SINGAPORE: A woman shared online that she was left both entertained and quietly baffled after discovering that a colleague who failed to secure a promotion had decided to try her luck by renaming her role to “Manager” anyway.
In her post on a local discussion forum, she explained that it had long been common knowledge in the office that this particular colleague had been aiming for a managerial position.
“It’s kind of an open secret that she’s been gunning hard for it, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” the woman wrote on r/singaporejobs on Friday (Dec 12).
“But when she didn’t get the promotion, I found out she actually requested her job title to be changed to ‘Manager’… without the promotion, responsibilities, or pay. Just the title. Of course, HR rejected it immediately.”
Curious about what might have motivated such a move, she turned to the Reddit community to ask for their views on the situation.
“What kind of insight do you even draw from this kind of behaviour?” she wrote. “Is it ego? A résumé tactic? A misunderstanding of how org structures work? Or something else entirely? Would love to hear thoughts from people who’ve seen similar things in their workplace.”
“It’s not as absurd as you think.”
Of the three possible motives mentioned in her post, most people agreed that her colleague had likely done it as “a résumé tactic.”
One individual shared that in their company, most young employees who loved the work and had no complaints about the pay still ended up leaving because they couldn’t get the word ‘Manager’ into their job title.
“We really couldn’t understand why the title was so important until someone explained it to us. ‘It feels lousy to go for class reunions where everyone is a manager, and I am only an executive. My pay may be higher, but no one gets to see my pay slip, only my name card.’”
Another commented, “Had someone worse in my company last time. She was damn idealistic and loopy… She read some kind of inspirational article about our industry, and then went ahead to unilaterally change her job title to ‘Idea Dreamer’. My boss was like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ and told her to stop her crap. She left a couple months after that.”
Some also guessed that the colleague might have been trying to change her job title because she was thinking of leaving the company soon.
One wrote, “It’s not as absurd as you think. But it’s also a sign that she may be looking to zao (leave) lol, usually people trying to pad their CV are looking for greener pastures elsewhere. Only really stupid people will take a higher rank + more responsibilities with no pay increase.”
Another said, “She’s planning to leave. Interviewers won’t know exactly what she does in the current company.”
In other news, an employer has sparked debate online after alleging that her domestic helper had been repeatedly scolding her young child with remarks she found unacceptably harsh.
In an anonymous post on Thursday (Dec 11) in the Direct Hire Transfer Singapore Maid / Domestic Helper Facebook group, the mother claimed the helper often spoke to her child in ways she believed crossed the line, citing comments such as “You’re bad” and “You’re a liar!”
