Letter to the Editor | Corporate slavery: How could employers expect an overworked employee to continue working without making mistakes?

Dear Editor,

I refer to The Independent Singapore’s featured news, “Employee says working as “corporate slaves” in Singapore with long working hours brought her ‘frequent sick days’” (May 27).

Firstly, we need to ask ourselves (especially as employees) a few questions: Besides dutifully fulfilling all the assigned tasks and duties entrusted to us, what else are we expected or told to accomplish?

Should we work smartly and productively or just drag ourselves along with the time to show off our loyalty and “hard work”?

Indeed, nowadays, all employers and employees must first change or fine-tune their mindsets to a standard or requirement of efficiency, accuracy, and productivity.

We can roughly gauge the degree of mental stress and physical tiredness of an over-worked employee who still needs to take care of his/her family’s household and children, if any.

Hence, how would an employer expect an overloaded or overworked employee to continue working normally without making any mistakes in his/her routine tasks/assignments the following day?

We must also ask how long an overworked employee can last and sustain such adverse work conditions.

If the overworked employee falls sick or takes sick leave, the employer will inevitably bear higher costs and unavoidably require another relief employee for the temporary replacement.

Is it even worth the loss?

Teo Kueh Liang

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of The Independent Singapore

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