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"Corporal Kao, where the hell is your buddy Zann?!"

Shaken from my exhausted stupor, I set aside my spade, which I had been wielding for the past nine hours, trying to dig a hole in the ground big enough, as my sergeant requested, to fit a table and two standing persons.

After nine hours of digging in some uncharted corner of north-western Singapore, I was completely spent. I guessed it was around 5.30 am – but really, I had lost all sense of time and space. 

And, apparently, so had my buddy. 

I managed to croak out: "No idea, sergeant. I'll go look for him."

Moments later, I found Zann in a bush. Not in a tactical concealment, but a total slumber.

He had "quiet quit" on us – only he was snoring so loudly that if we were at war, he would have given away our position in minutes.

My buddy Zann was renowned for his "wayang" in the platoon – the National Service slang for "performative". 

When the officers were around, Zann was the consummate soldier, always taking the initiative in coming up with plans that he somehow always got away with never actually executing.

He seemingly impressed the superiors, but when the going got tough, Zann always found an excuse to excuse himself. 

Hence, it was with just a hint of glee that I pointed out his location to my sergeant, who then proceeded to give him the loudest wake-up call of his life. 

A sheepish Zann – along with three others – were promptly sent to help me finish digging the extra-deep trench, which we did in just over an hour.

In hindsight, if I had flagged the situation earlier, we would have met the objective a lot faster. I could have saved myself a great deal of unnecessary strain.

THE FINE LINE BETWEEN VISIBILITY AND VANITY

It's been decades since that episode, but I still see Zanns everywhere, especially in the workplace. And I know I'm not the only one. 

We like to think that in modern organisations, outcomes matter more than optics. Good work will always speak for itself. But the truth is murkier. 

In many offices, it isn't just what you do, but being seen doing it.

This is "working loudly" – making your efforts visible, celebrating wins, sharing progress and looping others in, rather than quietly grinding away in the background.

It's a reaction to a corporate culture where too many employees feel overlooked or undervalued. Done right, "working loudly" isn't wrong – keeping your colleagues informed of all the boxes you're ticking off can earn you the credit you deserve. 

But done wrong, it can slip into its shadow twin: performative work. In other words, wayang.

As a manager, I've seen both extremes and everything in between.

There are the quiet performers who deliver without fanfare, and there are the loud workers who make sure every Slack message – usually sent at some ungodly hour – testifies to their busyness.

Neither approach is ideal. The former risks invisibility; the latter risks burnout or cynicism from colleagues who see through the theatrics.

This is especially crucial in hybrid workplaces, where so much collaboration happens asynchronously that visibility isn't vanity – it's survival. When people can't see you at your desk, your updates become the digital equivalent of raising your hand in the parade square.

Despite its necessity, this can still feel inauthentic.

WHY DO WE JUDGE "LOUD" WORKERS?

Part of the discomfort around working loudly may come from cultural conditioning.

Singaporeans, as a whole, value humility and understatedness. We equate modesty with merit, and self-promotion with arrogance.

So when someone in the workplace starts celebrating their achievements publicly, it can trigger that deeply Singaporean reflex: "Wah, so hao lian (Hokkien for show-off) for what?"

Yet, in an era where remote work and flatter hierarchies are increasingly becoming the norm, managers need signals to know what's getting done. 

At my own agency, I've noticed that people who "work loudly" often align better with the team. They update stakeholders, document milestones and celebrate wins – not to boast, but to build transparency.

It's performative, yes – but the performance is in service of clarity.

That said, I've also had staff who mistake the performance of effort for actual progress. They'd hop on pointless calls or send long emails describing roadblocks that sounded existential – as if entire campaigns were at risk. 

But on closer inspection, the issue was always something trivial such as waiting an hour for a photo resize or needing a quick clarification from a client. When visibility is mistaken for value, the energy spent on optics often ends up far exceeding the energy needed to solve the problem.

That's when working loudly becomes a theatre of motion without movement: too many updates but no real results.

COMMUNICATING FOR A PURPOSE

Working loudly in itself isn't a bad thing. In fact, when done right, it can be a powerful motivational tool to encourage teammates to step their game up too. 

The question isn't whether to "work loudly", but how. Are we communicating something useful about process and intent, or just bragging about what makes us look good?

An easy way to check yourself is to simply ask: What information does this give to my team or my supervisor? 

Are you letting your team know what's on your plate at the moment, so workloads can be distributed more effectively? Are you flagging a tricky problem that's got you stalled?

Instead of telling everyone "Look what I did", frame your updates as "Here's what this means for the team" – and people will listen differently.

At the same time, the onus shouldn't be entirely on staff to "prove" their worth. 

If you're a manager, remember that silence does not equate to disengagement. Some employees are naturally more reserved, and that doesn't mean they lack initiative or pride.

As leaders, our job isn't to sit back and wait for whomever wants a pat on the head to come running up to us. We need to check in more intentionally, create safe channels for updates and make recognition part of routine conversation – not a reward reserved for those who shout the loudest.

At the end of the day, what I've learnt from two decades in the workplace is this: The Zanns of the world will always eventually get exposed. "Talk is cheap" is a cliche for a reason.

So, work loudly if you like. Just make sure you're actually working – and not snoring loudly from a bush somewhere.