Types of Colleagues I Encounter - Part 3 (END)

I will be combining U & L government agency together and will try to make it shorter for easy reading.


U Government Agency
I worked in U government agency for 2 years. The work is very stress as I had timeline to meet and all works were push to me as I’m the only admin left. I’m the type of person who do not like to delay work and will complete within the day, therefore I do not need to do overtime and I don’t have backload. I can’t elaborate more about the job scope as we had to sign an agreement to keep it confidential.


Ms H is my deputy director and a nice lady. She can be fierce when it comes to work and her scolding is to protect you and make you learn. Other staffs don’t appreciate her efforts and feel she is biased toward the guys. My workstation was just right in front of her and I get to hear most of the conversations. She will retire in few years’ time, she just want to ensure her staffs learn and avoid the same mistake again before she leave. She has a strong stand, if the complainant is demanding and she know it’s not her staffs fault, she will protect you till the end. She likes to vent her anger at KB, but after that she will feel guilty and will buy snacks to apologise to her.


She thinks highly of me, but I only found out when I resigned. She persuaded me to stay and said she will put up for my promotion next year. I knew it’s not easy for me to get promote as I rejected her request to take up the call centre duty which is a good point to indicate in my appraisal and also they are other admin staffs whom had works for few years queuing in front of me.

During the 2 years in U agency, my team had changed 3 leaders. Only Jesser and Joey were nice to work with and I enjoy working with them. YH is the first team leader. She is unfriendly, strange and will use despise facial expression to look at me. I seldom talk to her beside work. I know she don’t like me but I don’t bother at all as long as I do my work. Usually new staff will be supervise on the letters before going independent, the longest will takes about 1 month. For me I went independent in 2 weeks and my suspicious arose whether if she want to sabotage me. Lucky I have good team mates and they assure I’m doing fine. There was a period of time I was not feeling well and went on medical leave for quite a few days. She came to confront me and warned me not to take anymore medical leave. I will leave office on dot and whenever I walked past her, she will look up from her workstation and stare at me. I had cleared all my daily work and even done part of the next day work, why should I pretend to work overtime. I hate going to office because of her. Luckily about 4 months later, she resigned. I was very happy to hear that because I no longer need to face such an unreasonable team leader. At her farewell lunch, I got to know she broke up with her boyfriend during the time when I joined. I’m not the one who stole her boyfriend, why gave me this kind of stupid treatment. The most important fact she don’t like me was because I did not curry her favours. HAN warned her that the ladies colleagues in her new organisation she’s joining are bitches. As expected, she resigned less than 3 months after joining the new company.

Hazel is a funny and secretive lady. She is always being bullied by YH, whatever she do she will sure be reprimanded by YH. She made a mistake when handling the customer case, she insist she was right and do not want admit the mistake and refused to apologise. In order to close the case soon, the team leader got no choice but to apologise on her behalf. Everyday she will reach office very early, she will signed in and wash her cups before joining her boyfriend for breakfast. I managed to chat with her during 1 of the trip home. She told me her boyfriend’s parents can’t accept her as she was 10years plus older than him, that is why she did not reveal. She said she is ready to get married and even bought an apartment hoping to start a new chapter with him. I told her to be patience because older generation needs more time to accept it and she should not give up. Too bad, she did not contact me after I resigned so I’m not sure how she is doing now, I only knew she was transfer to another division as she can’t cope with the workload.

CYH has a part time job as a photographer. His letters are always in a big mess and never learn from his mistakes. He will anyhow draft the letters and depend on the senior to change it for him. He will use his working time editing his photos, videos and watching Youtube. He is not afraid of the bosses and not sure why the bosses never take action on him. He is one of the big mouth guy in the department. If you want news to be spread to the boss, just tell him the story and he will do it within few days.

Linda the Director’s secretary. She abuse her rights to bully others and want people to listen to her. She is very unreasonable and everyone in the office hates her. If you need to discuss or get anything from her, make sure she is in a good mood, otherwise she will bark at you like mad dog. KB is always being bully by her because she knew KB will not fight back. She retired in year 2015 as the agency do not want to renew her terms because she was already 70 years old.

KB is a very nice lady with no temper. I quite pity her as Ms H and Linda likes to bully her when it’s not her fault or when they are in bad mood. Both of us like to discuss and share opinion in our work which make things easier if we came across similar situation. Her husband dotes on her even after so many years of marriage. They will go for a walk at Garden by the Bay or Botanic Gardens every morning, send and fetch her from work. Last year Christmas, he bought me and Roslin each a chocolate log cake from Secret Recipe.

Roslin a nice and cute lady. She helped me a lot whenever I had problem handling cases and the best person to consult in work or personal life. If she met nasty customers and spoilt her mood, she does not vent anger at anyone and will calm down shortly. That is why she is well liked by all the colleagues in our department. She told me it’s ok to reject boss suggestion to take up the call centre duty as she knew I don’t like and I had lots of workload. She will travel twice a year with her mum and friends. She will share her travel experience and give me good suggestions where to go. She is a good observant as she knew I like Korea from our daily conversation. KB, Roslin and I still meet up twice a year for dinner. I really treasure this friendship.

Amu had the most relax work before I resign. She only need to clear 10 straightforward letters everyday. Her enjoyable time was destroy after I tender my resignation as she need to take over all my duties. I knew she hate me but it was boss decision for her to take up new role. I trained her for 3 weeks and was very patience towards her. I told her many times to follow my steps and the process will be easier and faster but she don’t listen to my advice and insists her way. She had to work overtime every night and still messed up everything in the end. I was called in a few times to talk to various bosses about her situation, advised was also given to bosses and it’s up to them to improve or listen to me. She spoke to Ms H and the officer in charge several times that she don’t want to do this work scope, Ms H had enough of her nonsense and threaten that if she don’t want she can resign. I got to know from KB that she got the union to speak to Ms H to give her back the previous work scope as she can’t handle the current one. Of course Ms H rejected, as Ms H knew she can handle it now but too lazy and no time to do her personal things.

I had about 50 colleagues in my division and most of them are quite nice to work with, therefore there’s not much to talk about them. U agency has a nice working environment but too bad the workload is too heavy as I’m dealing with 4 person workload. If the workload are manageable I will still be staying there.

L Government Agency

L government agency is the worst place to work at and I was writing with my blood boiling to the max. They only value engineers and treat the admin staffs like dirt. No matter how fast I work or how on time I finish my work, they will never noticed and appreciate the admin staffs. We are forever the last in the line to get promoted, if you are lucky the shortest is after 3 years and the longest is 8 years. In my whole working life, I never get an average score, which I am really dishearten. I really regret coming here to work and waste my 2 years.


In my previous post, I will talk individually regarding that person. But for this agency higher management and engineers are the same pattern and there’s no need to talk individually about them. It’s the culture here for them to look down on admin staffs. They like to push the blame to admin staffs and we are just like their dart board. If they go overseas and bought snacks or souvenirs, the admin staffs does not have a share. I’m not a greedy person but how much does it costs them. Even the directors did the same to the admin staffs. They are a bunch of pretenders and like to curry favours. Whenever there are higher management around, they will pretend to treat the admin staffs nicely and show concern.
It takes 2 hands to clap. The admin staffs are to be blame too, the image and signals given proves that they are incapable. 90% of the admin staffs in L agency are of the other race and I do not have good impression on them and after all the nonsense I got, it proven they can’t work at all. There are only 4 admins including me, 2 are of the other races. When I saw them on my first day of work, I knew I will not stay long here and I will be getting nonsense from them.


Lilian is the PA to the Group Director. Her work are orderly and she is well knowledge in her work scope. Her boss schedule are always updated and 100% accurate, unlike the other PAs. She is a tough lady and do not allow others to bully her. As she is very capable, the Group Director will bring her along if there is any re-shuffle.
JW and SR are the 2 ladies which I got the most nonsense from. They are lazy, Tai-chi master, coward, 2 headed snake, incapable, acting in front of boss, etc. Both of them will take turns to take urgent leave or MC, and this happens every week. I can cover JW on Monday & Tuesday and cover SR on Thursday & Friday. They still dare to talk behind my back that I am not capable and can’t cope with the workload. I dare to tell you that I am much more capable and hardworking than them.

JW had being in this agency for more than 20 years but her work performance is real bad and always in a mess. Her workstation is very untidy with outstanding documents pending for filing. She is always on the phone chit chatting and likes to act busy but in fact she is busy with her personal matters like booking of ferry tickets, food reservation, planning of trip, etc. She likes to show off to SR, initially she will show off to me but the matters she boast are normal or I had experience it before, therefore she loves going to SR to boast. She was promoted shortly after I joined and was tasked to take up secretary duties as we have new boss. She is not good in IT and I got to help her every time. I try teaching her how to do but she just will not listen and learn. Lilian told me to ignore her next time, because she will not learn as she knew I will help her. I’m going to listen to Lilian as I found out that JW and SR are back stabbing me and talk nasty things about me. I had helped them so much, in the end I was not appreciated but was given all sorts of stupid nonsense.

SR another hypocrisy whom had been working here for 4 years. She is another lazy bum who will not clear her work and next day will take urgent leave or MC, conveniently I got to clear her rubbish. She is good in sweet talk and everyone assume she is capable in working which she is not. She was recently promoted to take up secretary duties and immediately became arrogant. She boast around her new role and wants to be in charge of me. I’m not going to be nice to them anymore after what she and JW did to me. The lesson learnt here is, it’s never pay to be kind.


They are many things to talk about them, but I want to stop here as it’s going to affect my health. My blood was boiling once again whenever I think of them and I have not been sleeping well due to all these nonsense. I had wasted my 2 years in L agency and was suffering from many unfairness. 4^th July 2016, I decided on my next step, I want to do things I always wanted to. I don’t want to waste my time here anymore. Fulfill your dreams before it is too late and you will not regret when you are old.


Finally this is the last part of “Types of Colleagues I Encounter”. The reason why I wanted to write this kind of topic is because I notice many people are facing the same problem and seldom touch on this topic. Some people will share with their family or friends to release the stress but they are some who tends to keep it in their heart which is not healthy. I’m the one who tends to keep it in my heart, therefore writing it down in my blog is my way of releasing stress. It’s best to find your way of releasing stress, and I had found mine.