We have this guy in our team, let’s call him Kevin (mid-30s). Everyday during lunch, this guy will complain about inflation, GST, price of caifan going up by 50 cents, and how COE is “destroying the middle class.” He literally wears the same three faded uniqlo tees on rotation, brings lukewarm packed cai poh omelette with rice every single day, and will leech off anyone who offers to buy group snacks. If we go for team lunch at a hawker centre, he will calculate down to the exact cent and ask you to PayLah! him back for the 20-cent iced water.
We all thought he was legit struggling, so sometimes we gave him a break, helped him cover small things, and let him take on extra OT hours so he could get the shift allowance.
Fast forward to last Friday. A few of us were having drinks after work with a guy from HR/Finance who used to process staff property-related declarations for tax and compliance. After a few pints, the topic of housing came up, and the HR guy casually drops a bomb: Kevin owns a freehold condo in Bukit Timah, a 4-bedroom unit in the East, AND a commercial property that he rents out to a clinic.
Turns out his family is loaded, and he’s been flipping properties since his late 20s. He’s making five figures a month just from passive rental income alone.
Yet, this guy is in the office every weekday till 9 PM, intentionally dragging out basic admin tasks just to hit the OT threshold to claim that extra $200-$300 a month. Meanwhile, those of us who actually need the money or want to go home to our families are getting pushed aside because he claims he “needs the shift work to survive.”
Yesterday at lunch, he had the cheek to sigh loudly over his dabao container and say, “Wah, now MRT fares going up again, how to live like that?” I nearly choked on my laksa.
Is this kind of behavior normal in corporate SG? How do you guys handle colleagues who act poor to leech off team goodwill while sitting on millions? Do I just pretend I don’t know, or is there a subtle way to call out this level of Oscar-worthy acting without creating HR drama?