MAS for Mid Career Professionals

Originally Posted by Unregistered

A few years back, there was a very scathing post posted here. Glass hearts couldn't take it and so escalated to HR, which i heard launched and investigation and requested the post be removed.

Saving grace is, the post was a registered one so it was removable! 😂

How the glass hearts know the post was directed at them? were the glass hearts named in the post? were the glass hearts investigated of any wrongdoing if the post contains legitimate concern?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

How the glass hearts know the post was directed at them? were the glass hearts named in the post? were the glass hearts investigated of any wrongdoing if the post contains legitimate concern?

From my own experience, glass hearts can be very sensitive, even if you are not actually criticising them they may take any innocent feedback as a criticism. And then fume and ask many questions late into the night!

Anyway I don’t know the answer to your questions. Post already deleted still wanna dig!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

From my own experience, glass hearts can be very sensitive, even if you are not actually criticising them they may take any innocent feedback as a criticism. And then fume and ask many questions late into the night!

Anyway I don’t know the answer to your questions. Post already deleted still wanna dig!

Sounds like north korea

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I tried to find the thread but PSDLP is so difficult to find info...
I understand that PSDLP rotates their employees to different places. The culture will then depend on the places ?

I also heard PSDLP will consider the employees promotion faster as compared to other SB like MAS...

I suppose you considered MAS as your degree is related to econs, finance, business or the like. If I were you, I would consider if these fields are what I want to specialise in for the rest of my career. Of course MAS also has more generalist corporate functions where you can serve as a leader after you are promoted. Pls have a look at the org chart.

If money is important to you, it might be relevant to consider that unlike civil service, stat board doesn’t have the mid year and end year bonus. 1-1.5 months extra may not be a lot, but it is always something to look forward to.

Promotion wise, in my view pros and cons. By remaining in the same organization all your working life, if the bosses like you, you can continue to rise as the tide rises if you know what I mean. This is not to say that if you parachute into different agencies every few years, you won’t have the opportunity to rise through leadership ranks. It will depend on the feedback that follows you with each posting, which is of course tied to track record.

If management opportunities is important to you, from my limited observation, promotion in MAS after a certain level is tied to the available leadership roles. Eg. You may be a very senior officer holding Director grade but if there are no vacancies for you (or your boss doesn’t see you as suitable) to promote to a higher title (eg. Department head would be Executive Director), you are likely to remain at your current grade for the rest of your working life. Pay wise nothing to complain about just a matter of swallowing your pride when younger (possibly more arrogant ones who are better at ideating than operationalising) ones leapfrog past you.

This may be different from other agencies, where there are a few more super scale grades to climb through even if you never make it to become a dept head, eg. Senior Director etc.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Sounds like north korea

Can be north or south. Most soldier rank first line to clear work is team leader which is like a lower tier manager (sorry to all the great team leaders out there but factually it’s true). If you get the old school type who are very particular about every word that comes out from your mouth or email outbox, it should come as no surprise to feel similar to being trapped with a gulag with no way out other than trying to fleeing over the barbed fence without getting electrocuted. (metaphorically speaking of course!)

Conversely, some have near perfect team leaders who are praiseworthy in almost every sense. Then you will have lots autonomy cos they respect you enough to see the big picture and how they can help your career development while being emphatic and helping you to overcome shortcomings.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I assume you are asking as fresh grad. You will have to find out more about PSDLP culture, see if there is an updated thread here. There are success stories in every agency, only people who have actually work there will be able to share their own experiences and perspectives. Yes, posters on forums don’t include names. But you can see what are the common themes.

MAS is not all bad. The working level colleagues are mostly (not all) friendly and helpful. Management (referring to leadership) does try to look out for work life balance. Staff benefits in terms of leave and work arrangements are good. At associate/TO level, you are unlikely to encounter too much toxicity as you will be too busy juggling your different workgroups and projects on top of core work responsibilities. In the right environment, there is no doubt you can learn many useful skills or even thrive.

My own view is that leadership positions are limited, so if you assess there is no room to progress beyond a certain point, you should leave. Don’t wait too long to leave, exit opportunities may not be as shiny as it’s made out to be, simply because there are too many ex MAS out there.

If opportunity to rotate to different postings every few years is important to you, PSDLP may be a better fit as it seems more structured. Here, only those who are identified as high potential are transferred round different departments. Others just wait patiently for their turn, which is minimally 2-3 years in the existing department. Meanwhile, you may get stuck trying to climb the ranks. By the time you climb to a certain point, it may get too comfortable to leave. Then, even if you want to leave, you have already become uncompetitive.

"Even if u want to leave, u become uncompetitive". You know why?

Cause 1, things here can be so messy and change rapidly, as per the baokaliao posts above. Eventually u become eroded and just screw it and tag along.
2, You can be better than yout bosses when you first enter. But because theyate jealous of your better skills, and because they are boss, they need be one-up on you always, u will get supressed or they will MF you until u believe u r ****. Then eventually u become.

You have constantly train yourself if you dont want to lose your skills and be competitive

Originally Posted by Unregistered

2, You can be better than yout bosses when you first enter. But because theyate jealous of your better skills, and because they are boss, they need be one-up on you always, u will get supressed or they will MF you until u believe u r ****.

Yes, you nailed it on the need to be one up always and mf-ing.. not all of them are like that definitely, but you only need to encounter one really bad example to make you regret joining mas. Their compulsive need to win will drive them to do things that are beyond how you expect a boss should behave, yet, there’s little you can do to right the wrong as for most people it’s more convenient to maintain status quo ie. boss is always right, if your work and opportunities are not “suppressed”, in time to come you may threaten their position. Which to some people is their entire ego as they have nothing else to be busy about other than work in mas. True story

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Yes, you nailed it on the need to be one up always and mf-ing.. not all of them are like that definitely, but you only need to encounter one really bad example to make you regret joining mas. Their compulsive need to win will drive them to do things that are beyond how you expect a boss should behave, yet, there’s little you can do to right the wrong as for most people it’s more convenient to maintain status quo ie. boss is always right, if your work and opportunities are not “suppressed”, in time to come you may threaten their position. Which to some people is their entire ego as they have nothing else to be busy about other than work in mas. True story

Yeah, that's why it's important never to believe them

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Yeah, that's why it's important never to believe them

Honestly I not playing victim. It’s true you can learn good things even from the worst bosses. But after working under such bosses. Your mental well being is affected. Your self-esteem is affected. You start questioning yourself and your potential. Because their favourite words to describe you are cui and cmi (cannot make it), and they will repeat it to anyone who has an ear. Failing to recognise their own flaws and insecurities. I love many things about MAS and the opportunities for meaningful work. But such bosses have tarnished my own image of MAS.

Sorry to say this but I really believe there are still many areas which leadership is sincere about changing but the ground and layers in between is wanting in implementation for various reasons that have been identified in this forum. Data swamp is one of them, when will it be cleared. Tech tools are quite primitive compared to industry standards and even other agencies (no this is not arrow to TD); can you believe some databases are still maintained using unwieldy excel files that risk crashing cos of their ever expanding size. To be truly world class organisation every officer should be able to rely on efficient databases instead of having to rely on others for knowledge transfer for basic and straightforward queries. And why some consults take oh so long to complete (true fact just look at website) although other depts tracking for the longest time. Officer take long they get question, boss take long mmmm… You have no idea how embarrassing it is when stakeholder ask you when the response is coming out and all you can say is… I asked the wg and they say sometime this year but cannot confirm. There will no doubt be those rushing to defend why the above is not true, but having heard from colleagues across different depts I believe this far from isolated view.

Big news just came out. Will we have a new cm?