It is a no brainer that the best job in Singapore is to be at management level of a statboard, where your daily job is to channel jobs from the big guys on top of you to the poor guys below you, then send political emails to channel the jobs your poor guys could not cope with to the other departments' poor guys, also attend meetings to present PowerPoint slides that your poor guys have created, and for the rest of the day you can just la kopi and relac one corner.
Oh don't you worry about getting too little pay for your little effort. As long as you've got the right papers, you can expect an offensively huge pay check, even more if you are a scholar, and regardless of job experience. And when the rest of the world is still struggling with economy recovery, you'll still get a generous 2.5 months bonus! Still not enough? Try siphoning some rewards for yourself from the countless contracts for external vendors. As long as you are discreet enough, nobody will notice your Lamborghini. Well, at least for quite a few years. So now who says that the best job in the world is in Australia?
Right at this point, some of you might be accusing me of stereotyping, especially when I do not work in a statboard. Yap, despite my papers and experience, all my applications to all the various statboards only ended up in shredders. Hey, I was so eager that I've even sent resume to the allegedly more boring statboards like NLB and NPB for junior positions that are held by my subordinates! Some said I must have been rejected because I was asking for the same pay as a freshly graduated scholar, which is probably too much to ask for since all I've got is more than 10 years of experience and a normal honors degree from a normal UK university. With such resume, I could only work for MNCs listed on NASDAQ.
So instead, I'll tell you real stories of some statboard managers, painfully obtained by the countless nights of grumble calls I get from my unfortunate friends who have to work under these bosses. Wonder what did they do wrong in their past lives to deserve such bad karmas.
He is the one who asks his next-in-line to do his own tasks and reports, and when the next-in-line said she have no idea how to do his job, he says "If you don't know, I lagi don't know! Can you go find out?"
He is the one who organise one-to-one interviews with the whole office to find out how critical it is for them to have a particular stationary that costs SGD12 each before signing on the procurement request.
She is the one who bought Hello Kitty pink flowery guestbook for the guests attending an industry seminar organised by her department. No, those guests are not pre-school teachers but managers from various SMEs and GLCs.
He is the one who goes into panic mood whenever there is a quarterly meeting with higher management and always ensure that his next-in-line attends the meeting with him, and when questions are asked in the meeting, he stares at his next-in-line and waits for the answers.
He is the one who traveled to China to cut a deal with the potential partner, but after days of meetings, refused to sign on the dotted line because he needed to check with his boss back home. And of course in the end someone else from a private company got the deal.
She is the one who takes annual leaves on days when there are deadlines to be met and important meetings to attend.
She is the one who was expecting an overseas VIP who was critical for a partnership deal, and she asked her PA to email their address to this CEO instead of asking someone to receive him.
He is the one who nervously had a talk with his subordinate who closed 4 deals for the financial year when the sales target was actually 2. His subordinate was advised to slow down.
There are so many more examples yet to be cited and in order to relate them all, I would need to start a new blog for this specific topic altogether. Seriously, I hope the 2.5 months bonus is enough to compensate the mental torture that my statboard friends have to go through.
1 comment:
I worked in a stat board for a few years so I have a few stories:
The Senior Manager who attended one MBA class for one term at NTU and when MBA students, doing the full terms of 3 classes per term, visited her organization, called them her fellow MBA students.
The same manager was famous for her networking: attending chocoloate fondue parties, belly dancing, and always managing to go to Hong Kong for conferences, seminars, etc. paid for by the organization of course.
A few months into her becoming head of any department, staff would transfer or resign.
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