Stories of bad working experiences in Singapore

[MooMooBird]

I saw this thread on Reddit and it's about stories of terrible workplaces, thought some of you will find them relevant here. 
I'm gonna paste some of the more terrible stories here, but you can share your own stories if you wish.

Ex senior manager who proclaimed to "help staff members grow" but kept playing politics to silence anyone who seemed to be performing better than her.

Even told lies to the superiors behind the target's back so as to get rid of unfavoured staff (whom she deemed to be a threat/whistleblower to her incompetence).

-Without giving clear directions, expect you to deliver the work perfectly. And then raise their voice at you “so simple also don’t understand, i thought you graduated from XXX” In the first place, the instructions were all over the place and nobody bothered to clear my doubts and answer the questions I have. Fyi, it was not an easy task too.

-No work-life balance, expected to work every single day including weekends and PH. Tired? Overwhelmed? They don't care yo. There's once I went to shower around 7.30pm (my official working hours is listed as 8.30am to 6pm), and got scolded for showering at that time because "can you not shower before 10pm, we still need to call you"

-What you will be doing will differ almost completely different from your JD when you interviewed. + I was told that it was a new role, but found out HR was just being dishonest. The role was a merged role of 3 person who resigned before me.

-Even when I tendered, it was not a pleasant exit. Got told to work even at the last minute, HR gaslighted me and said things like "you have to learn how to crawl before you want to fly", "this is a difficult period, are you sure you can find other jobs out there if you leave us". Really? Just cut me a break and let me go for god's sake.

The workplace wasn’t toxic, but the founder and the henpecked husband (who is a puppet) is. I was only an intern and within two days, I realised what a disrespectful, foul-mouthed, and an ah lian boss she was. No class, no professionalism, and her command of English is so awful, it makes you wonder how she’s managing a team of writers. Quit on the second day and she blasted me on her social media non stop (good to know I was on the clown’s mind). ?

Ahh yes, that very influenza that flaunts her wealth on social media day after day. The same one that wrote her own glassdoor review for her own company since everyone else who worked for her posted a negative review on there. Somehow everyone who has worked under the vile human being has a negative experience to share.

Told not to talk to managers above my level. Before I send email to anyone, I have to clear the email with line manager, which was worse as he is dyslexic and created spelling errors after he amended it.
Also limited me on which colleague I can go for lunch with etc.
Was told by dept head and line manager never to thank anyone in email or apologise or regret anything in email.

Boss was a little weird and liked one of the colleagues that I hang out with, we all blocked him on IG because we found out he stalked us, he found out and and said that it was against organisation’s policy and can report us (wtf?).
He started becoming a little jealous because the staffs always hang out without inviting him and slowly creating divisions among us.
When the new interns came, he basically told them that they weren’t allowed to have lunch with us or even hang out with us.

• boss insisted on following holocracy (tldr a new agey form management that promises a “dynamic and flat organization” ) but he himself had no idea how it worked, resulting in us trapped in hours worth of pointless meetings while he navel-gazed about how to be a better leader
  
• bullied every female employee till they quit; sneered at them whenever they asked questions or made suggestions, gave them more work than the male employees/interns, talked down to them in meetings. He hit on one of my coworkers but she turned him down - the next week all her projects were reassigned to a new lead (luckily she quit soon after)
  

Worked as an intern in a Japanese engineering company. Gave me an empty desk to sit without any work and I was literally just staring at the walls. Took my phone to use it for awhile and the manager kicked my chair from the back

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Worked at a place with a narcissistic manager. She somehow could get customers buy a thousand worth of clothes and brag about it to everyone expecting praises. She also likes to make fun of her workers and make me cry under the guise of “we bully you because we’re family”. She also had a fix way for us to to serve customers and doesn’t let us serve our own way that is comfortable. Make us follow customers everywhere and if we don’t, she would scold us. She also doesn’t let us speak a single word to each other on the floor. It really made me miserable.

Hearing male colleagues discussing about other female colleagues in a sexual way "wah her boobs big leh if she shake her boobs at me i will consider helping her at work" Reporting harassment to hr only to get brushed away.
Was asked to "dress nice, show shoulders/cleavage for online meeting so the top boss/other department can let us off easily because he likes good looking girls" ?
Asked to cover for boss' leave saying he will pay me back and when he is back to work, tells me "you need so many offs for what?" Its not about how many offs i have, but that fact that i covered for you on MY off day that you should pay me back... seems like he doesnt understand that.
Made to OT until 4am saying what we do is for public good ?

I worked as a part-time cashier at this food joint during school. The whole experience was terrible. Only reason I continued was cuz I needed the money.

1. The manager had quite a history of inappropriate flirting, apparently. This I found out two months into the job. He randomly threw a toy heart at me during work hours and went “you caught my heart” with a wink. Later went on to persuade me for a dinner and when I kept refusing he asked if I’m not attracted to him cuz of his height. Also he called me aside one day during work hours and said he was “checking out” my Facebook profile and how he thinks “my photos could be better”. He also asked me if I’m “one of those girls who hangs around with too many boyfriends”.
   
2. One of the cooks in the kitchen (female) took me aside one day and told me I need to leave the job cuz she cannot stop staring at my boobs. I was mortified considering we all wore the same damn uniform. It felt less of a compliment and more of borderline harassment.
   

I left the job almost immediately after that.

Got recommended to help out at this job because they were understaffed. Ex-boss was kind to me initially but 3 days in, started making remarks about how I’m slow when no one even taught me anything on how things even work in there so I was just feeling in the dark. Whatever task I was assigned, I literally had to google it up and learn right on the job.

Always tries to join us for lunch and has a habit of ruining everyone’s mood by saying “would you like it if I ruin your appetite by telling you how badly you did at work today?”

Office bully is the boss’s pet, bully reports every “mistake” to the boss. One of my colleague apparently got into bully’s bad books and the boss ordered seniors to report every single mistake the colleague made to our whole chat group so everyone can see. When my colleague tried to ask questions to clarify doubts, bully refused to help and brought the qn to the group chat again with all the sarcastic comments. Colleague soon resigned hais, sometimes the job scope is ok but if the environment is toxic there is no point staying.

-German big boss made a personal phone call to me within a month of starting work and Drilles me at length on the process of brewing beer. Expressed severe disappointment when I could not fully answer his advanced questions (seriously, how am I expected to know the intricacies of brew brewing when I’m in environmental engineering, I don’t even like beer. Oh and he basically expressed even more severe disapproval and my dislike of beer)

Luckily I don't really have such experiences of my own to share. But if you do, feel free to share them here and hopefully others can learn from them.

[mesmerise]

The stories about sexual harassment at work are really wtf but they can actually be quite common in singapore. 

[kxingstar]

I feel sorry for the people who had to go through those experiences. Seems like most of the issues come from management.

But this one is really just so weird.

-German big boss made a personal phone call to me within a month of starting work and Drilles me at length on the process of brewing beer. Expressed severe disappointment when I could not fully answer his advanced questions (seriously, how am I expected to know the intricacies of brew brewing when I’m in environmental engineering, I don’t even like beer. Oh and he basically expressed even more severe disapproval and my dislike of beer)

I know the beer culture in some parts of Germany is quite serious but why is it such a big deal for an overseas employee to be equally invested in beer as he is...?

[membrain]

Luckily I don't really have such experiences of my own to share. But if you do, feel free to share them here and hopefully others can learn from them.

I'm lucky enough to have always worked in good workplaces too but I do have friends who had terrible experiences, like having a manager who just hates him from day one. Every small thing also will pick on him. Invite the team out for lunch but "accidentally" forgot to ask him. Hearing stories like that really makes me thankful.

[berry_good]

I feel sorry for the people who had to go through those experiences. Seems like most of the issues come from management.

But this one is really just so weird.

-German big boss made a personal phone call to me within a month of starting work and Drilles me at length on the process of brewing beer. Expressed severe disappointment when I could not fully answer his advanced questions (seriously, how am I expected to know the intricacies of brew brewing when I’m in environmental engineering, I don’t even like beer. Oh and he basically expressed even more severe disapproval and my dislike of beer)

I know the beer culture in some parts of Germany is quite serious but why is it such a big deal for an overseas employee to be equally invested in beer as he is...?

I found that story odd too. Strange behaviour from the boss but luckily the guy who wrote the story didn't get fired or anything because of it.

[vince95]

I worked in a part-time job right after NS. The manager knew I had a few months to kill before the start of my uni semester so he really took advantage of my time. 
For example, he would ask me to return to the office on weekend nights to rearrange the office layout. Not only that, he wasn't there. I was just given the layout and had to move everything myself.
And since I wasn't a full-time staff, he wasn't obliged to grant me any offs for my work on the weekends.
The then-colleagues felt really sorry for me but they couldn't do much also since many of them were foreign and didn't want to risk losing their employment status.
Last I heard, that office has closed down during covid.

[MooMooBird]

I worked in a part-time job right after NS. The manager knew I had a few months to kill before the start of my uni semester so he really took advantage of my time. 
For example, he would ask me to return to the office on weekend nights to rearrange the office layout. Not only that, he wasn't there. I was just given the layout and had to move everything myself.
And since I wasn't a full-time staff, he wasn't obliged to grant me any offs for my work on the weekends.
The then-colleagues felt really sorry for me but they couldn't do much also since many of them were foreign and didn't want to risk losing their employment status.
Last I heard, that office has closed down during covid.

Sucks to go through that, but thanks for sharing the story. The point about you colleagues not being able to do anything out of fear of losing their employment pass is probably a huge unopened can of worms here in Singapore too...

[ScornfulScone]

The stories about sexual harassment at work are really wtf but they can actually be quite common in singapore. 

Yes for some reason some men think they just need to comment on everything women wear.

[kxingstar]

I found that story odd too. Strange behaviour from the boss but luckily the guy who wrote the story didn't get fired or anything because of it.

Yes luckily he still probably has his job but he must have felt terrible after that "failed" convo with his big boss. It's like if my CEO suddenly decided to quiz me on the intricacies of carpentry or something.

[krustyyy08]

The stories about sexual harassment at work are really wtf but they can actually be quite common in singapore. 

My wife used to have a manager who always tried to be cheeky...like always asked her out for dinner and that kind of nonsense. Luckily my wife is steady so she always knows how to deflect but hearing about it just makes me angry. Good thing that manager got transferred out.