Need a sanity check from the community before I lose my mind and drop my 24-hour notice without a backup plan.
I’ve been with my current company for about a year now. On paper, my contract explicitly states Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm. Standard office job right? Except in reality, work never ends.
Here’s the daily reality:
- After-hours boundary non-existent: Every evening past 7pm, my phone starts pinging on WhatsApp/Teams for non-urgent crap that can easily wait until the next morning. If I don’t reply within 15 minutes, the double question marks (
??) start coming. - AL means “Always Online”: Took 2 days of clear annual leave last month to rest. Still got pinged for basic file locations and status updates that are literally pinned in the team channel. When I took time to respond, he asked why I took so long. Bro, I am on approved leave?!
- Weekend “Voluntours”: Constant requests to “drop by office quickly” or handle weekend tasks. But the moment I ask for a Replace Off or Off-in-Lieu (OIL), he gives me this passive-aggressive lecture about “ownership,” “startup mentality,” and “back in my day we just hustled.” Asking for OFF feels like a major taboo.
The absolute worst part is the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t micro-management.
To put it in non-technical terms: Imagine the task is simply to put out a candle’s fire. If I blow it out quickly and efficiently, he scolds me: “Why you never use water? Zero SOP, very dangerous!” So next time, I use water to put out the flame, and he turns around and barks: “Why you waste water? Simple thing just blow it out la, why make a big fuss?!”
Every standard operating procedure is a moving target. If I follow his instructions to the letter, he finds a way to spin it as my mistake. If I take initiative, I get slammed for not checking with him first.
Is this normal Singapore SME/MNC culture now or is my boss just an absolute power-tripping nightmare? Should I just start quietly pumping out resumes on LinkedIn, or am I being a sensitive snowflake here?
Comments (42)
u/KopiOPeng_LessSugar • 12m ago
Red flag company. Standard gaslighting. Time to polish your resume bro, life too short to deal with mentally unstable managers.
u/SinkieHustle2026 • 8m ago
“Put out candle fire” analogy is 100% textbook micromanager behavior. He doesn’t want results, he wants control. Run before your mental health gets destroyed.