Hardwarezone member says colleague has 'no social skills' & is a 'miser', blocks his promotion

A member of Hardware Zone (HWZ), a popular local forum, caused some controversy over a post where he claimed he blocked a promotion for a subordinate for spurious reasons.

After a bunch of responses where the post was largely negatively-received, the member who shared the initial post was banned.

"Miser" didn't deserve promotion

On Sunday, Dec. 7, a HWZ user named "maleeoh" shared that one of his subordinates was in his 40s, and had been working in the same company for 20 years.

Throughout that time, he had only been promoted once and was at the rank of a senior executive, typically a rank for someone with two years of experience.

He was up for promotion as part of a routine process, but maleeoh had some reservations:

"Problem is he has no social skills and is a miser. Always don’t mingle, don’t join events.

He has no topics to talk with us. Overseas trips all these all don’t have. Super miserly."

Maleeoh added that as far as he knew, the worker had "no debt" and speculated that he was lying "flat" and collecting his salary every month.

The choice came down to this worker, or a "younger, more driven guy".

"Since this guy is rich enough, and is a miser, I rejected his promotion for the other guy," he said.

Negative reactions

If maleeoh was looking for support for his decision, he didn't get it from his fellow forum members.

One member said promoting the younger worker based on his more driven nature is "justification enough" and asked if maleeoh started a new thread out of guilt.

Another directly criticised the decision, pointing out that maleeoh had made the decision not based on work performance but the man's "social behaviour".

"Why you are so terrible to block a senior's promotion and gave the opportunity to a younger people?

All the traits you mentioned are not performance related."

Another called him out on his "bias", asking: "Since when a person's personal wealth is a criteria for promotion?"

Others shared their own stories, saying they had been passed over for promotions for similar reasons, like not socialising with their colleagues after work, even if their work performance was otherwise good.

Still others, in true HWZ forum, just called maleeoh a "bad, toxic manager."

Banned

Later, it transpired that maleeoh had been banned from the forum.

It's not certain whether he was banned for starting the thread itself, or for contravening another forum rule.

The account itself was only created in October 2025 and had fewer than 100 posts.

Another user summed up the situation:

"So TS got fired (banned)

Lol

poor management skill

Poor judgement on staff

So Subjective in thinking

Fail and sabo"

Top image from HWZ forum