Singapore Expats

What's wrong with the work mentality here?

Discuss about the latest news & interesting topics, real life experience or other out of topic discussions with locals & expatriates in Singapore.
Post Reply
User avatar
sundaymorningstaple
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 40376
Joined: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 1:26 pm
Answers: 21
Location: Retired on the Little Red Dot

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 2:02 pm

Addadude wrote: Lunchtime is SACRED to the vast majority of Singaporeans. Woe betide the expat manager who forces his local staff to work through their lunch break to meet deadline. They would much rather take their full one hour lunch entitlement (And they DO see it that way) and then come back and rush and stress themselves like crazy afterwards.
And this one, frankly, I don't blame them for. In most western countries a normal day is 9 to 5 whereas here it's 9 to 6 because the employer refuses to pay for the lunch hour where it is normally paid for in the west.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

User avatar
Addadude
Reporter
Reporter
Posts: 881
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2006 12:37 pm
Answers: 1
Location: Darkest Telok Blangah

Post by Addadude » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 2:15 pm

sundaymorningstaple wrote:
And this one, frankly, I don't blame them for. In most western countries a normal day is 9 to 5 whereas here it's 9 to 6 because the employer refuses to pay for the lunch hour where it is normally paid for in the west.
Interesting - I didn't know that! Mind you, I'm the kind of guy who takes just 30 minutes for lunch... (So I can spend more of lunch time on wonderful sites like this! ) :P
"Both politicians and nappies need to be changed regularly, and for the same reasons."

User avatar
sundaymorningstaple
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 40376
Joined: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 1:26 pm
Answers: 21
Location: Retired on the Little Red Dot

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 3:23 pm

Looks like you take a loooonnnnngggg 30 minutes looking at the time stamp on your post! :P
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

User avatar
Vaucluse
Director
Director
Posts: 3292
Joined: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 2:47 pm

Post by Vaucluse » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 3:31 pm

nushk wrote:
bigfilsing wrote:You've clearly made a stupid mistake ...silly you.

You've applied logic to your task 8-) and forgotten all the intermediate steps of position and self justification of your colleagues, not to mention allowing them time to claim brownie points for other peoples (your) ideas and hard work.

Welcome to the world of Asian office politics, "face" and general lazy half arsed approach to getting things done.
I find this mildly insulting. had you not added in the last paragraph, it would have been amusing.
Oh dear, Image bigfilsing Image won't like that. For him it is ok to label someone a racist for making comments about maids and prostitutes . . . but he tries to get away with slagging off a whole continent . . . and he doesn't see the irony in it.

Image, you are a hypocrite, bigfilsing Image
......................................................

'nuff said Image

User avatar
Addadude
Reporter
Reporter
Posts: 881
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2006 12:37 pm
Answers: 1
Location: Darkest Telok Blangah

Post by Addadude » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 4:23 pm

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Looks like you take a loooonnnnngggg 30 minutes looking at the time stamp on your post! :P

SSSSSH!
"Both politicians and nappies need to be changed regularly, and for the same reasons."

Nath21
Chatter
Chatter
Posts: 256
Joined: Wed, 20 May 2009 4:02 pm
Location: Singapore

Post by Nath21 » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 4:26 pm

sundaymorningstaple wrote:
Addadude wrote: Lunchtime is SACRED to the vast majority of Singaporeans. Woe betide the expat manager who forces his local staff to work through their lunch break to meet deadline. They would much rather take their full one hour lunch entitlement (And they DO see it that way) and then come back and rush and stress themselves like crazy afterwards.
And this one, frankly, I don't blame them for. In most western countries a normal day is 9 to 5 whereas here it's 9 to 6 because the employer refuses to pay for the lunch hour where it is normally paid for in the west.
Ive worked in USA, UK, Australia, NZ and Germany and only UK had slack working hours. In OZ I regularly worked 70-90 hours per week. US even coalface employees seemed to work 55-60 hour weeks. So far I have seen people start at 9 and work through to 6-6.30 and take 1-1.5 hours for lunch. My issue as an manager was communicating to my staff that staying late got no brownies points but completing work did. I have no problem with staff working 9-5 if they want but I set tasks at the start of the week that team agrees on. I wouldnt mess with the lunch here agreed its sacred.

rattlesnake
Regular
Regular
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:14 pm

Post by rattlesnake » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 7:18 pm

Addadude wrote: Lunchtime is SACRED to the vast majority of Singaporeans. Woe betide the expat manager who forces his local staff to work through their lunch break to meet deadline.
Lunch is for wimps.

User avatar
Plavt
Director
Director
Posts: 4278
Joined: Wed, 18 May 2005 2:13 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Post by Plavt » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 8:02 pm

rattlesnake wrote: Lunch is for wimps.

[-X

rattlesnake
Regular
Regular
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:14 pm

Post by rattlesnake » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 8:56 pm

Plavt wrote:
rattlesnake wrote: Lunch is for wimps.

[-X
Ha .... ha. Sorry, that was the wrong answer. Next please :)

Like I said ...... Lunch, is for wimps.

bigfilsing
Reporter
Reporter
Posts: 661
Joined: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 6:11 pm

Post by bigfilsing » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:42 pm

Vaucluse wrote:
nushk wrote:
I find this mildly insulting. had you not added in the last paragraph, it would have been amusing.
Oh dear, Image bigfilsing Image won't like that. For him it is ok to label someone a racist for making comments about maids and prostitutes . . . but he tries to get away with slagging off a whole continent . . . and he doesn't see the irony in it.

Image, you are a hypocrite, bigfilsing Image
What on earth are you rattling on about :shock:

bigfilsing
Reporter
Reporter
Posts: 661
Joined: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 6:11 pm

Post by bigfilsing » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:47 pm

bigfilsing wrote:You've clearly made a stupid mistake ...silly you.

You've applied logic to your task 8-) and forgotten all the intermediate steps of position and self justification of your colleagues, not to mention allowing them time to claim brownie points for other peoples (your) ideas and hard work.

Welcome to the world of Asian office politics, "face" and general lazy half arsed approach to getting things done.
Clearly my response to the topic. Nothing more nothing less.

No "it's better/ worse than" .." we this or them that" references .

"Here" being asia ( last time i checked) the reference to "asian" is quite relevant in the context of the original question.

User avatar
littlegreenman
Chatter
Chatter
Posts: 382
Joined: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 8:32 pm
Location: London/Singapore

Post by littlegreenman » Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:14 pm

Lunchbreak? What was that again? Never heard of it.

My average working day is 7.30am to 8pm. If I have a break then that means I am going to the loo.

In general here in the UK in middle- and backoffices as well there is more and more the trend to look more and more busy while actually shirking responsibility and not being effective due to acting busy. This is a general problem.

In Singapore the problem is that groupwork is very popular, to the extend that it gets overused on simple things which then results in inefficiencies. I remember my wife who studied in uni had group work for every little sh1te. Then all that mattered was the presentation (for which every time a t-shirt had to be printed and a fancy display board had to be made). The contents of the presentation were not that important.

Singaporeans are a clever bunch if you ask me. The only problem is to make them realise that they have to be individually responsible for certain things and also to be efficient. Also, they like to stick to procedures and so you have to motviate them to make them think out of the box (don't just follow law).

User avatar
sundaymorningstaple
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 40376
Joined: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 1:26 pm
Answers: 21
Location: Retired on the Little Red Dot

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:08 am

littlegreenman wrote:Also, they like to stick to procedures and so you have to motviate them to make them think out of the box (don't just follow law).
(don't just follow law.)? If they did that, this country wouldn't know as a "FINE" city, now would it! :P
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

workingtoohard
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 3:23 am
Location: Iowa, US

Post by workingtoohard » Thu, 18 Jun 2009 1:16 am

inefficiency is not necessarily a bad thing ;) having multiple reviews reduce the possibility of single point failures. depending on the criticality of the documentation, sometimes redundancy is exactly the thing that you want. if you dont have the time to get it right the first time, better make sure you have the time to fix it later on.

User avatar
ksl
Governor
Governor
Posts: 5989
Joined: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 8:52 pm
Location: Singapore
Contact:

Post by ksl » Thu, 18 Jun 2009 1:43 am

Addadude wrote:
sundaymorningstaple wrote:
And this one, frankly, I don't blame them for. In most western countries a normal day is 9 to 5 whereas here it's 9 to 6 because the employer refuses to pay for the lunch hour where it is normally paid for in the west.
Interesting - I didn't know that! Mind you, I'm the kind of guy who takes just 30 minutes for lunch... (So I can spend more of lunch time on wonderful sites like this! ) :P
Now you even make me embarrassed :oops: Although if you are in the start up phase, this could be accepted, it all depends on your humanity. There are no specific guidelines like in many western Countries, but I always feel that rewards are due to them that earn them, rather than use them, and i know you may question this tactic, but a happy workforce is happy, and I need workers that perform not those that do not. So the recruitment criteria is rather direct and straight......customers come first and honesty to the best of our ability is on par .....any false representation, would be investigated simply because we have ethics and standards, that will be enfoced. Everything must be within the law end of story! SMS is quite wright to his expression, although if he reads the rules and regulations he would also discover that the law is the law and i must admit i have had this discussion today. and because I am a consultant that knows, in import and export of products it is my duty too inform everyone of the laws,,, I couldn't care less is you follow them or not, that is not my problem, but do not question my professional ability when you get fine.

My education encompasses the whole of European law in export, for manufactures, so it's my position to ensure that products are imported in accordance with regulation Singapore hasn't moved much further in the last 40 or 60 years is not my problem.

Now am i well liked? Personally i'm an advisor in business , what you do with my advice is not my problem. I can only say, what you get in return you have probably earned. personably i couldn't give a damn if this is Asia or not, what is important is ethics.

I found working in a flexi environment for employees, not myself, that everyone contributed has expected, and the rule was if they didn't they would lose their jobs, based on a monthly analysis. I've been involved in developing several businesses only to see them go under because the person establishing the business, takes advantage of the situation, that's very easy done..money is king not the people working for the companies. The abuse is quite widespread, Finding a balance is also difficult unless you know what you are worth, if you have a value you have to prove it, no company likes to lose and asset only a dumb one.

It doesn't matter which Country we are in we have to adapt the best way we can, and that includes many laws and many avoidances, that are common pactise, howeversometimes understanding the culture is much more important sometimes than laws, and you will always be put on the right track! This is still a developing country for local business, and if you do not play the ball, the watch out.

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “General Discussions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 18 guests