I work in a mid-sized office, about 50 pax total. Standard corporate desk job. But guys, I swear to god, if I don’t look out the window and see the ERP gantry, I would think I immigrated to another country. The amount of true-blue born-and-bred Singaporeans left in whole is literally less than five. And to make things worse, one of the few local kakis we had just served notice and left last month. Now it’s just me and maybe three others holding the fort.
The rest? All EP, S Pass, or recently converted PR/citizens who still cluster together, speak their own native language across the cubicles, and have zero interest in assimilating. Every time lunch hour comes, I’m just sitting there listening to foreign dialects and office politics from a culture I have absolutely nothing to do with.
I genuinely want to ask: how did HR pass the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) quota? Is there some secret cheat code I don’t know about? Are they abusing the “intra-corporate transferee” loophole, or are they counting every single cleaner and part-time security guard in the entire parent company just to pump up the local headcount numbers on paper? Because sitting at my actual desk, the math is completely not mathing.
It’s exhausting. You cannot even make local jokes or talk about BTO, NS, or Toto without getting blank stares. Even the aircon temperature feels like it’s set for winter in their hometowns. I’m not even trying to be xenophobic, but there has to be a balance, right? When the COMPASS framework points system was introduced, we were promised stronger local core this, fair hiring that. But reality on the ground feels exactly the same.
Feels like HR just treats Singaporeans as token diversity hires to hit a benchmark so they can sponsor more visas for their own kakis. Anyone else stuck in a “local minority” twilight zone like this? How do you even survive the isolation every day without quitting?