SINGAPORE: A frustrated Singaporean employee took to social media to vent about her exhausting work situation, where she is essentially a one-woman team with no support.
In a post on the r/askSingapore subreddit, she shared that being the only person in her team means no one will take over her responsibilities when she takes sick leave.
“There is no one to do my job when I’m on sick leave. My medical certificates are all legitimate, issued by a registered medical doctor from a polyclinic or public hospital—not telemedicine,” she wrote.
As a result, even when she’s officially on leave, she’s still expected to be available. Instead of getting the rest she needs, she’s pulled into meetings, required to join team discussions, bombarded with calls from colleagues, and tasked with preparing documents from home.
“We are not even in a profit-driven industry and are not dealing with life and death. The matters we handle are not urgent, and all internal deadlines are set by the head of the department,” she pointed out, highlighting the absurdity of the situation.
Curious to see if others had faced similar struggles, she asked the community, “What’s the most unfair work situation you’ve ever experienced or heard of?”
“It’s quite common in Singapore…”
In the discussion thread, many told the employee that her situation was, unfortunately, all too common in Singapore’s work culture.
One user said, “I think it’s quite common in Singapore—doing the work of two people but only getting paid for one. Then, a new hire comes in to fill a vacancy and ends up getting paid more than you.”
Another shared, “Eh… I think it’s everywhere. I have colleagues on the same team, but they’re dealing with other things, too. They even have to work every Saturday, and their pay grade ain’t above three grand. They have to do their work even when travelling and within the customer KPI (24 hours).”
Other users also jumped in to share the tough experiences they, or people they knew, had gone through at work.
One user commented, “When someone in my workplace resigned from his job and was serving notice, his manager made him go to the office on the weekend for six hours, for no additional compensation, to carry out additional handover training to the manager. Poor guy.”
Another recalled, “I fixed bugs caused by others and completely got blamed for it.”
A third user added, “I used to work in a hospital. My colleague got punched in the face by a patient, which left her nose crooked. She had to do a rhinoplasty to correct it, but the cost wasn’t covered by the hospital, although she never really looked quite like herself again.”
Sick leave
According to HRSingapore, employers cannot pressure or require their employees to join meetings, complete tasks, or handle work-related duties while on sick leave. This time off is specifically meant for employees to rest, recover, and return to work in good health.
However, if an employee feels well enough and decides to work from home on their own, they are allowed to do so since there are no strict rules against it.
Read also: Singaporean worker asks why workplace relationships need to be declared to HR
Featured image by freepik (for illustration purposes only)