Guys, I’m still sweating and it’s not even because of the midday humidity.
Came into the office today and noticed the desk next to me was completely cleared out. No custom mechanical keyboard, no Starbucks tumbler, nothing. Turns out, my desk neighbor—let’s call him Bryan—got the dreaded HR calendar invite at 5:30 PM yesterday. By 6:00 PM, his Slack was deactivated. Gone. Just like that, vanishing like the last piece of free external catering in the pantry.
Bryan was not a slacker. The guy was literally the backbone of our regional ops, always OT-ing until 9 PM, driving “cross-functional synergy” or whatever corporate buzzwords they like to throw around. If a high-performer like him can get chopped overnight without a proper goodbye, what about the rest of us?
Right now, the vibe in the office is absolutely toxic. Everyone is super bo-chye (lifeless). Nobody is talking, but everyone’s mechanical keyboard is clicking at 200 WPM—guarantee you they are not writing reports, they are updating their LinkedIn profiles and mass-applying on JobStreet. Every time the HR Director walks past our department to go to the toilet, you can literally hear a collective gasp. Everyone suddenly looks very busy, staring intensely at Excel sheets like it’s a life-or-death situation.
Management tried to do “damage control” by calling an urgent Townhall just now. The big boss stood there and gave us the usual textbook corporate talk: “We are restructuring to drive efficiency,” “macroeconomic headwinds,” “AI integration.” Then the killer line: “We need everyone to step up and absorb the workload for the time being to keep our lean team agile.”
Bro, “absorb workload” just means do two people’s jobs for the same pay. They talk about AI replacing jobs, but right now, they just expect us to work like AI without needing sleep.
Honestly, the lack of psychological safety is real. Last time, people used to say a stable corporate job is the safest route in Singapore. Now? It feels like we are all just rows on a spreadsheet waiting for some consultant to press ‘Delete’ to hit next quarter’s KPI.
Is anyone else experiencing this right now in their firm? How do you even focus on your deliverables when you feel like the executioner’s axe is hanging over your head every single day?
TL;DR: Top performer colleague got vanished overnight by HR. Office morale now lower than the Singapore dollar exchange rate back in the 70s. Management expects us to do double the work. How to survive?