How do promotions work in gahment sector?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Aiyah, I regret staying in engineer, still working in semiconductor factory earning around 5k per month at age 35....

it's never too late if you have the smarts and willing to step out of your comfort zone. one of my engineer friends around my age jumped from semicon to banking slightly under 2 yrs back. had to endure lots more stress and longer hours initially, but now got promoted to managerial level and doing well.

[Button]

@miwashi
I tend to agree with undiscern that you should be getting your promotion in the next couple of years, unless you have been getting a string of Cs for your appraisals, or your CEP is MX12. I can't imagine that you would be given an entry grade for your CEP though. But maybe you know better. Why don't you ask your boss about your chances for promotion, and register your unhappiness? Since you have been an asset to him, he may have an incentive to put you up, to pre-empt your resignation.

[miwashi]

The thing is, I've been here 5 years and I already know how they work, so I really don't feel a promotion is forthcoming at all. I am already 34 and at an entry level title and grade, while people who are 27 are becoming section heads at mx11! The fact that my bigboss could even tell me that "i'm not young anymore" last year already tells me that I'm not going to be going anywhere in this organization. The other people who were here 9-12 years with no promotion are not the typical slackers like most of my branch, and yet they were going nowhere because they were not popular with the bosses; ie they don't go for diving trips or barbecues with the bosses on weekends.

I can't believe I took a pay cut to join my organization; it was a gamble that didn't pay off, and now I have to take another one when I leave but i guess it's something I have to go through.

There are people who will excel in the government and people who won't. I have friends who do well teaching in JC, enjoying the good hours, overseas attachments and generally great work life balance, while other teachers teaching in sec schools quitting after their first contract due to huge marking workloads, additional commitment to CCA and not given enough time to spend with students.

I was with the air force for 7 years as a senior technician. I harbored childhood fantasies of working on the plane, looking at how the planes gloriously take off into the skies and mingling with the pilots/captains telling stories of how their sorties go. I knew during the first year that they were all fantasies. There were many slackers in the team who only knew how to pass the buck. Warrants were the worst of the bunch, as they were promoted based on their seniority, and most of them had no management nor administrative skills. They are skilled specialists and treasured as such, but they had no idea of what management is, how to uplift team's morale, utilize the strengths of individuals and sort of the pressing issue of responsibility evasion. Their was no fairness nor equal division of work. Indeed when problems occur, the warrants will shirk responsibility, even though they were the ones deciding on the course of action and instructing in the first place.

Needless to say, I was immediately disillusioned but I made the best out of my days. Together with a few good man, we completed our degrees and some of us even did our masters during our tenure. We sallied forth into the real world and some of us did well in totally different fields. We now have pilots, oil traders, brokers, bankers and consultants in our midst. Some did really well in sales too.

Since you are discontented, give your career a deep and hard thought. It's not the end of the road, you are still young and the road is long. There's much to be done and experienced even while working. I thoroughly enjoy what I do now, and I can tell you that the hardest part perhaps is to make the decision to step out.

[miwashi]

Yeah, I made the decision to step out on my 2nd day of the job, 5 years ago, when I was walking around a playground picking up litter. I come from a background in epidemiology and healthcare, so the job was nothing like what I had expected. I still gave them quality work all the way, but it just got messed up by higher levels all the way, so I can imagine my immediate bosses know I can produce quality work, but are too timid to fight for me, while my higher level bosses think I produce rubbish work because of all the stuff that happens between the time I produce output and the time it reaches them.

What I'm saying is, I can create a report, then my immediate boss, who has no leadership skill (ie he's the type who'll just keep quiet and change topics when I bring up urgent and serious issues that need him to make a decision), will mung up the report, introducing spelling, grammar and factual errors, and then submit it to the biggest boss, telling him that I did the work.

This kind of thing definitely does not make you look good, let alone suitable for a promotion. I guess an important component of getting a promotion is having a competent boss too; if your boss is himself seen as incompetent by other bosses, why should his subordinate look better than him?

I'm trying to make the best of my days now by working on my MSc.. in a totally different field, self-funded as the organization is not supportive of further education in another industry, of course. As soon as I get that job offer I'm out of here right away. There is no future in the grasscutting industry for anyone at all, let alone an ex-public health practitioner.

[miwashi]

I'm curious to know this and was wondering if anyone has any insight.

Suppose I have been working in an organization for 10 years, joined as mx12, never promoted at all, so still mx12 after those 10 years.

If I quit and join another stat board/ministry, is there a possibility that I will join as mx11? Or is it mx12 all the way, and the only way to mx11 is to work there for another who-knows-how-many years before a promotion to mx11?

[undiscern]

It depends, the interviewer would be quite concern why you are not promoted in 10 years time frame. he will be thinking: is this guy having any issue? poor performer? etc etc.

Perhaps consider jumping from the ministry to a stat board which dont use the MX scale but their own scale.

[miwashi]

i'm in a stat board now

miwashi, maybe can being a poly/ite lecturer?

[miwashi]

that is an end-of-life job right?
Normally i see those lecturers are the old ones who are ending their career already