A post on Reddit went viral after a man was punished for being late for work. His manager allegedly stop the man from going for a lunch break as a penalty for getting to work 6 minutes late.
As Reddit is an international forum, it is likely that the incident did not happen in Singapore. Luckily, we do not hear of such incidents happening in Singapore.
Here is the story:
Been working there for 4 months. I was never late and always ready like 15 min before my shift starts. Today I had a tough morning, in a bad mood and I was 6 minutes late for work. My manager called me to his office, complaining about why I didn’t call him to say I’m going to be late. I told him that I didn’t think about calling him as I knew that I’ll only be late for a bit.
After going back and forth, he told me that I’m not allowed to take my lunch break because I’m late and it was super busy. I didn’t bring my lunch, so I asked if I could at least grab a sandwich before starting my shift. He agreed, but only to cut half an hour of my pay..
I agreed and left “to grab a sandwich”. It’s been an hour and a half now since I left and I still haven’t returned. My manager just called me and I told him I quit. I don’t regret it (yet?)
Wish me luck!!
Going Viral
The story became viral with 60,000 upvotes on the thread and over 4,000 comments. Many netizens pitch in their thoughts and started discussing work ethics.
Stories started to pour on the thread with one of the users stating:
“Which is why you don’t start work early. My coworker used to get to work 20 minutes early everyday and would start working and I kept telling him don’t do it.One day he was 15 minutes late because of the WEATHER (which made the bus late) and my boss says make sure you make up that time even though he’s obviously made it up since he was 20 minutes early for work for months. After that, he started on time!“
How about Singapore?
What should one do when an employer is breaching rules of the employment act.
In Singapore, one can always refer to the Ministry of Manpower’s website for employment rights. The topics covered are
- Hours of work and overtime
- Annual leave
- Sick leave
- Public holidays entitlements
- CPF contributions
and beyond.