- Remember the working hours I mentioned previously? The contract might have stated 9am to 5pm, but in truth the company enforces mandatory unpaid overtime. Such a company policy was not mentioned at any point of my interview, nor was it mentioned in the contract.
- We are expected to add the aforementioned overtime into our weekly schedule. I have seen colleagues being spoken harshly to by our supervisors for not adding in the full number of overtime hours because of school, personal issues etc. In one occasion, my colleague was told not to 'bring personal issues into the office' when he told our supervisor that he could only give 8 out of the expected 10 hours because he had to sit for an exam. Once I had not put any overtime hours into my schedule for the following week, but the hours were later automatically added for me, presumably by the management.
- The management will 'praise' us for our hard work and the long working hours we had put in to help the company through the peak period. However, at the performance review, our shortcomings and fail rates seems to be the only thing the managers are interested to talk about. Naturally, the raise we receive is minimal, and for some of my colleagues, none at all, due to 'performance' issues. It doesn't matter if your performance for the first 10 months had been excellent, all they want to talk about is the 'disappointing' performance of the past 2 months.
- A promotion is simply slapping a "Senior" to the front of your job title. Responsibilities do not change much. What you have been doing after promotion will not be any different from what you had been doing previously.
- The nature of the work sometimes requires us to work beyond the given time. The management had specifically instructed us to inform them if certain tasks took more time than was given, so that they may rearrange the schedule as required. However, upon informing the management, they will show dissatisfaction, and sometimes we will receive remarks like being 'a slow worker'. Such comments are extremely unhelpful and makes us hesitant to approach the management for help.
- The management has a tendency to assign us with tasks that are beyond our skill set (reprographics etc.) or tasks belonging to an account that we are unfamiliar with. After being informed of the situation, they typically respond with 'don't worry, you can do it'. However, we tend to make mistakes in such tasks, as we do not know what is right or wrong, and we will be faulted for it. 'Don't tolerate inefficiencies' is one of the company's motto. Apparently the management does tolerate it.
