rule or policy and refused to pay my remaining salary, they have plenty of opportunity to tell me when I email or message them to remind them about the salary. Instead, they refused to speak with me or reply any of my email and message and even threaten me to get me arrest when I meet them in person. This is simply just a retaliation against me for leaving the company.
Side note: If anyone who know about civil court’s process, all party must perform document filing and exchange document between parties before court hearing. I did my document filing and waited for them to exchange document with me. Technically I should know if they have submitted the “updated” employee handbook as evidence before the court hearing, but their lawyer told the judge that he does not know the process thus did not do the document filing before court hearing.
I going to skip the rest of the court hearing details because a programmer arguing with a lawyer in court is not as interesting as you can imagine.
May 2021
On 6th May, the court finally ruled that the company must pay back my remaining salary. Before I manage to get the court ruling document done, MCO 3.0 hit follow by FMCO. Although the court still open during this time, to avoid unnecessary trouble and reduce non-essential travel, I opt to wait until the MCO lifted.
On 10th May, I received a mail from defendant’s lawyer informing me that Boostorder has already made the payment as order by the court on 7th May, which the company own me a year and half ago. Thank you very much?
October 2021
FMCO become Recovery Plan and it never end. Finally I get my 2 shot of vaccinations, and able to safety travel a cross district to the court in order to get the final court ruling document done. Delivered a copy to Boostorder. Although they have paid me in May, I still want to get all the paperwork done (better safe than sorry especially dealing with a shady company and a dishonest employer).
Conclusion
So, let me recap. I spend more almost 2 years fighting in court to get back the salary I lawfully earned at the first place. To be honest, the cost for all court filing and annual leave applied to attend the court in person, it already far excesses the remaining salary I tried to claim back. Not to mention the risk of catching Covid-19 whenever I attend the court.
Did the company get punished for not paying their employee as required by the law? No.
Did the company get punished for owning employee’s salary for more than a year? No.
Did the company get punished for submitted a forged evidence in court? No.
I’m just lucky to win in this court case. There are so many ways this court case can fall apart. What if my ex-employer claim that I did not submit my annual leave application at all? The HR system is under their control and who will think of taking a screenshot when apply for annual leave? What if I go to court without my old employee handbook with me? If I did not win the court case, every time other companies perform a background check on me when I apply a new job, do you think Boostorder will say nice word about me? My employment record and court record will be toasted!
What have I learned? In Malaysia, company can easily get away from not paying their employee if they are willing to pay the lawyer. Not many employees are willing to go through the legal trouble. For foreigner, that is even harder. Even if they do, what is the worst thing that can happen to the company? Pay back the salary and they are off to go. If employee decided to take their frustrations to the social media instead, it does not make any difference, employee still is not getting back their salary and a defamation lawyer letter maybe waiting in their inbox. So, if any of you happened to face the same situation as mine where ex-employer own your remaining salary. My advice for you “Forget about it”. If you insist on talking the same path as mine, my advice will be “Good Luck” because you really need all the luck to win.
Startup in Malaysia. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a story about me bashing how bad startup culture are in Malaysia. There are many good startup companies out there in Malaysia and even in Penang. But Boostorder / Instanture is not one of them and their bad behavior deserved to be call out because it is very damaging to local startup. Imagine if anyone who joined this startup company and went through such bad experience, will he / she choose another startup company again in the next job? Even worse, if an intern who joined such startup company during internship, will he / she spread good word about startup when he / she returns to the university / college?
Bonus: A lot of you asked me what have I done to the company caused that the director to go after me? I HAVE NO IDEA! I am working my ass off even on the last day in the office, porting Xamarin library, helping others to hunt bug in the app. Even after I left the company, I never turn down other ex-colleague request for help when they messaged me. The only thing I did was, I resigned from my position and like most employees who left this company, it is not a happy ending.
Ooiks's Blog 
Wow. Please name the director.
He seems to have an unhealthy vengeance towards you. Worse, he doesn’t communicate to resolve the conflict. This is a toxic attitude. What a bad leader.
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Speaking of this BoostOrder, I did 2 rounds of interview (somewhere Q1 2021) and did managed to complete take home assignment as part of the interview process.
TK Chuah is the “director” that I’ve engage with and organized a session with their internal team members to go through my take home assignments, during Saturday
Once that session done, I’ve been following up closely with the “director” on my application process and his response like keep stalling all the time.
After numerous of follow ups, I’ve decided to keep silent and let this slide, as I assume they do not have the balls to reject/feedback candidates.
Although in the job ads do post high salary range but the process of hiring is very unprofessional.
Another possibility is that the company would steal my content from “take home assignment “ as an idea and execute it at their own, and the company would save their headcount cost.
After reading this article, I’m lucky enough didn’t onboard with them.
In summary, any individuals out there, pls consider this company very very carefully.
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Same here! I too did 2 rounds of interview with them too Q2 last year.
Engaged with the same people mentioned in this post.
I have the same sentiment in their process.
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Oh boy, I experienced the same thing too. TK contacted me via WhatsApp and explained the entire hiring process. Self-paced interview, “pre-interview questionnaire” and “discussion” with his internal team. Throughout the entire discussion, he kept asking for more ideas and elaborations (i.e. what can be done, how should I do it, what can be avoided etc.) The entire recruitment process was very unprofessional and messy as he did not coordinate/communicate with his HR. After researching around, I realised that he has been posting similar job listings consistently for months with very identical job descriptions. At least he put in some effort to play around with the job titles (i.e. Senior Executive, xx Lead etc.) to make it less obvious. If only this post existed before the “discussion” then I would not have been deceived. But then again, thank you for blogging your story.
#BoostOrder #TKChuah #freeconsultationthroughinterviews
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Ooo, this story inspired me.
Hmm, maybe i should also document all the process of my court case too. One day, can share step by step what really happened in front and behind scenes
Mine is a civil case with a famous accounting brand. M suing so called professional firm and their, partners /directors for Conspiracy to Injure and Damage me.
Same like this case lar, very pattern pattern oh, they submitted fake evidence amd hearsay Affidavits . Simple case but they managed to pusing pusing wanna delay and wear me out and kill my case. 2019 until now, still patten here and there. But I insist to have a day in court. Cross examination can easily reveal who’s telling the truth.
Full trial is set Apr 2022.
It’s consuming time and money, m pursuing for justice and principle ⚖️ so, it’s a worthwhile journey to document… 👍
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You mistake is not getting a proper legal advise. 1. You should claim for interest too which is normally 5% per annum from date of your Writ.
2. With lawyer, you can get it done within 3 months even during the mco time.
3. The company is punished in a way by having to pay the legal fees to their lawyer.
4. Yes director is not punished that is because we believe director and company is 2 separate legal entity.
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Moral of the story, work for yourself and nobody else. Make yourself so valuable that you are untouchable.
Cheers
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Sorry to hear what you have experienced, not all bosses are like that, maybe you were just unlucky. Resigning from a big company such like Intel might not b a right move, many entrapment out there but we dont know how real it is while risking our stable income to fight for a higher one, but I believe this also is a good experience that can be gained. My 2cents advise is that you shouldnt post the lawyer letter with the firm name on it, they have the rights to take legal action against youm
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Few years back, i resigned from a startup because the company delayed my salary for 2 or 3 months. Along the way, i managed to recover the delayed salaries but the company didn’t pay back my claim. The amount is around 4k to 6k.
Similiar like you, i wanted to file a small claim through mahkamah kecil. The company was in KL when i worked, but their business registration is in Penang. Few months after my resignation, the company in KL closed down. According to the court, they said i need to file the small claim in Penang according to the business registration address. And you know, travelling KL – Penang up and forth is another issue.
I guess there is no simple or direct way to recover that 4k-6k thru small court if there are many hearings to attend. Although i wanted to get back the 4k-6k so much but in the end, i might endup spending more (time/money). So not worth the effort.
4k-6k to us still our hard earned money and it shall be paid/reimbursed accordingly. The company which come out dirty tricks just because not wanting to pay, that is not cool at all. I believe if they could resort such tricks to the ex-employees, i’m sure they will do it to the next one. Let the karma do its job on them.
Last year, I was interviewed by the “director” but the headhunter told me that i didnt passed. I was abit down that time la but after reading this post, i feel relieved that i didnt passed. LOL.
Disclaimer: I’m not impying the company is bad or what (dont want to send wrong signal to the staff who are currently working in te company). Personally, I dont want to end up the same experience again because it is just not worth the effort. I just want peaceful process, not drama.
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Thank you for sharing about this Boostorder bro! At first I was thinking they have any related with Boost. After find out, this is totally a fraud company.
Speaking on this TK , their service is terrible. Good at the beginning before knowing each other but whenever you have joined in their project, then the nightmare starts to appear.
Luckily decided not to proceed even longer.
Thanks for sharing this out at least I know I am not alone on the drama of this Boostorder made.
Stay safe bro!
#donttruststartup
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This is fcked up. Why would they not pay you but chose to hire a lawyer?
It says a lot about the company’s culture and the TK guy’s mentality though–very narrow-minded and doesn’t focus on the big picture.
Anyway, I’m glad you get paid in the end. Seriously fck that guy.
I hope life’s been treating you well these days.
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Horrible la this working culture! No wonder I keep seeing they hire new employee in different platform.
Now I get to know this guy #TKCHUAH . Mempersiasuikan Startup #Penangstartup
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Founded his profile!
Is is the guy?
https://my.linkedin.com/in/tkchuah
https://my.linkedin.com/in/takangkhoo
My nephew been interview with him before and it happened to be the same like the above comment mentioned, this #TKChuah from #BoostOrder #Instanture been asking a bunch of questions and ideals towards their business market.
Which personally think, that might not be suitable to ask thru an interview session, that should be in discuss when it has been started employed.
No doubt, this is a smart way to gather FREE business ideals from the market/floor. But this is definitely not a proper way for hiring #interview.
Able to feel out, this is such a toxic environment for local Startup. This is consider as unethical by most of the folks out there. Thanks for blogging this out, it was unforgiving.
Cheer Bro!
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Recently there is rumours been speaking on this company is owing the stuff sales commission in quite a huge amount, is that true?
If that’s the case , this should be reported out! D please ban this company by spoiling Malaysia Startup market.
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No wonder la most of the old stuff there quit. Toxic environment betul company ni. Nasib baik no get into it. Jahat btl boss mcm ni.
#PenangStartup #Boostorder
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This is a worse story than a relationship breakup. How can a startup behave so immaturely.
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Thanks for sharing out your story.
Good that you are able to claim back what you have deserved.
This fella TK Chuah is not qualified to be even a successful manager.
He had a very bad history back then when with Intel.
Cannon King.
That is also why at the end he decided to leave Intel and work on startup.
We thought he is great looking out there, who knows still the same.
A leopard never changes its spots.
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I’m curious to know what he did in Intel. He failed to deliver his promises?
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Immature CEO, Immature attitude. Sad for you bro.
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This Penang startup BoostOrder company have very high turnover rate. Wondering how their management skill was. the CEO was bad I guess
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Honest speaking, this guy Mr Chuah Teong Kee aka TK Chuah 蔡长棋 did a lot of promise but unable to fulfill at the end.
Also from what I knew, he is damn freaking good on story telling. Very very good on this – basically liar la.
There is one quote been spread out “TK Chuah – Roti canai pusing pusing, flip here flip there” . *head shake
Most of their folks now are kind of internship students if not wrong. No body dare to join in such a liar driven startups.
Good luck Man!
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Luckily not joining this Boostorder Sdn Bhd. After reading your post, I get few friends to talk about this penang startup company then only knew how horrible this company was.
The pass record of that guy TK Chuah in Intel seems not really good also.
Thank you so much for the sharing brother.
#ABigNoNoToBoostorder #Boostorder #Boost
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When your blogpost was on viral time. the CEO guy did mentioned wanna sue you back on this article. But personal think it was just bullshit as usual.
I guess nothing happen to you, right?
Hope you are well. Justice is truth in action.
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Thanks for asking. I’m doing great. I too heard something similar from my ex-colleagues previously about him wanted to sue my pant off. Up until now, I was not aware nor receive any lawyer letter or court letter regarding this.
Sorry to others that I can’t personally reply to each and every comment, especially those involve rumour about the company past history / founder behaviour. I too heard about those rumours and witness some of them, but since I don’t have any evidence to back them up, I think it is better for me to stay quiet and keep myself out of further trouble.
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Thanks a lot for your writing KS.
Now I am able to know how this company behave. No wonder keep seeing the company name appear in different job posting platform and it was there again and again for like so long. (Every month when browse thru new job role, for sure seeing Boostorder name appearing there. Wondering why keep hiring)
As realize, the payment is high too, but luckily not joining.
Hard to imagine how bad it will become after working in such a horrible management with terrible culture environment.
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They are so unprofessional of handling case, behave so immaturely! The company don’t have HR meh? All handle by the CEO himself? No wonder can just simply change this change that by himself. Terrible company
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They have someone doing HR, but did not come from that background and hold multiple roles also. That’s why the startup very messy.
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Hapus la startup buat mcm ni! Rasa malu la kalau kerja sama bos ni.. ingat boostorder ni baik, kecewa betul. tsk tsk
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http://Www.boostorder.com
This the company. Outside looks good but internal sucks!
Their stuff is very unprofessional, say one thing but do another thing.
I did some research only realise their company is really a startup, only few folks working but they can act like having a huge team in Malaysia. Most of their stuff are student either partime or internships. Huge turnover rate too. Bad BoostOrder
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Bro I work in the industry that able to control the news spread out between startup community , the CEO pay to remove all the post that u shared throughout the social media. Money can do anything! My colleague get to listen another version of this story. But I am on your side bro! Hope you are well.
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How can them acting so immature. Anyhow the CEO Chuah is from Multinational Company Intel, he should have known that his action is not gonna be acceptable. He dare you not gonna fight with him I guess. Luckily you have won the case. Thanks for sharing this out, good luck for your career.
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prolly can share more to people so that they will not be trapped by this startup company. 🙏
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The CEO did lots of promise but didn’t action at the end of the day.
He have his way of building up stories. Realise there is one young girl keep going very near after him, isn’t that he already married? As known is from UOB bank (also the path where they able to be in touch with fintech)
Shame on u Chuah!
More stories behind on this startup. Shame but interesting toxic culture.
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TK is not a good guy
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Agree with you Ooi.
I was ex employee in Boostorder but not a long stay there.
Few days back I met the CEO TK in a mall, we walking pass by and at first I wanna say a HI but when he saw me, just ignore and then pass by with hostile feeling.He was walking alone that time.
Thinking back during my employment in Boostorder, it was good at first, but once I tendered my resignation, he act totally differently. The attitude changed to a different person. Same like you, Ooi, I have no idea on what I did wrong towards him that cause he get such hates on me. Just coincidentally I get a better offer outside.
He starts to hire new folks and treat them as what I got treated last time.
Hopefully they did not faced the same situation like mine.
This TK has a very small heart, he did not deserve to be a good boss. Poor leadership in this company.
Sad to see kinda this startup is running by a young girl but not the founder. Blessed!
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I didn’t do my research, looked up typical Glassdoor review Jobstreet review all but who would think to Google ‘Boostorder lawsuit’ or similar terms for a company if never had to before right? *shake head* My job here had been a good learning experience to search for [company name] scam, lawsuit, employee reviews and all that.
I went to their HQ office in Penang and told a friend there that I was going to work there, and she told me, ‘Hey, that company and the founder got shady things going on, I think you should know. It’s quite huge here in Penang.’ Then she shared me this blog post to me.
The HR told me that their main fault for this lawsuit is that they didn’t push the updated handbook release to everyone, hence Mr Ooi here was able to win the case. They have a better draft handbook when I entered. Most employees here are under different degrees of brainwashing by TK, HR, or other bigger stakeholders, and would defend their unpaid OT to no ends.
But really internal affairs very messy, nothing is really ready because of “AGILE workflow” and “flexibility”. Like comments above said, really a lot of young interns enter and some did not even know about emergency leaves or even how to claim company expenses.
I just hope this blog post has more visibility so that new folks looking to join can see the warning signs that are not on typical job review websites.
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Oh, that is some new explanation of reason why they submitted an “updated” / “falsify” evidence to court.
There are comment here mention that the company hired third party to scrap the web for the bad reviews. I personally can confirm that. Their old Google Map company info has changed with a fake company name and location, then they create a fresh new entry in order to delete all the bad reviews there. They might done the same on other review web sites as well.
They can scrap every bad reviews they have on the Internet, but their bad behavior and reputation told and confirm by others will continue to prove that my story is truth and word of mouth in the industry will be their review.
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Yes, I noticed the Google Maps thing as well. New maps created so the old ones with more bad reviews could be deleted. At time of my leaving, the company was starting some crisis measures, probably to prevent more posts or reviews like this from coming up.
There may have been some improvements since you left, but I think overall it will take a long, long time before an employee can be working there happily. Turnover rate is still very high with a lot of new jobscopes, last-minute meetings etc added on to one person’s responsibilities to ‘facilitate better learning’.
There’s so much to say, but it feels like saying it to empty air because no one is really trying to make any real changes there. Good to know that more people are speaking up about their experience at Boostorder, whether past or present employee.
Hope you’re in a better working environment now too!
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Ooh , I thought this company was located in the US
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I studied their social media pages before job application.
At first I thought it was motivation scam company.
But then found out this post, and it actually still an employee scamming company.
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The management no good, very bad
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The Boostorder CEO TK promised to us that want to share us with the company value few months back, which reflects to the company shares.
However when towards the end of the year, he tried to keep away from mentioning that topic and when we asked, he says business is not easy to get.
And then trying to pull us whom from different section to involve with the marketing/business role.
Which we are suppose to be in the back.
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General advice: Don’t expect anything that is not written in your black and white offer letter.
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could be the high profile sales from kuok blown away d
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Many employees been leaved but Boostorder still use our images as their marketing material. Been heard a lot of those senior’s story about this company, not a good place to survive. Huge politic gaming.
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