SINGAPORE: In her TikTok clip, a Singaporean woman, RachL @reichurachl, under the channel “Unrelatable in Singapore,” part of a series on Work Horror Stories, recounted what she called “one of my biggest career mistakes,” all centred on a moment of candour she quickly came to regret.
Fresh out of school with a communications background, she joined a young SME marketing firm — a small outfit still finding its operational rhythm. As she put it, “the organisation in this company is kind of bad.” And her perspective didn’t come from nowhere; she had previously interned at a major corporation where she “learned basic company structure,” giving her a sense of how things could run more smoothly.
So, when her new boss sat her down after one to two months to ask, “Oh, so how do you find the company?” RachL answered the only way she knew how. “I said, I love the team. I love the work. I love working. But the organisation in this company is kind of bad.” And she didn’t stop there. Believing this was the kind of transparency leaders appreciated, she took the chance to “give recommendations for how I thought the company could be run a lot more efficiently.”
What she received was every young employee’s nightmare: The dreaded email from management. “Not even the next day. In the next half an hour, she sent me this long a** email saying, ‘I believe we have different visions. And if you want to leave, you should leave!’” That single message sealed the lesson for her: “Never answer too honestly in the workplace.”
Her comment section lit up with Singaporeans who understood the assignment far too well. One viewer summarised corporate realism, cutting to the chase: “Honesty is never valued. It always has to be PC and aligned to your boss and the org’s interest. Period.”
Another noted that companies may claim they want transparency, but only on their terms. “When companies said they are open to feedback, they are only open to hear what they want to hear…”
Others offered more nuanced workplace survival tactics:
“For starters, know your boss. Some bosses can’t handle the truth. Once you figure out what kind of boss you have, then you can couch your feedback appropriately. If your boss isn’t the kind that can handle negative or constructive feedback, it might be better not to offer any,” one advised.
“Your boss was overly sensitive and didn’t know how to receive constructive criticism. Also, what works for major corporations won’t necessarily work for SMEs,” added another.
And the classic career-saving reframing: “Instead of saying the organisational structure is bad, say you would like to provide some feedback from a staff perspective if it’s possible, and put it across professionally. I’m sure you know more words than just ‘bad’.”
RachL’s misstep was honest, well-intentioned, and painfully relatable, and it served as a reminder to young Singaporeans entering the workforce: Transparency is admirable, but reading the room is also essential. And sometimes, the safest feedback is the one you kindly wrap in layers before unboxing.
