Meeting with A Bad Boss
I
heard from my friend that there was a vacancy for the accounts in company that she
worked as an Accounts executive about three years. Her Accounts manager who
worked there about five years had resigned, one of Accounts executives had
already given a one month noticed to leave the company so she left alone as the
accounts person. And people came in and went out very often in this company she
said. I knew that so many times of staff turnover was not a sign of good
company but I had no choice. At that time there was business crisis in
Singapore so it was very hard to find a job for foreigners like me and I
had to work for my family’s living. My new company was such a family type
trading company. There was boss, three directors (boss’s two elder brothers and
eldest daughter), two purchasers, two accounts executives, one admin staff (boss’s
youngest daughter) and one forklift driver who worked in the warehouse.
Recommendation of my friend, boss
appointed me as an Accounts receivable executive with provision three months
and there was no noticed for me to leave the company that means either he could
terminate me or I could resign immediately. About the salary he agreed to pay
me S$1,800 per month which was according to government rule for S-pass at that
time. S-pass was the work pass for foreigners who had middle educated level and
Singapore government had specified the range of salary for S-pass which was
S$1,800 to S$2,500 per month at that time. For me, whatever he said I had to
agree and had to say thank you for giving a chance for me other than that I had
no choice. Boss asked the Accounts executive who had given a one month noticed to
hand over her jobs to me and when I joined this company her notice period left
only one week. And I heard from my friend that she was a permanent resident (PR) of
Singapore and boss raised her salary from S$2,500 to S$3,000 per month since
accounts manager had resigned but she could not cope her add on duties so that
she resigned. Normally, foreigners had to take more responsibilities than Singaporean or PR with less salary in Singapore. Although I could imagine how difficult to work with this kind of boss, I had to
accept this challenging job for my family.
The First day lecture of a Bad Boss
It was the
first day of working at new company everything was so smooth and boss explained
to me about what were my duties. As an Accounts receivable executive my duty
was to handle the income of oversea two companies. Every morning I had to check
bank transactions from internet, print out all the bank transactions, sales
reports which were sent from the oversea branch companies, made two copies and one
copy I must put on his table. Another copy was for me and I must tally today bank
statement with yesterday sales reports from oversea two companies. He explained
to me that the salesmen must bank in every morning all the money which got from
yesterday sales and I must monitor to it. And he taught me that doing business
was like a war and if I was not alert or clever I would die soon by enemy. People
were usually dishonest and I could not trust everybody except him.
I guessed
that his age was about 70 years old and he looked calm and patient. He put a
smile on his face and told me that my job duties were very easy and I could get
a lot of spare time. So when I had got spare time I needed to help some of my
friend’s duties as well he said. And he told me about the Accounts executive
who had given one month notice was very lousy even he had given her a chance to
promote she could not cope her add on duties so her mind was something wrong,
he concluded. I was just listening to his words and at the same time learning his
attitude to employee. After that he asked my friend to introduce all his
employees with me.
