It’s the holiday season..again… Yahooo… we are going to “balik kampung”.. with no worries about applying for annual leave and the leave being not approved.. ha.. Those days when I was working in a giant Japanese multinational, all leaves will be frozen, no one is allowed to take any leave before or after the festive break…

Looking back, I remembered almost all senior management staff hardly took leave. Everyone will leave office as LATE as possible. The later you leave office, it showed the more hardworking you are. I knew some managers will leave office on the dot for some break, makan-makan or run some errands for a couple of hours, then came back to the office and punched out at 10pm!! Sadly, the working hours were reflected on the annual appraisal! And if you had taken any emergency leave before or after festive break, you were bound to be blacklisted for any promotion or upgrading. And if you had taken any maternity leave in that particular year, your hope for any promotion or upgrading would be dashed even if you had worked extremely hard and had been productive for the 10 remaining months!

Frankly, I wouldn’t blame the management for those hardworking ”culture”. In my early years, I was shocked to find out that some Managers would not take leave because they were worry that their staff would “take over” their responsibilities. There were no empowerment and Managers had these inferior complex. They won’t even groom successors and always put down those talented staffs resulting in high turn over of young, talented staffs.. Of course there were exceptional one or two managers who were result-orientated and rewarded their staff handsomely for a job well done.

I used to rant about the management’s “policy” to hubby. Hubby’s advice then was to take it or leave it. If you wish to stay in the company, you need to adapt to its culture, otherwise leave.. I chose the later.. To date, I still can’t understand the culture.. what’s the big fuss about taking leave when even Prime Minister takes leave to go for holiday!