SG worker stunned to learn overseas teams of eight handle what he does alone for lower pay

SINGAPORE: A Singaporean worker was left completely dumbfounded after discovering that his overseas counterparts have full teams to handle the same workload he manages alone, and with a much more relaxed timeline!

Posting on a local forum on Wednesday (Feb 4), the worker shared that he is in a project management role in the automobile sector, the same position held by peers from the company’s overseas offices.

During a recent global meeting, he casually shared details about his current assignment, overseeing more than 50 products within a three-month timeline. He said he was handling everything solo, from marketing and pricing to strategy planning, materials coordination, system updates, and product lifecycle management.

At first, he thought nothing of it and assumed this was just how things were done everywhere. However, as he continued speaking, he noticed his overseas colleagues’ “faces changed a bit.”

That was when the truth came out. Although they work on the same type of project, his overseas peers are supported by teams of five to eight people who divide the workload among themselves. They are also given up to a full year to complete the project.

“I was screaming internally, ‘WTF, your position and pay are higher than mine, and I’m doing the work of 8 people?’” he wrote. “A project that takes 8 people 1 year to complete, I’m doing solo, in 3 months. All this miracle work, and I only got average for appraisal. I feel like slapping myself.”

The man added that he now plans to use this experience as his “unique selling point” in future job interviews.

He ended his post on a frustrated note, writing, “Really lah guys, I don’t really understand why bosses prefer expensive foreigners when their work culture is so slack… vs. when they can better exploit Singaporeans for profits. Can any influencer bosses shed some light on this esoteric thinking?”

“These companies are not from Singapore.”

In the comments, one Singaporean Redditor wrote, “NS for sinkies, the best jobs for FTs.”

Another commented, “The issue is often these companies are not from Singapore.”

A third said, “Similar as you. Our lean team of 6 in Singapore generates 40% of the revenue, as compared to the US/India/EU, which has 5x the manpower and generates the remaining. Some of these ‘top’ level folks (especially from certain countries) love to hire people of the same village/cliques for their power base, kaki lang mindset. Only clear-sighted C-levels and board members may have a chance to remove these cultures.”

In other news, a young Singaporean turned to an online forum to seek advice after her mother, a Myanmar national and long-time permanent resident, was once again rejected for Singapore citizenship.

In a post shared on r/askSingapore, she explained that her mother has lived in Singapore for more than two decades.

Read more: ‘Others get it in two years’: Singaporean asks why her Myanmar-born mother is still denied citizenship after 20 years in Singapore