Need to vent standard corporate BS because I’m genuinely sick of this cycle. I’ve been working at this company on the west side (Jurong/Pioneer area) for about two years now. Every single year without fail, management will do all those grand town halls. “Oh, we are doing so well this quarter,” “Look forward to year-end payout,” “Strong performance across all sectors!” Everyone starts getting high hope thinking can finally huat or get decent AWS.
Then boom—out of nowhere, right before bonus/appraisal season, sudden email or announcement: “Global market headwinds, shareholders demanding cost reduction, potential retrenchment on the horizon.”
In just two years, I have heard this exact same “unprecedented crisis” story twice.
The funny thing is our actual workload never drops. In fact, boss will pull us into side meetings and do the usual fearmongering talk: “You all better be garang now, take up extra projects, show up early, so your name won’t be on the retrenchment list if the chopper comes.”
Bro/Sis, please la. At this point it’s so obvious it’s just a tactics game.
- Scare everyone into working 1.5x harder for free (“wayang for survival”).
- Give low/zero bonus because “company having a tough time, please understand.”
- Profit margin stays green, shareholders stay happy, and staff just eat overall stress.
Is this standard SME/corporate culture in SG now or is my company exceptionally toxic? Every year want us to chiong like commandos, but when time to share profits suddenly become non-profit NGO.
Seriously thinking of updating my LinkedIn and tossing paper after standard AWS clear. Anyone else facing this kind of psychological weaponization at work, or did you guys just cut loss and run early?