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Crappiest companies in Singapore

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AngMoG
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Post by AngMoG » Mon, 29 Jul 2013 1:59 pm

the lynx wrote:
x9200 wrote:
zzm9980 wrote: I would agree. I also think a lot of those crummy bosses are unqualified people from the same labor pool promoted for any reason other than qualifications. When you give a clueless idiot a bit of power, they become jerks.
This, but also on the other side: how many average employees do their work efficiently? If they are rather poor in this, the only way to have the job done is to make them working longer.
If SME offices really ban Facebook in the office network like they should have, that will be very helpful.

:sarcasm:
Well, where I am at they block a lot of sites now, but mostly due to fear of data leakage, or of introducing viruses on the company PCs...

My previous company however, had the genius idea at some point to have internet access on WHITELIST basis (as opposed to blacklist). You could only access to sites that were on the list, everything else was blocked by default. https was also still accessible, so tunnelling still worked. That's great if you try to do research about competitors, for example... :mad:

Productivity does not come from having staff work specific hours, forced overtime or even blocking non-productive sites. It comes from setting clear goals and/or KPIs, taking appropriate actions if they're not met, and rewarding if exceeded.

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Post by nakatago » Mon, 29 Jul 2013 2:41 pm

AngMoG wrote:
Well, where I am at they block a lot of sites now, but mostly due to fear of data leakage, or of introducing viruses on the company PCs...

My previous company however, had the genius idea at some point to have internet access on WHITELIST basis (as opposed to blacklist). You could only access to sites that were on the list, everything else was blocked by default. https was also still accessible, so tunnelling still worked. That's great if you try to do research about competitors, for example... :mad:

Productivity does not come from having staff work specific hours, forced overtime or even blocking non-productive sites. It comes from setting clear goals and/or KPIs, taking appropriate actions if they're not met, and rewarding if exceeded.
I used to work for a company where we didn't have internet access from our own computers. They had dedicated internet computers (1 for every 50 engineers) and they were as slow as hell.

And we dealt with computers:

* we couldn't look up certain tech because just bringing books require upper management approval. whenever we had questions about commands or code, we had to rely on one person
* we were required to come up with patent documents but the only website they allowed was USPTO. For everything else, we had to submit our search terms for dedicated people to conduct searches.
* we were also required to investigate current technologies which we couldn't look up because we had no internet access and we subscribe to journals, it had to be to our personal emails or mailing addresses. They also disallowed delivery of personal mail into the office.
* bringing in digital media was also subject to upper management approval
* we were all given calling cards but they were inaccessible from the outside internet
* they expect us to be always knowledgeable and expand our expertise as long as it does not involve information from the outside world flowing into the office
"A quokka is what would happen if there was an anime about kangaroos."

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Post by ecureilx » Mon, 29 Jul 2013 4:03 pm

nakatago wrote:....
* they expect us to be always knowledgeable and expand our expertise as long as it does not involve information from the outside world flowing into the office
I did some attachment to another 'large' company, civil projects mainly and the directors and managers have internet, and the rest-no-can-do.

Even the IT support guys had to go to the managers PC to check anything in the internet, till, having been left alone for a few minutes, that the method to access internet was very secure - different proxy for http :D :D

Off I go back to my desk and key in and it works fine, and I casually asked their UK Support whether they do any Access control and the answer was NO

Seems like when Internet was precious, the bosses decided to limit internet and from a 64K Leased circuit, now they use a 2 MB Metro E, and still think it should be limited access ..

And the iT manager was aghast when I suggested to get rid of the proxy . and he went "oh no, then the people who need to access internet for work maybe impacted, and emails and all maybe delayed .. "

Yes, he has been in that company since the day of Punch cards ..

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nakatago
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Post by nakatago » Mon, 29 Jul 2013 4:07 pm

ecureilx wrote:
nakatago wrote:....
* they expect us to be always knowledgeable and expand our expertise as long as it does not involve information from the outside world flowing into the office
I did some attachment to another 'large' company, civil projects mainly and the directors and managers have internet, and the rest-no-can-do.

Even the IT support guys had to go to the managers PC to check anything in the internet, till, having been left alone for a few minutes, that the method to access internet was very secure - different proxy for http :D :D

Off I go back to my desk and key in and it works fine, and I casually asked their UK Support whether they do any Access control and the answer was NO

Seems like when Internet was precious, the bosses decided to limit internet and from a 64K Leased circuit, now they use a 2 MB Metro E, and still think it should be limited access ..

And the iT manager was aghast when I suggested to get rid of the proxy . and he went "oh no, then the people who need to access internet for work maybe impacted, and emails and all maybe delayed .. "

Yes, he has been in that company since the day of Punch cards ..
I don't mind blocking some sites but is it too much to ask for for managers to let people do their jobs?
"A quokka is what would happen if there was an anime about kangaroos."

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Post by x9200 » Mon, 29 Jul 2013 4:10 pm

AngMoG wrote:Productivity does not come from having staff work specific hours, forced overtime or even blocking non-productive sites. It comes from setting clear goals and/or KPIs, taking appropriate actions if they're not met, and rewarding if exceeded.
What I for example observed working for a locally present, very large MNC, where basically 100 or so people seating together in low-walls cubicals/clusters and no, they didn't do any private surfing etc, but preparation of a single presentation, 10 slides or so, could take them 2-3 days instead of half a day. 7:30 in, 18:00 out, some lunch/coffee break and shuffling out the slides in the mean time.

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Post by Wd40 » Mon, 29 Jul 2013 4:53 pm

x9200 wrote:
AngMoG wrote:Productivity does not come from having staff work specific hours, forced overtime or even blocking non-productive sites. It comes from setting clear goals and/or KPIs, taking appropriate actions if they're not met, and rewarding if exceeded.
What I for example observed working for a locally present, very large MNC, where basically 100 or so people seating together in low-walls cubicals/clusters and no, they didn't do any private surfing etc, but preparation of a single presentation, 10 slides or so, could take them 2-3 days instead of half a day. 7:30 in, 18:00 out, some lunch/coffee break and shuffling out the slides in the mean time.
Thats probably because they aren't good at it. Preparing PPT slides is not everyone's cup of tea. If you are good at it and you enjoy doing it, then you climb the corporate ladder very fast. I am neither good at it nor do I enjoy doing it.

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Post by x9200 » Mon, 29 Jul 2013 5:09 pm

Presentation slides were only an example. There were other tasks were people were that effective. This also goes the other way around: a different company, one of my project team members was asked to estimated his time spent on the project during the past 3 quarters. He came up with the number of 200+ mandays. Unfortunately I judged him by his results (data he produced) and caught it down by a factor of 10 (20 mds).

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Post by movingtospore » Tue, 30 Jul 2013 11:31 am

x9200 wrote:Not having any employment experience with the local SMEs I would still be inclined to say that likely the crappiness of some companies has a lot to do with the local labor quality.
It's also a time zone thing, being in Asia with head offices in Europe or the US...lots of late conference calls unfortunately.

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Post by movingtospore » Tue, 30 Jul 2013 11:33 am

Though would add, one thing I've noticed about our local staff...they go for lunch for like 2 hours... I get lunch is a cultural thing but if you want to be out of the office before 6 then you need to rethink that!

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Post by Addadude » Tue, 30 Jul 2013 11:40 am

For most Singaporeans, lunch hour is sacred. Don't ever expect them to work through lunch. Even if there is an urgent deadline they would prefer to have their full lunch hour and stress themselves out completely trying to meet the deadline afterwards.

Similarly, you can get Singaporeans to work long after 6pm without too much difficulty but woe betide you if you try to get them to skip lunch. It is a cultural thing. It's not going to change anytime soon. So you just have to accept it.
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sundaymorningstaple
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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Tue, 30 Jul 2013 11:47 am

That and eating their breakfast at their desk on company time. :x
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Post by Wd40 » Tue, 30 Jul 2013 12:26 pm

On the other side of the spectrum, there are few MNCs in Singapore, especially in the financial and banking services where people are underworked and overpaid. My company is one of them. Its also a bad situation because you know everywhere else its the opposite and when you have to jump the company, you will struggle to find another job and even if you find one, it will be struggle there.

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Post by BillyB » Tue, 30 Jul 2013 12:41 pm

movingtospore wrote:Man I would love to just work from 845 to 630. Sign me up!
And me - 7am through til 9pm is my norm.......

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Post by Wd40 » Tue, 30 Jul 2013 12:43 pm

BillyB wrote:
movingtospore wrote:Man I would love to just work from 845 to 630. Sign me up!
And me - 7am through til 9pm is my norm.......
But then you could probably retire by 40, fithy rich! like JR8

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Post by BillyB » Tue, 30 Jul 2013 12:52 pm

Wd40 wrote:
BillyB wrote:
movingtospore wrote:Man I would love to just work from 845 to 630. Sign me up!
And me - 7am through til 9pm is my norm.......
But then you could probably retire by 40, fithy rich! like JR8
I wish! :D

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