The curious case of Jerard Lee vs VRL Singapore Timetric

Sometimes I read something on the internet and I have so much to say about it that I just have to open a new browser window and blog about it right away. This is one of those stories - have a read of this. This is the story of Singaporean Jerard Lee going public with instances of bullying at this former employer VRL Singapore Timetric. He named and shamed his bosses and company in a follow up to an original letter posted in TRS without revealing the name of the company. Jerard has also started a thread on EDMW where he has been discussing the case publicly.

There have been two kinds of responses to Jerard Lee's story - firstly, there was the typical xenophobic anti-foreigner sentiments directed at the company (well, there are xenophobic Singaporeans, we all know that). Secondly, there were some people who pointed out that Jerard had made a terrible mistake by going public with this story without first trying to resolve things internally with his employers. I would like to offer my personal response to this story and talk about some of the issues involved in this story.

Now I am going to point out that this kind of name-calling and bullying is nothing new in Singapore - heck, anyone who has served national service in Singapore will know that this kind of name-calling and bullying tactics are completely normal in the SAF. I understand that things have improved considerably since the 1990s when I served NS, but there is still a precedent, a culture where this kind of bullying is not just tolerated but silently condoned by the system.

There are plenty of Singaporeans bullying other Singaporeans in Singapore everyday and there are plenty of Singaporean bosses who are nasty to their Singaporean employees. Unpleasant as it may seem, learning to deal with unreasonable bosses and colleagues is a fact of life and I fear that many Singaporeans on social media are distorting the issue altogether. Do you actually believe that you will be better off working under a boss who is Singaporean? Even if you got rid of every single foreigner in Singapore tomorrow and created a Singaporean-only workspace - guess what? We already have that - it is called the SAF (foreigners cannot serve in the SAF) and there's plenty of bullying there. Why? This has nothing to do with one's nationality - but it boils down to the synergy between two people when they try to work together.

Hands up those of you who experienced bullying in NS

Am I excusing this kind of bullying tactic (as displayed by Amit Patel, Ruben Kempeneer)? No, not at all, in an ideal world, such people would not behave like that and if they did, those higher up the food chain should step in and stop them from behaving like that. But in the real world, we all know that doesn't happen. Get real. I get the feeling that some Singaporeans still behave like they are in primary school, where they can run to the teacher if something is wrong, if someone misbehaves and expect the teacher to put things right. "Teacher, teacher, he scold my mother, he say my mother work in Geylang one!"

If you are a ten year old in primary school and if you do have a teacher you can count on to rectify that situation on your behalf, then by all means, go run to your teacher. But if not, what do you do? Did it occur to you that you could try to deal with the situation yourself? "When your mother tried to work in Geylang, all the Geylang pimps said her face was so kena-sai that they made her wear a paper bag over her face when she served the clients."

Let's look at some of the alleged bullying that Jerard raised in his article. To begin with, "Amit was rude to people, arrogant and like to use vulgarism in the office which is not appropriate and very unprofessional. He also like to talk down to subordinates . Began to implement office politics and micro-managent which I wont go into details. Since Amit joined on mid-March, I relate a few incidents of bullying which were directed at me. I had to endure them all these while suffering in silence and for fear of losing my much-needed job."

A rude sales director? What were you expecting? For crying out aloud, this is a SALES environment. If you wanted to primary school environment, you should have trained to be a primary school teacher where you could feel a lot more comfortable. In a sales environment, there is only one way to gain the respect of your boss - by selling. If you hit your sales targets, they will be nice to you. If you exceed your sales targets, they will love you and take you out for lunch at nice restaurants. If you can't sell, then don't expect them to sayang-sayang you by giving you a nice pep talk over a cup of herbal tea. Amit sounds like a very typical sales director to those of us who have worked in sales and whilst his tactics may not sound nice, you will encounter the same kind of management style anywhere in the world if you want to work in sales.

It really boils down to one thing only: can you sell?

Why do people want to work in sales in the first place? It is not an easy job, you need to have a very thick skin and face a lot of rejection - however, if you can sell, you will be rewarded handsomely by generous commission structures. Depending on the kind of product and commission structure your company has, sales people can expect anything from 1% to even 30% on a deal and if the deal is worth $1 million, then even 1% of a million is $10,000 and there's repeat business as well. Successful sales professionals can make a lot of money and they write their own pay cheque every month depending on how much they sell. This is why people work in sales - to get rich.

VRL Singapore Timetric sell research and information to the financial services sector  - this is a highly lucrative industry with very high profit margins. For example, a report like this: The Family Office Report costs US$4995. The report has already been commission and written - now there are virtually no additional costs associated with the sale as all they do is give you a password to access the report online. This is very similar to the way you pay to download a song off iTunes - there are no additional costs involved when you to download the mp3, their revenue is practically 100% profit.

There is a lot of money to be made with companies dealing in electronic media.

With this business model, they can sell the same product over and over and over against at no additional costs associated with each sold. Compare this to say a business which sells cars, shoes or cosmetics, where they do have a lot more hard costs associated with the product.  All media content sold over the internet works (films, porn, music, e-books, information etc) exactly the same way, following the same business model. Companies selling electronic media this way can afford to pay their salespeople very high commissions because of their very high profit margins. Allow me to state the obvious: Jerard had a very good job, he just didn't realize it: a clear case of 身在福中不知福.

Employees at Timetric would hit the phones hard everyday, calling up practitioners in the financial services industry, trying to sell these products to us. Now I have not been approached by Timetric yet, but I have been targeted by one of their rivals in Singapore, Eurekahedge. And good grief, their sales people are quite frankly, terrible. They just go on and on about how great their product is but have made virtually no effort to establish a rapport with me. Despite the fact that I obviously have a Chinese surname, none of them have managed to figure out that I am actually from Singapore and there is the obvious Singaporean connection. They don't even talk about the fact that they are in Singapore. Nope, they couldn't be less interested in me and all they wanted to do was tell me about their products - major fail.

Did the people from Eurekahedge not realize that Limpeh is from Singapore?!

I have spent years in the lucrative sales environment in financial services (ie. B2B business-to-business, not business-to-consumer) and I have made my fortune in the heady days of the mid 2000s before the recession hit, having earned enough in 2004 alone to pay for my flat in central London, the start of my property portfolio. It was a high pressure environment, fiercely competitive and there was plenty of drama. It was amazing how seemingly good friends would betray you over a few thousand pounds - but such was the sales environment for you. I was stabbed in the back and I stabbed others in the back. You know the saying, if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen and I saw many people fail miserably in sales because they simply couldn't handle the demands of the job.

In sales, you need to listen to your clients, understand their needs, empathize with them, make them feel comfortable with you and earn their trust. You need to establish that kind of relationship before you can get them to spend money with you. Now you have to approach prospects with one aim in mind: to make a sale. Even if they are nasty people whom you may despise in real life, you put all that aside and you have to establish that good business relationship. You must get the business prospect to like you, like your company and trust you enough to to do business with you. If Jerard wasn't able to apply that basic principle with his own boss Amit, then how the hell was he going to apply that principle with his sales prospects? That piece of evidence tells us two things: that Jerard is simply not cut out to be a salesman as he doesn't the fundamental principles of how sales works. Where do we go from there?

Why was Jerard stabbed in the back at Timetric?

Let's move on to the next part of Jerard's complaint. "The first incident occurred about when Amit took my wallet which was on my desk. He screened through my wallet and took out my IC to inspect it. When he saw the photo displayed in my IC, he began to laugh very loudly in front of other colleagues. I felt very insulted because what he did was insensitive, unsympathetic and immature. The second bullying incident happened when my ex-colleague brought her 4 year old daughter to the office and Amit made a remark to everyone saying "Ask your daughter to come tomorrow as she can make better sales calls than Jerard." This disparaging remark belittled me and my ability in making sales calls. As a sales director, he should motivate the sales staff by encouragement and set a good leadership example, not the opposite by saying such a remark."

Jerard could have made a lot of money at Timetric.

Good grief. Learn to grow a thick skin for crying out aloud Jerard and stop being such a fucking cry baby. You are acting like a primary two kid who would go running to her teacher, crying the moment she got into a disagreement with a fellow classmate. I have encountered plenty of incidents like the IC photo joke - there is a window period of about 10 seconds for you to come up with a rebuttal and say something like, "Alright Mr Photogenic, so you think you know better, let's see some photo ID so the rest of us can scrutinize your photo as well." There are several ways you can respond to such a situation - you can challenge to turn the tables and scrutinize him the same way, you could use the American "your mama" approach and insult them back or you can join in and laugh at how bad your photo is because a little self-deprecation goes a long way.  Basically, if I am able to laugh at myself, then it takes the sting out of someone else's attempt to laugh at us. Otherwise, you can always tell the other party that you felt offended and that the line was crossed. Either way, you should have said something rather than keep quiet. 

And as for the remark about the 4 year old daughter, please lah Jerard. Tolong lah, for fuck's sake, this is a sales environment and he's your sales director, not your primary school teacher lah. What the fuck were you expecting? There are no sales directors in the world who will sayang-sayang you and hold your hand as you make sales calls. Again, you had the opportunity to respond, there was a window period for you to say something like, "Ask your daughter to come tomorrow as she does a far better job in motivating everyone around here than Amit." No, instead you just say there and felt sorry for yourself. How the hell do you expect us to have any sympathy for you when you have such a defeatist's attitude? 

Do you know how to cope with difficult colleagues?

I was also subjected to excessive monitoring as I was forced to sit beside Amit without any clear say of my sitting arrangement. He was able to see my computer screen and could monitor every action and movement which I make. Last week, he sent me a private email stating "less reading... more talking". Being supervised until so closely, there was a tremendous amount of pressure on me mentally because of the lack of trust from Amit and as a subordinate, I had no privacy to do my work.

Listen, Amit has far better things to do than you scrutinize your every move - if you had been hitting your sales targets, then he would gladly leave you alone and let you get on with it. But if you are clearly failing, then as your line manager, he has the responsibility to try to make you work harder and improve your results - what he did was completely normal and I am not sure I would have been as patient as him in putting up with your pathetic whiny antics. 

Your line manager's job is to supervise your work.

As for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle email - I just wanted to laugh. For fuck's sake Jerard, are you a fucking man or a mouse? Grow some balls for fuck's sake you pathetic fucking loser. Limpeh is an Ah Beng from Ang Mo Kio and I would never take that kind of treatment lying down. If you feel that Amit and Ruben have crossed the line, then by all means, challenge them, raise hell - go to head office, go to Ruben's boss, confront them all and demand an apology.

But what do you do? You feel sorry for yourself and gave up a good job despite being the sole breadwinner of your family. How bloody stupid was that? You acted foolishly, you made a rash decision and it was the wrong decision. You have let down your wife and your young child. Look, colleagues forward jokes to each other all the time - sometimes they sail close to the wind and may offend people and you should have dealt with the situation rather than simply resigned. You may want to play the victim's card but what will that get you? You think Timetric is going to give a shit that you resigned? You think the police or the MOM are going to help someone like you just because you claimed you're bullied? Get real man. And now you're unemployed. Great. I feel sorry for your wife and kid - they deserve better. 

And now you must find a new job?!

Likewise for the sale you made that morning you resigned, did you fight for justice or did you simply suffer in silence? Did the person who receive the fruits of your labour thank you or pretended to 'act blur' about the whole thing (but still gladly pocketed the commission)? You see, that's one thing that was missing from Jerard's story - there was no mention of anything pertaining to his colleagues. Did he have any friends at Timetric? If he did, did they try to help him when he was being bullied? Did they defend him against Amit and Ruben? Did they offer him any kind of moral support when he was feeling dejected? Or (as I am guessing), Jerard failed to make any friends or allies at Timetric and nobody reached out to help him as he crashed and burned. We all need friends and allies in the workplace. Whilst you cannot expect to like everyone at work, you should always make a genuine effort to get along with even those you despise whilst identifying people you can trust and turning them into your friends. After all, when things go wrong, you need help. 

I remember back in 2003, a similar incident happened to my ex-colleague Julian who made a sale the day he resigned. The boss gave the commission to a colleague for the simple reason - why bother paying the guy who had just left? The boss felt that he may as well use the commission to reward someone else who has been working hard and is still with the company. Julian protested but to no avail - he was no longer an employee of the company, but Julian had already earned my friendship and loyalty. I stood up for him and told the boss that he was going to risk losing me if he didn't pay Julian his commission. I was the top sales person in the company at that time, I was single-handedly bringing in about half the company's revenue and I knew I could get what I wanted. Besides, I told the boss that I had helped Julian with the deal and it was effectively mine since I helped Julian close that deal. The other colleague wasn't even involved in the slightest, so there was no justification to give him even a penny. There was a lot of arguing but jump to the punchline, I got what I wanted and I had the choice of either taking all of the commission, sharing it with Julian or giving it all to Julian. I chose to give it all to Julian because that was how much he meant to me as a friend and it was the principle of the matter. I just wanted to win the argument, the money wasn't that important to me as I was already earning a lot then anyway. 

You're not the only one who has had to deal with a horrible boss...

When Jerard was facing such a situation, where were his friends? Did he even have any friends to turn to? Did he not have someone like me who would have stood up for him? Hey, I didn't stand up for Julian just because I am such a freaking nice guy. Julian had made a genuine effort to become my friend and I appreciated it, I reciprocated and that is the way friendships work. All that happened over ten years ago, we're still great friends today.

Despite this, I will stand up to fight for my rights and create awareness in Singapore. I will go all the way to make sure that justice is served and the bullies to face the consequences of their actions.

Editor's Note: This email has been forwarded to the MOM for clarifications. We urge everyone to stand up and fight for your rights as a Singaporean and put a stop to all this bullying by foreigners. Singapore belongs to Singaporeans not foreigners.

Groan. Jerard doesn't get it. Neither does the editor at TRS. Let me spell it out for you and the rest of you who still don't bloody get it. This case has nothing to do with the nationalities of those involved, it is not an FT vs Singaporeans issue at all. Had Jerard been working in media sales for another company in Singapore and had a Singaporean boss, he would have encountered exactly the same kind of issues because these are the job hazards the come with the territory if you want to work in sales. A Singaporean sales director would not be any kinder to someone like Jerard who clearly cannot cope in such an environment. Heck, even in a all-Singaporean environment like the SAF. any male Singaporean who has served NS would have seen plenty of Singaporeans bullying other Singaporeans.This is a clear case of a Singaporean finding a scapegoat to blame for his failures, rather than admitting any liability on his part. So for the benefit of of my readers, let me spell it out to you clearly where Jerard is at fault. There are 6 reasons: 

1. Jerard could have made a much greater effort to get along with Amit and Ruben - he didn't have to like them but he had to maintain a working relationship with them. It seems that Jerard expects his managers to behave more like school teachers rather than colleagues - he could have tried to improve the quality of their relationship and it takes two hands to clap. Jerard, you can't just sit back and expect your manager to mentor you, motivate you, guide you and spoon-feed you. You are an adult, you can make an effort to reach out to him as well. 

It is important to get along with your colleagues.

A working relationship is a two-way street. If you feel that things are going wrong, what do you do? Let things get from bad to worse, let a disaster turn into a catastrophe? Or do you swallow your pride and try your best to rectify the situation? Can you be a bit less childish about the whole situation Jerard? 

2. Whilst I do not condone the things that Amit and Ruben have done, I think there was a lot that you could have done in terms of speaking up for yourself. If you stay silent, people may interpret your silence to be consent - but if you speak up and let people know how you feel, then they can react once they know how you feel. Don't diam diam boh chu xia, if you're genuinely buay song, you have to speak up! 

3. If you are constantly hitting your sales targets, trust me, the sales director will leave you alone and let you get on with making money for the company. If you don't sell, that's his ass on the line as well as he is responsible for your performance as well. You should have understood that. 

You're there to make money, not friends.

4. If you have any issues with your management, you must always try to resolve them internally within your company first - running to the media does not support your case. If your bullying charges are not acknowledged by Timetric or the authorities in Singapore, then you risk a serious libel suit.

5. You need to make friends and allies in such a competitive environment - who was the top sales person at Timetric? Did you make the effort to get to know him/her and become his/her best friend (the way Julian became my buddy)? It's pretty sad that you were allowed to crash and burn whilst colleagues stood by and looked the other way - but you reap what you sow. Welcome to the real world. 

6. When things go wrong, stop blaming others, stop using foreigners as scapegoats. Start by looking in the mirror and try to figure out where you went wrong - that way, you will learn from your mistakes and become a better person in the process. If you play the victim's card, you're placing the blame on everyone but yourself and you will never learn, you will never improve yourself. Getting yourself certified as clinically depressed? How low can you stoop?

You've lost the argument even if you were not in the wrong Jerard. 

In any case, the MOM would not get involved over something this minor. Jerard couldn't cope in a high stress sales environment - there is no case to answer for in terms of the law and it would be up to Timetric if they wish to deal with the issue of the email. If  the instances like laughing at the IC photo broke the law, the fucking hell, they could lock up half the SAF already with the amount of bullying going on in the army everyday. The government isn't going to lift a finger as well to help Jerard - it is simply too minor an issue for the police or any governmental body get involved.  

The only question I would raise is with Timetric's HR department - how the hell could they give a sales job to someone like Jerard who is so clearly not suitable for such a job? What were they thinking when they gave him the job? By that token, I feel sorry for Amit for it would have been a total nightmare having to manage someone like Jerard. If Jerard worked for me... well, no - I would have blocked his job application at the interview stage and it would just never ever happen. It would've been to unkind to set him up to fail spectacularly like that.

Limpeh has been in the business world long enough to see loads of people try and fail at sales - loads of people are seduced by the prospect of earning big money but few actually succeed. The manpower turnover is ridiculous, many companies like Timetric churn and burn through so many sales people - it is such bad HR. They are wasting so much time and money by giving people like Jerard a chance to try and when he fails, they have to start all over again to find someone else and start training them from scratch. There must be a better way to do this! Simply hire the right people for the job, invest in their training. Pay them generously, treat them well, so they become loyal to the company and you hold on to the best sales people who will stay with the company through good and bad times. 

In going public like that, Jerard has well and truly ruined his reputation. The next time a HR manager receives a job application from Jerard Lee (note the unusual spelling of his first name), all the HR manager has to do is google "Jerard Lee, Singapore" and all the related content on TherealSingapore's website as well as Facebook and EDMW will come up and even if the HR manager may not judge Jerard as harshly as I did, chances are, s/he will think, "this Jerard is potentially a trouble maker, what if things go wrong as well with us and he end up running to the MoM and complain about us? We don't want to be involved in a bullying scandal like Timetric, better not hire this guy when there are other applicants to choose from." I bet the people at Timetric are asking the same question now, "Who was the one who gave Jerard Lee a job in the first place?!? What were they thinking - look at the mess he created."

No company will want to risk getting involved in a scandal.

Let me remind Jerard of two sobering facts: firstly, we're in the middle of a recession still and there are not that many well paid jobs out there for him to choose from in Singapore where he faces fierce competition. Secondly, he has a wife (who is a housewife) and a young child and as the sole breadwinner of his family, they are in financial trouble now. He really needs to be thinking about them, rather than feeling sorry for himself at this point in time!

Well Jerard, what did you think was going to happen when you went public with your story? Did you think people would help you or feel sorry for you? Ha! Yes they love a good story and you may get a few statements of support from random strangers on Facebook who have an axe to grind with FTs in Singapore - but do you realize just how seriously you have screwed up your future job prospects? I hope you have rich parents who can support you whilst you're unemployed because no HR manager is going to touch you as long as this story is on the internet. Just no way. Good grief. You really weren't thinking this through, were you? Aiyoh. Alamak. As if your original story wasn't bad enough, I have just spent some time reading your thread on EDMW and after having seen what you've written, like dude. Any HR manager who read that would definitely put you on a black list - and if they don't have one, they would start a black list just for people like you. 

Do you want this scandal to render you unemployable?

You know, if only you had a really common name like John Lee or James Lee - there would be millions of John Lees and James Lees around the world and this story would disappear into the internet in a matter of days. But hey, your parents had to call you Jerard spelt that unique way, so now this story will be associated with you for as long as the internet lasts. Oh dear. Once you've calmed down, you may just realize how badly you've fucked this one up Jerard. Listen, if I could offer you one good piece of advice. Well make that two. Firstly, stop this nonsense right now. You are not going to get anywhere with this. And secondly, if you ever want to find work again, you need to change your name so people wouldn't associate you with this ghastly episode. Use your Chinese name or something but you don't want any HR manager to be able to connect you with this terrible mistake you've made. 

Lastly, let this be a lesson to anyone who think they may receive good advice by asking random strangers for help on the internet. Surely Jerard may feel good when he reads the anti-foreigner xenophobic statements left on social media for him, but are any of them actually able to help Jerard get a new job? I did actually find one kind soul who had actually bothered to write a long reply to Jerard on EDMW (which he didn't respond to, quelle surprise). Now that's a real shame as this was the one person who actually did offer Jerard some really useful and sensible advice (compared to the hundreds of idiots who offered bad advice) and I shall cut and paste it below.

Your decision on how to deal with events leading to your resignation is a major contributor factor that will affect chances of your future employment. 

1. Without going through proper channels, you chose to publicize internal emails to the public. 

2. You willingly assisted to confirm identity of the involved individuals, and the organization. If proven otherwise (ie. bullying charges doesn't stand, libel suit may be initiated against you). 

3. You're contemplating getting professionally certified to be mentally affected. Depression perhaps? This will be on your record. 

4. You alleged that by posting your FB account, your life is affected? Eh! This is EDMW! Numerous FB accounts have been stated by strangers. Same can be said about this dude who labeled you a turtle, no?

5. You're kinda 'trigger-happy'. No qualms about approaching MPs, Police, MSM, Internet, etc. 

Ask yourself this: Will you hire an individual that possesses the above traits? Sinkie or non-Sinkie, I wouldn't hire you.  Cos I'll be utterly clueless when something might spark you to do likewise to me and my company. A ill-timed jibe of bad taste may lead the company to be cast under such limelight. Such are potential pitfalls that I try to shun away from. 

My motto: If you cannot 100% ensure that such things do not happen, avoid them. As much as you seek 'justice', do seriously consider what you actually seek to achieve? You want them sacked? - That's the mgmt's prerogative. Not yours. Not MOM's. Not the cops. Should after investigation, they decided to just issue warning letters, ... that also equates action taken. Where does that leave you? 

For the sake of you, and your family, I trust you do know what you want. Cool down, and try to rationalize your actions. Know what you can, and cannot achieve. And more importantly, do consider the potential repercussions of all, or any, of your actions.

Is it too late for Jerard to try to salvage the situation? 

As usual, any comments, any ideas or advice for Jerard, please let a comment below. Thanks!
Part 2: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/jerard-lee-vs-timetric-case-part-2.html