WORKING in the corporate line, we tend to encounter a colleague or a higher up who has zero clue about their job. And let’s be honest, how they landed their job will forever be a “mystery”.
One Malaysian man recently shared his “honest” working experience and salary on @malaysianpaygap, an Instagram account that advocates salary transparency among employees.
Working as an engineering manager in the banking sector in Singapore for 10 years, the 31-year-old’s salary took netizens by shock, earning S$12,000 (RM41,000). The fat check doesn’t stop there, it comes with a bonus every two to four months.
The best part? He has no idea what his job entails and its intricacies, compared to other more qualified people. According to the post, he manages a “team of senior engineers and some managers” who are almost double his age.
“Despite leading and expected to be an expert while drawing high pay, I (do not) have a single clue about my job! Yes, I don’t code. I only have basic understanding of CI/CD, release and other tech stuff. I even need to (go on) Google on how (to) use a basic Jira filter.
“So how do I survive? I find myself pretty good at making others think I’m (an) expert despite (not knowing) anything.
“I’m good at talking my way out making well-planned roadmap(s) that the business (section) thinks it is a masterplan -- yet it never works. I’m good at convincing my staff that I know what they are talking about and I’m also good at making a small thing sound great to my boss.
“Finally, I always act busy. In short, I think I am a con man,” he confessed.
In an effort to maintain his position, he “makes project implementation sound complicated” and requests a budget to hire a “niche expert.”
This “niche expert” in turn basically completes the said implementation job and gets paid “20 to 30 per cent higher.”
“He gets the job done, I get the credit and that is how I climb without knowing anything. It is a win-win situation,” he wrote in the post.
But in the end, he did advise the readers of @malaysianpaygap to not go down the same path.
“Despite earning on the higher end, even for Singaporean (standards), I do not feel much satisfaction while seeing others write code while I just pretend,” he added.
