S’porean Lady Requests For People To Stop ‘Glorifying’ Working Overtime & Making Unhealthy Work Culture Normal

Work-life balance is something that we all crave, but somehow don’t get. We often question ourselves why, but at the same time, we fall into the same cycle of staying late to finish our work because, for some reason, that’s the norm these days.

We continuously perpetuate the idea that working overtime is a sign of dedication, a sign that you’re hardworking, but later question why we’re so tired all the time and why we don’t have time to ourselves, to do the things we like.

One Singaporean with the surname Cheong recently tweeted about this problem and she cannot be more correct.

Celebration Of Unhealthy Work Culture

On 17 Jan, one Singaporean with the surname Cheong recently tweeted about this problem and called out another Singaporean for commending her colleagues for working overtime.

Can Singaporeans stop normalising unhealthy work culture under the guise of “dedication and hard work”……..I’m eavesdropping on this overworked girl’s conversation and it’s so sad to hear her celebrating her colleagues’ poor work life balance…

— cheong zena ⚰️ (@CheongZena) January 17, 2020

The lady apparently admired her colleagues’ dedication for their work, going as far as staying till 5am just to finish whatever they need to do.

“she stayed up till 5am to do her work!” “even though I left 30 mins late at 7.30pm everyone else was still around you know! They are sooo hardworking I really admire them” well…ok…go on and perpetuate that poor work life balance culture

— cheong zena ⚰️ (@CheongZena) January 17, 2020

Clearly, this is a very unhealthy mindset.

Ms Cheong believes that Singaporeans should stop seeing overworking as “dedication and hard work” because doing so will only lead to a poorer work-life balance, something that all of us are trying to be better at.

Competitive Mindset?

While it may seem that you’re doing what’s best for your company because you’re trying to do all your work as quickly as possible, it’s clear that this is not the healthiest way to do things.

We’re stuck in a vicious cycle that we find ourselves unable to break out of precisely because of the fact that we think that overworking is what we have to do in order to remain competitive.

It’s not uncommon to find many Singaporeans working late till the early hours of the next day, or even on the weekends because of this mindset.

Even though many of us desire work-life balance, it’s difficult to achieve it when everyone seems to normalise overworking. Some even criticise those who leave work on the dot.

There should be more measures from companies to ensure that Singaporeans get better work-life balance instead of propagating the idea that they need to work overtime or discuss work after hours.

If you’re working a 9 to 5 job, you shouldn’t have to discuss work outside of those hours.

We still have a long way to go to change this mindset, but hopefully we can all take baby steps towards this.