u/Dapper_Joke_3114

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Last month, my office had around 4 people resign and leave on the same day.

Then last week, this new staff joined. Her role is basically replacing those people who left, while the company is still hiring. LOL

At first I didn’t think much. New colleague, NORMAL.

But when she walked in, I was shocked. She looked much older than what I expected for this role. Full white/grey hair, petite, wearing specs, very quiet kind of vibe. In my head I was like… wait, is she in her 40s? 50s? 60s?

The role is client-facing corporate secretarial work. Not exactly the most relaxing job. Clients chasing, deadlines, documents, calls, meetings, all the usual bla bla bla nonsense.

I Teams my colleague like, “eh how old do you think she is ah?”
My colleague said she also not sure and didn’t dare to ask during lunch.

Then a few days later, my colleague told me she accidentally saw her IC labelling S1XXXXXX then she went to chatgpt and check it out then found out that the new staff is around her 60s.

UNBELIEVABLE! We always talk like the job market is young adult vs young adult.

But now it feels like we are also competing with the OLDER GENERATION who are coming back into the workforce because retirement is apparently not retirement anymore.

… even uncle & auntie also cannot rest.

My colleague said the boss is smart because hiring older workers can possibly get g@v support/grants. I don’t know how much, but the thought itself is quite depressing.

Because from company POV, it’s just “cost effective hiring”.

From worker POV, it’s like everyone is fighting for the same seat on a bus that is already full.

And honestly I don’t even blame the new staff. She’s probably just trying to survive too. Maybe she still has bills, family, rent, medical stuff, who knows.

But it made me feel damn sian.

Now I’m thinking… Compete for 40 years, then come back and compete again? !!!!!

Anyone else seeing more older workers returning to office jobs lately? O.O

Today I had lunch with my ex-colleague.

He used to be my senior manager in my current company, so sometimes we do meet up casually for lunch, as usual we talked about work, career stuff, technical questions, all those normal lunch topics, bla bla bla....

Then I brought up something I noticed recently.

There is another team with only 2 people, but they always seem super hardworking. Like every day they have more cases, always asking finance to issue invoices to clients, always looking busy. From outside, it really looks like they are "qiong" all the way.

So I casually asked him, “why that team seems got so many cases ah? They seem very hardworking.”

Then he told me something I didn’t expect.

Apparently one of them earns commission from those cases. So that person has been trying to “steal” more clients and push more cases into their own team. The other person doesn’t get commission, but just follows along and chiong together.

Mmm....the whole thing made sense now

At first I thought they were just naturally more motivated, they r longer with the company, or maybe they were just better at getting things done. But actually there was another reason behind it.

Not saying earning commission is wrong. People work for money, that’s normal. But it made me realise something a bit uncomfortable.

Sometimes what looks like “hardworking” from the outside is not really about passion, teamwork, or responsibility. Sometimes there is a hidden incentive. Sometimes people are not doing more because they care more. LOL

And the funny part is, the person beside them may not even get the same commission, but still gets pulled into the same "game".

Have you ever noticed any colleague at work suddenly becoming so "hardworking" and QIONG all the way?

If it's 0, u may tell your reason