Man earning $20K/month asks if he should quit because 80-hour work weeks make ‘me sick very often, losing hair and feeling sense of uselessness’

A man wrote in an anonymous post to popular confessions page SGWhispers of something he termed ‘The Great Resignation’ in Singapore and said he is an “experienced professional with international working experiences across Asia”. “Both myself (<40) and my wife (<40) are working in the private sector, and our monthly combined income is around $25,000. My last annual income was $240,000 alone,” he added. He then said that his family lived in a resale HDB flat and drove an old MPV. “We are doing well financially and is able to make several overseas trips in a year”.

The man explained that things went downhill for him when he took up a similar salaried role in a different company that required him to go to office daily and take up responsibilities which were not within his job scope. “I was working almost 80 hours weekly on average and this long period of work culture has resulted me in getting sick very often, losing hairs and feeling the sense of uselessness. I was at the brink of giving up the job and focusing on my mental health”, he added.

He wrote that the decision to leave his job was not an easy one as he said that living in Singapore required one to have plenty of savings. He asked netizens how long a break he should take.

Asking if he was going through a mid-life crisis, the man wrote: “how many of you have actually made this move? I do have savings and can stop working for a couple of years. But do I want to do that, and do I want my child and friends see me as a ‘lazy’ person who is unable to handle the work stress? If I can choose, I’d love to wake up and work on something more meaningful and something which I am more passionate on.. Corporate world is great especially on the monetary rewards, but long term wise it is really affecting my mental wellbeing”.

Here’s what netizens said: