there’s a constant refrain in this company about being a fully work from office organization, repeated like a slogan, drilled into staff with constant nagging, as if physical presence equals commitment. but scratch the surface, and you’ll see the HYPOCRISY. staff are expected to be in by a certain time, stay until the last possible minute, and never question it, while certain bosses mysteriously enjoy the privilege of working from home whenever they want. they come in late, leave early, vanish in the middle of the day, and yet are never held accountable. one set of rules for the employees, another for the clique. and the worst part? they have no shame in talking down to others about discipline while benefiting from exceptions themselves. it is hypocrisy so blatant that people laugh about it behind their backs, but no one calls it out because everyone knows nothing will change.
and then there’s the gossip itself. gossip is the lifeblood of this management team. they thrive on it, they feed it, they spread it like it’s currency. gossip about colleagues, gossip about salaries leaked (yes, we know how much some heads are paid), gossip about the singapore boss and management, gossip even about the CEO himself to clients, merchants, and partners. the irony is painful-they are working overtime to build external credibility, to convince the market that curlec is a serious, growing fintech, and yet their biggest downfall is their own internal management team. because credibility starts inside, and here, inside, there is NONE. i have personally had merchants ask me about the how of the founders’ departure — conversations that should have remained tightly internal were somehow turned into coffee-shop chatter outside the company walls. other sensitive matters have slipped out too, passed to partners and vendors like gossip fodder. and the damage this does to trust is incalculable. you cannot convince clients to believe in you if you cannot even protect your own house.
why are some senior managers head and others not? it feels completely arbitrary. some of them somehow ended up in “leadership” roles not because they earned it, but because they happened to be in the right room, said the right things, or aligned themselves with the right people. there’s no logic, no fairness, no actual leadership. it’s like titles are handed out as favors, not responsibilities. they don’t inspire, they don’t mentor, they don’t protect the team they just sit there, pretending to lead while the real work gets done by everyone else. people look up, hoping for guidance, and find nothing. that’s what happens when leadership becomes a label instead of a function. the hypocrisy cuts deeper. A manager blatantly saying their pay as low, as if that somehow justifies their rancid behavior. but the reality is, they says it without any awareness that there are others who actually earn less than them, who work harder, who do more, and who never complain because they know it will not change anything. that kind of blind entitlement is exactly what makes people lose RESPECT. and the gossip mill ensures it doesn’t stop there. those who are hardworking are given more work, those who are compliant are spared, and those who belong to the ladies clique float through untouched. incompetence protected, effort punished, and eventually the best people stop caring or simply leave.
i was once even verbally THREATENED for speaking up, which said everything i needed to know about how far this culture has DECAYED. it wasn’t a joke, it wasn’t a misunderstanding, it was an attempt to silence and intimidate. when you ask for help, no one is here to help you, even your bosses, but they’re the first ones to blame you if anything goes wrong. when that becomes the tone of management, people stop talking, and when people stop talking, everything rots faster. the fallout is already visible. in just the past few weeks alone, around ten people have left. even a newly hired hr manager, brought in to stabilize the environment, quit within weeks because the toxicity was impossible to ignore. if even hr can’t survive here, what chance does anyone else have? recruitment is collapsing, morale is drained, and new hires are walking straight into a poisoned culture where favoritism rules, gossip thrives, and hypocrisy suffocates everything else.
from bad to worse is the story of curlec now. what once was a company run by flawed but inspiring founders who could at least rally people has been handed over to bosses who act like gossip mills and newscasters, who drain morale, destroy trust, and bleed credibility day by day. they gossip, they leak, they nag, they intimidate, they preach rules they themselves never follow, and they drive out the very people keeping the company afloat. until this cycle of arrogance, favoritism, and incompetence is broken, curlec will keep losing its BEST people.