“We are like family here!”
Wah, when my boss said this during my interview, my heart damn touched. I thought I finally found a boss who got heart, got soul, got empathy.
Fast forward six months down the road. Last Tuesday, MRT got breakdown on the East-West Line. Delay like siao. I reached the office at 8:35 AM instead of 8:30 AM. Five mins late ONLY.
End of the month, I check my payslip. EH? Why my salary missing $15?
I go ask HR, thinking maybe system error or what. HR look at me with dead eyes and say, “Boss instruction. Late more than 3 minutes will auto-deduct half an hour pay.”
Wah lau eh! 5 minutes late only, deduct half an hour salary?!
I went to talk to boss nicely. I said, “Boss, EW Line delayed morning time, not my fault what…”
You know what he told me?
“In this company, discipline is very important. If your brother or sister always late for family dinner, you also will be angry right?”
ANYHOW JUSTIFY!
Since when family dinner got punch card? If my real family deduct my money every time I late 5 minutes, I move out long ago, stay under HDB block already!
And the best part? Every day I OT till 8 PM, stay back to fix emergency reports, reply WhatsApp client group at 11 PM—got extra pay or not? ZERO. NAUGHTY. NOTHING.
That time he tell me, “We need to possess an ownership mindset! Don’t be so calculating!”
Wah, OT time, we are “one united family working towards a shared dream.” Paycheck time, suddenly become strict corporate policy, strict compliance, no give-and-take.
Calculative until like that, call people family? My own father also never charge me interest when I borrow $10 from him last time!
Honestly, in Singapore, whenever an SME boss tell you “we are family here”, it’s the BIGGEST RED FLAG ever. It just means they want family-level loyalty with corporate-level exploitation.
Anyone else got this kind of “toxic family” boss? Share your story in the comments, let me know I am not the only one suffering!
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