Chapter 7 [I returned to the United States in 2004]

Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19F25DyYtF/?mibextid=wwXIfr

In CLEC's FB [James Origins and Today] series, Chapter 7 is no longer readable due to system reasons. Since the previous post can no longer be found, in order to allow everyone to fully trace the content, I will repost Chapter 7 today.

[The Origin and Today of James] Chapter 7 I returned to the United States in 2004 (03/05/2022)

By the beginning of 2004, I knew that the company was on track and the stock price was over $100. I knew that my promise to my daughter to return to the United States to be with her would come true. At this time, I was ready to leave Acer and return to the United States to grow up with my daughter. In 2004, I submitted my resignation to the company.

I wrote a letter to the employees, and what I mentioned was "a child raised by a grandma." At that time, I saw that many Taiwanese parents left their children with parents in their hometown or nearby parents to take care of them because of work. They only brought the children back on Saturdays and Sundays, or they simply left their children in their hometown for a long time and worked hard in the city. Although it is not as severe as in China, it is a common phenomenon for children raised by their grandmothers.

There were also many Taiwanese who were originally expatriated to the United States like me. Due to the rise of China, factories moved to China and the focus of their careers moved to China. For many families originally in the United States, the father was forced to find a job in China or was transferred to China. The family stayed in the United States and the children grew up in the United States. Finally, when they were old and frail, they returned to the United States and did not accompany their children to grow up at all. To the children, the father was just a synonym for working hard to make money outside, which almost meant losing the relationship with the children. I just thought about what my daughter's future would be like if she didn't have her father by her side for a long time. When you know many successful entrepreneurs and wealthy people, ask them what they regret most, and their answer is "not growing up with their children." So I would not like myself to make the same mistake. After I completed my mission in Taiwan, I resolutely submitted my resignation and returned to the United States to be with my daughter.

I also don’t recommend sending your children abroad alone when they are still young to become international students. When a child is still young and still needs the care of his parents, leaving his parents to travel across the ocean and face challenges on his own (remember, he is still a child) is an unhealthy growth for the child. It also means that the parents have failed to fulfill their obligation to accompany the child as he grows up, and also lose the opportunity to accompany the child. Usually when parents get older, they are unable to grow up with their adult international students, and they will lose the close family relationship with their children.

My resignation experience

I was very impressed. When I was ready to resign, I felt very happy. That kind of joy was really indescribable. The first thing I thought of was that if I resigned in a position like mine, I might need to handle it carefully to avoid alarming everyone. (Afterwards, I felt that I thought too much. No matter how high your position is, resigning actually has no impact at all on the world, the company, or many colleagues). When I decided to resign, the first thing I thought of was the HR department. I went directly to talk to the HR manager. J.M., the manager of Acer's HR department, is very good. When he heard that I wanted to resign, he first asked me if I was sure. I said I was sure, and I didn't know what the procedures were and what I should pay attention to. This great HR manager first told me that you should not submit your resignation now, because in two weeks the company will issue a 60 (age plus seniority is greater than or equal to 60). I happened to 43 years old (18 years of working), preferential retirement plan, early retirement project. He suggested waiting a week for the 60 Project to be released before submitting my resignation, which would be more generous to my pension and retirement benefits. I would like to thank J.M., the Personnel Manager, very much. I never had the chance to thank him after his retirement.

After that, I excitedly made an appointment with Evon, a colleague in the company. I thought I should let her know about this kind of thing first, and also wanted to talk about her views. She is the one who I think has the clearest understanding of external information and internal company information in the company, and she also knows how to handle the relationship between people best. I made an appointment with her at Starbucks and chatted for more than two hours. The content has been forgotten, but it can show how excited I was at the time and that I needed someone to share my joy and joy.

Next, I need to find an appropriate time to submit my resignation to the general manager, or at least verbally report to him that I am leaving. In order to avoid the company's comfort, I need to find an appropriate time. It happened that one day, the general manager was in a very bad mood and seemed to have some objections to me (this was a good time). After he came to talk to me, he returned to the office. I followed him into his office and told him face to face that I would apply for a preferential exit from the 60 Project. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he didn’t say anything about condolences! Instead, he said in a questioning tone: "Which competitor do you want to go to?" 』. This made me realize that when you are working as a laborer, no matter how high your position is, you are still just a laborer. No matter how hard you work for the company, no matter how important your position is in the company, all your hard work can become unimportant to the company overnight. Here I want to share with you that the company is a ruthless inorganic body. No matter how good the external PR image is, when the company's operations are not good, there will be a large number of layoffs, and when you want to resign, they will stab you in the back without mercy.

I chose to submit my resignation when the general manager was in a bad mood, mainly because I was afraid of the general manager's consolation and hoped that he could approve my resignation immediately when he was in a bad mood. But I didn't expect that what I got in exchange was ruthlessness (of course this was in my plan, but it was also a bit unexpected), but I didn't regret it at all. I walked out of the general manager's office happily. I knew that I was free, but I knew that he was not free at all in the office. Moreover, the general manager also told me that he would not give me the stocks that he was originally going to give me. Although he used the excuse that he wanted to distribute them to department colleagues who were still in the company, I later confirmed that the general manager was lying and did not mean what he said. never mind!

Finally, when I returned to the United States, after a few months, I started to receive letters from the general manager and the human resources department, saying that I should return my Taiwan pension because I already had a pension in the United States, so I should choose one of the two (they should have contacted the human resources department in the United States to freeze my 401K pension in the United States, but the U.S. pension system is a personal account and the company has no right to take it back). So I started to pursue the pension I received in Taiwan (the amount was really small). This really chilled me. The company continued to pursue my benefits after I resigned, and even asked me to return my Taiwanese pension. (I have been thinking about 15 years ago in my heart: "The company originally promised to provide retirement benefits to expatriates in Taiwan and the United States. Moreover, the stocks that were supposed to belong to me were not given to me, and the 100 stocks promised by the general manager when I just returned to Taiwan were not given to me. When I returned to Taiwan, I took a salary cut, separated from my daughter for the company, etc. I didn't care. The company actually asked me for this little pension.

』) In the end, I had to move out the original official document from the human resources department on the retirement system for overseas expats from more than ten years ago. It clearly stated that if they need to retire in Taiwan in the future, the company will allocate Taiwan’s pension, and the expats will enjoy the Taiwan and US retirement systems equally. (I still keep the official document from more than ten years ago, with the official document number of Acer at that time). This is an official official document issued by the human resources department of Taiwan Acer. Afterwards, the human resources department of Taiwan actually forgot all about it. (But what can be forgiven here is that the HR manager of the Acer brand J M, I may not be very clear about the official documents of the old Acer. I certainly don’t blame the HR department of the new Acer for this.) The focus is on the mentality of the company and the mentality of the general manager. All workers must remember that there can never be a company that treats its employees well. Only companies that utilize labor. The company treats you well because you still have value. When you lose value, you are nothing. The company has absolutely no attachment to you and no memory of your past achievements. It is completely mechanical and ruthless and does its best to deprive an employee of the company's benefits for 18 years. In the end, of course, I took out the official documents from more than ten years ago (fortunately, I collected all the information very well), and only then did the human resources department and general manager in Taiwan were willing to give up.

Highlights

When I was sure that I would leave the company and return to the United States to be with my daughter, I told my daughter on Messenger for the first time that dad is retiring and he can go back to accompany you. My daughter didn’t look very excited, but said seriously: "Dad, I ask you three questions." First, do you have enough money? Second, what will you do after retirement? Third, you didn’t retire because of me! These three questions really stuck with me. I vaguely remember my answer, Dad’s money should be enough. Besides taking care of you, Dad will want to see what else I can do when I go back. I really don’t know how to answer the last question. In fact, I really haven't thought carefully about why I want to retire. Even if I go back to be with my daughter, I can apply to be transferred back to the United States. Is it really just because my daughter is in the United States?

In fact, my career had reached its peak at that time. If I climbed up, I might not be able to get down. If I got to the top, it would definitely not be a very glorious thing. Looking back now, the reason why I really left my job is that I heard the voice in my heart again, "I should leave this company where I have worked for 18 years. I have learned nothing in this company. Even if I become a general manager, it is not what I want." Acer has trained me for 18 years. Tanlang Hua Ke is not suitable for the position of general manager (this is what I found out about my horoscope when I learned Ziwei Dou Shu afterwards. This is why I stopped when my career may be at its peak.), this is my destiny, and I will hear this voice at the right time). So my final answer to my daughter was "I'm not doing it entirely for you."

Really, I didn’t know that my daughter could ask these three questions at such a young age. This is something that surprised me very much. So as parents, we should not think that children don’t understand anything and ignore their thoughts and feelings. We should talk to our children more and listen to their voices. (When my daughter was in college, she told me that children are actually very helpless and have very little power. They don’t know what resources are available in society to help them. If parents and families put pressure on them, they have no way to resist, so my daughter created a school to help children obtain social resources. The website of He Baobao was just a school project and may not have been made public in the end. My daughter asked me to record a piece of what I said to her when she was a child and put it on the website. She believed that the words of love and strength that my father gave him could also help other very helpless children). In fact, children's feelings are more sensitive and profound than those of us adults. Therefore, the influence of environment and parents on children is quite large, and must not be ignored. I often say that there are no children who become bad, only children who are taught bad things. So if you think there is something wrong with your child, you should review what you have done as a parent in the past, not what the child has done.