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I'll put this across bluntly. People of jealous of this gal.
I'll put my hand up and admit it. I am jealous of her, I truly am. Because like many of the netizens, I feel that even I could make a better candidate than her. Nothing against her personally, she's probably a nice gal and all, your average gal next door, but its like.. she just lacks depth... What does she stands for? Who is she speaking for? Her biggest regret is not having brought her parents to Universal Studio?! I mean, seriously??? WTF?! Honestly, with people like her as your MP is like having Ris Low as Miss Singapore. It really really doesn't put Singapore in very good light. Is this really the best we got?
Irregardless, she is going to be someone, that apart from keeping her high-paying day job, gets another 'part-time' job that not only is probably going to pay higher than what you are getting in your full time job, YOU, as a tax payer are going to pay for it and there is nothing you can do about it cos of this bloody joke called the GRC.
In essence, the PAP could put their favorite tea-lady from the minister office say in MM Lee's GRC ward. She could be your next MP! So what if she may hail from China and doesn't speak a word of english and never attended school in her life? What are you going to do about it? You can be a degree holder and work yourself to death and chances are you would not be getting more than her 'part-time' job. To add insult to injury, the money you worked so hard to earn, goes into funding the fat paychecks of people like these. Are we suckers or what?! Angry? No, I'm JEALOUS!
Thats why everyone hates her. They want to be in her shoes.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Fukushima 50
I really admire the Fukushima 50 team that is willing to put their lives on the line for the greater good. Instinctively if I were to be placed in the same position, I'll probably tell you that I'm willing to do it too. But realistically, unless I'm bought up in a closed culture like japan, it's very unlikely that I'll feel willing to sacrifice myself. To put it in our local context, would I do it? I probably would have said yes 10 years ago when I still feel a shred of nationalist pride. Not anymore when everywhere I looked are 'outsiders' here to leech off us. I dun blame them. As I have said many times, if there is another country or Govt as stupid liberal in immigration and favoring outsiders as much as ours, I would jump at the chance too.
End of the day, what I'm trying to say here is that as much as I admire the Fukushima 50, chances of me ever being willing to do so have fallen dramatically over the years. Unless the day comes again to make me feel this is my home once again, a home where it's willing to die for me as much as I would be willing to do for it, I'm still gng to be looking for my way out of this shithole
End of the day, what I'm trying to say here is that as much as I admire the Fukushima 50, chances of me ever being willing to do so have fallen dramatically over the years. Unless the day comes again to make me feel this is my home once again, a home where it's willing to die for me as much as I would be willing to do for it, I'm still gng to be looking for my way out of this shithole
Friday, March 18, 2011
Reservist
2 weeks of reservist passed in a flash. 1 more week to go before heading back to work.
To be honest, I hate reservist. I find that its a fucking waste of my time, esp when I am in a sales role. In sales, you need to find the momentum, to keep building the relationship with your clients, and just when you feel that you are doing so, you are on track, bamm! you're off for 3 weeks of reservist doing some mindless fuck shit that is going to cost me much more than whatever makeup pay you can give me. I dun care about some $9000 that I will get for serving 10 years of reservist. Its not even in cash, while I would gladly hand over $9000 or even $18,000 in CASH to the government to stop bothering me and leave me alone! I have already given up 2.5 years of my youth, watching me fall behind my female and other foreigners classmates. Its still not enough and you are fully intent to suck another 10 years out of me. WTF?!
I was IT trained back in the days, and given the speed IT moves, after my NS, all I have is a diploma cert that is nothing more than a irrelevant piece of paper and zero working experience, which of cos puts me at a major disadvantage. So what if I had 'sacrificed' my youth to the nation? What do I get in return? Does any employer care? So what if I had gotten a grading of 'Outstanding' in my NS certificate of conduct? Do you have any 'real life' working experience? They used to say that army makes you a man, well, I can't refute that in all honesty. I have never ever felt like a failure anytime in my life until after army when I tried to find work. Every employer puts me down until I almost believed I am a failure. I'll never forget an interviewer telling me that they can get a graduate with experience from overseas for lesser than what I would cost them, so why should they hire me? Sigh... those days were past. My angst are gone. More or less. Somehow I ended up in a different industry, something that I don't really have a passion about, something that I never considered myself doing, but thankfully, I'm still doing decently. I do often wondered though, how things might have been if I had been given the chance to pursue my passion....
Still, life goes on irregardless, so I do try to find positives in it. I try to take reservist as my annual 'vacation' off from work to recharge and restrategise. I get to meet old friends and new people. I get to get my mind off work for a while. I get interesting views, ideas and perspective from different people, people that I may only meet once a year, or maybe even once in my lifetime. People from different age groups from those very young (just ORD) compared to those that are older (gng to ROD). I don't really have a chance to do so in my social circle, most of my peers are around my age give and take a few years, so its kinda refreshing.
I do miss being young though. Reservist makes me feel, or rather, realised that I'm getting old. Where our topics back then was girls and partying, now its about housing, marriage and kids. The place though makes me feel as if I've stepped into a time wrap. Back to the time where there are no camera phones, no 3G/internet. Newspaper are shared around, amusements can be found in the simplest of things. Back then we are gathered in the 'yellow box' (smoking area) dreaming of our future, 8 years later, we are still standing in the same 'yellow box', but no more dreams. Everyone of us knows how harsh the reality is already, and we're all doing our best to survive in it.
To be honest, I hate reservist. I find that its a fucking waste of my time, esp when I am in a sales role. In sales, you need to find the momentum, to keep building the relationship with your clients, and just when you feel that you are doing so, you are on track, bamm! you're off for 3 weeks of reservist doing some mindless fuck shit that is going to cost me much more than whatever makeup pay you can give me. I dun care about some $9000 that I will get for serving 10 years of reservist. Its not even in cash, while I would gladly hand over $9000 or even $18,000 in CASH to the government to stop bothering me and leave me alone! I have already given up 2.5 years of my youth, watching me fall behind my female and other foreigners classmates. Its still not enough and you are fully intent to suck another 10 years out of me. WTF?!
I was IT trained back in the days, and given the speed IT moves, after my NS, all I have is a diploma cert that is nothing more than a irrelevant piece of paper and zero working experience, which of cos puts me at a major disadvantage. So what if I had 'sacrificed' my youth to the nation? What do I get in return? Does any employer care? So what if I had gotten a grading of 'Outstanding' in my NS certificate of conduct? Do you have any 'real life' working experience? They used to say that army makes you a man, well, I can't refute that in all honesty. I have never ever felt like a failure anytime in my life until after army when I tried to find work. Every employer puts me down until I almost believed I am a failure. I'll never forget an interviewer telling me that they can get a graduate with experience from overseas for lesser than what I would cost them, so why should they hire me? Sigh... those days were past. My angst are gone. More or less. Somehow I ended up in a different industry, something that I don't really have a passion about, something that I never considered myself doing, but thankfully, I'm still doing decently. I do often wondered though, how things might have been if I had been given the chance to pursue my passion....
Still, life goes on irregardless, so I do try to find positives in it. I try to take reservist as my annual 'vacation' off from work to recharge and restrategise. I get to meet old friends and new people. I get to get my mind off work for a while. I get interesting views, ideas and perspective from different people, people that I may only meet once a year, or maybe even once in my lifetime. People from different age groups from those very young (just ORD) compared to those that are older (gng to ROD). I don't really have a chance to do so in my social circle, most of my peers are around my age give and take a few years, so its kinda refreshing.
I do miss being young though. Reservist makes me feel, or rather, realised that I'm getting old. Where our topics back then was girls and partying, now its about housing, marriage and kids. The place though makes me feel as if I've stepped into a time wrap. Back to the time where there are no camera phones, no 3G/internet. Newspaper are shared around, amusements can be found in the simplest of things. Back then we are gathered in the 'yellow box' (smoking area) dreaming of our future, 8 years later, we are still standing in the same 'yellow box', but no more dreams. Everyone of us knows how harsh the reality is already, and we're all doing our best to survive in it.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
I attended a wedding banquet of an old friend last weekend at one of the 5 star hotel in singapore. It was a relatively low key affair, small ballroom of about 18 tables. Everything was nicely prepared, from cocktail reception to stage to dinner, just what you would expect from a 5 star hotel.
I observed something interesting during the entire dinner. Starting from the cocktail reception, I noticed that almost all the servers are non-singaporeans. I said almost all because I didn't managed to ask all of them, but I spoke to at least up to 10 of them, and none of them answered me in a Singaporean accent. Nothing against them at all, they did provide a wonderful dining experience, and to their credit, a good many of them spoke pretty decent english. By decent I mean I can understand them or that they can understand me by repeating less than 3 times, without wild gesturing and without having speaking to another staff. Yeah, my expectations of decent has really dropped way way down.
I remembered when I was younger, one of the better paying jobs for a teenager is serving at these banquets. If I remembered correctly, it paid about $8 - $12 per hour for a part-timer, and about $1500 - $2000 for a full timer. That was more than 10 years ago though, but for a teenager, and for a lot of semi-retirees, that was pretty decent income. Sadly, I saw none of either lately. I wonder if teenagers these days still do holiday/part-time work? Other than at fast food restaurants, I don't think I've seen them anywhere else. Used to be I see alot of them, especially during the school holidays, especially at banquets, restaurants, retail outlets etc. Nowadays, all I see are foreigners.
Just yesterday, I went shopping at Raffles City. Almost all the shops that I went to are manned by foreigners. I was buying a pair of shoes and I chose a pair and went to the counter for payment. The cashier was a Filipino lady (all smiles and credit to her) and asked for help with her colleague to get a new pair (in english). Her colleague responded to her in mandarin and after some gesturing, I decided to step in to help with the interpretation. I wonder in bemusement initally, why the store manager choose to place just the two of them in the store when they obviously had trouble communicating with each other. Then I realised that its actually a damn smart move. These foreigners obviously work at a local cost to the locals so the store save more and earn more. Being unable to communicate makes them being unable to stand around gossiping and thus focus on working. The Filipino serve all the english speaking customers and the Chinese to serve all the mandarin speaking ones, which basically covers majority of the demographics of the people who shop there.
Smart move to make best use of resources.
I observed something interesting during the entire dinner. Starting from the cocktail reception, I noticed that almost all the servers are non-singaporeans. I said almost all because I didn't managed to ask all of them, but I spoke to at least up to 10 of them, and none of them answered me in a Singaporean accent. Nothing against them at all, they did provide a wonderful dining experience, and to their credit, a good many of them spoke pretty decent english. By decent I mean I can understand them or that they can understand me by repeating less than 3 times, without wild gesturing and without having speaking to another staff. Yeah, my expectations of decent has really dropped way way down.
I remembered when I was younger, one of the better paying jobs for a teenager is serving at these banquets. If I remembered correctly, it paid about $8 - $12 per hour for a part-timer, and about $1500 - $2000 for a full timer. That was more than 10 years ago though, but for a teenager, and for a lot of semi-retirees, that was pretty decent income. Sadly, I saw none of either lately. I wonder if teenagers these days still do holiday/part-time work? Other than at fast food restaurants, I don't think I've seen them anywhere else. Used to be I see alot of them, especially during the school holidays, especially at banquets, restaurants, retail outlets etc. Nowadays, all I see are foreigners.
Just yesterday, I went shopping at Raffles City. Almost all the shops that I went to are manned by foreigners. I was buying a pair of shoes and I chose a pair and went to the counter for payment. The cashier was a Filipino lady (all smiles and credit to her) and asked for help with her colleague to get a new pair (in english). Her colleague responded to her in mandarin and after some gesturing, I decided to step in to help with the interpretation. I wonder in bemusement initally, why the store manager choose to place just the two of them in the store when they obviously had trouble communicating with each other. Then I realised that its actually a damn smart move. These foreigners obviously work at a local cost to the locals so the store save more and earn more. Being unable to communicate makes them being unable to stand around gossiping and thus focus on working. The Filipino serve all the english speaking customers and the Chinese to serve all the mandarin speaking ones, which basically covers majority of the demographics of the people who shop there.
Smart move to make best use of resources.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Having insomnia. Must be the medication keeping me up somehow. Or maybe its just from the lack of work.
Starting my 3rd job in slightly over a year soon. Been clearing leave for a while now while waiting for the new job to start in November. Was thinking lately, did I make the right career decision by leaving my first job?
I was in the job for 3 years. My first banking job. After leaving, I'm starting my 3rd job next week. Its only been a year and 2 months. Why is it that I was able to stay so long in the first job while moving on so quickly thereafter? Was it because the organisation was so good, or was it because of the lack of experience and hence the lack of mobility opportunities? If I had stayed on, would I have progressed better than what I have now?
As a fresh graduate with no banking experience, I remember my first drawn pay was about $2300. Kinda low when I look at it now, but back then, compared to the IT jobs that were not evening offering me $2000, $300/mth made a big enough difference for me to change industry. The learning curve was pretty steep, but I hung on and survived. When I left almost 3 years later, I was only drawing ~$3000, an approximate 10% increment per year. A year later, I'm drawing a basic of ~50% more. After hopping around. Is this what we have to do to get recognition? I honestly did not like this moving around new jobs. I would have preferred to learn and stay and contribute back to the organisation that groomed me. If I had stayed on, would I be drawing the salary I am getting? I honestly doubt so. Do organisation take you for granted?
Starting my 3rd job in slightly over a year soon. Been clearing leave for a while now while waiting for the new job to start in November. Was thinking lately, did I make the right career decision by leaving my first job?
I was in the job for 3 years. My first banking job. After leaving, I'm starting my 3rd job next week. Its only been a year and 2 months. Why is it that I was able to stay so long in the first job while moving on so quickly thereafter? Was it because the organisation was so good, or was it because of the lack of experience and hence the lack of mobility opportunities? If I had stayed on, would I have progressed better than what I have now?
As a fresh graduate with no banking experience, I remember my first drawn pay was about $2300. Kinda low when I look at it now, but back then, compared to the IT jobs that were not evening offering me $2000, $300/mth made a big enough difference for me to change industry. The learning curve was pretty steep, but I hung on and survived. When I left almost 3 years later, I was only drawing ~$3000, an approximate 10% increment per year. A year later, I'm drawing a basic of ~50% more. After hopping around. Is this what we have to do to get recognition? I honestly did not like this moving around new jobs. I would have preferred to learn and stay and contribute back to the organisation that groomed me. If I had stayed on, would I be drawing the salary I am getting? I honestly doubt so. Do organisation take you for granted?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Moving on.. yet again
Officially tendered my resignation today. Didn't manage to do so successfully on the first attempt, gotta really put my foot down tomorrow. Resignation is never easy for me, its kinda like breaking up in a relationship, which, sad to say, I don't really handle them well either.
Really, the more i think about it, the closer resemblance they hold. When you start a new job, just like a new relationship, you are full or hope and drive, wondering if this is 'the one' that you are looking for. Some people just enter into it for the sake of convenience, not wanting to be without a job/partner, and just holding on while waiting for a better one to come along.
When a better one comes along, the resignation is akin the breaking up part. Some people burn all bridges, some like myself, try to end things cordially, i.e. remain friends. Some work out, some doesn't. Some turn ugly, some you wish to forget...
I really hope this new job, just like my relationship now, is going to be 'the one'
Really, the more i think about it, the closer resemblance they hold. When you start a new job, just like a new relationship, you are full or hope and drive, wondering if this is 'the one' that you are looking for. Some people just enter into it for the sake of convenience, not wanting to be without a job/partner, and just holding on while waiting for a better one to come along.
When a better one comes along, the resignation is akin the breaking up part. Some people burn all bridges, some like myself, try to end things cordially, i.e. remain friends. Some work out, some doesn't. Some turn ugly, some you wish to forget...
I really hope this new job, just like my relationship now, is going to be 'the one'
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Decision time again
didnt expect it to be so fast, but another offer is coming along after just barely 4 mths into the new job and i am really excited about it. but feeling kinda bad leaving my boss and the other team mates behind so fast, had wanted to soldier on with them, but i think its easier said than done eh?
"man make their own history, but not under the circumstances of their own choosing"
one of my fav from karl marx.
i think its time i started writing a new chapter
"man make their own history, but not under the circumstances of their own choosing"
one of my fav from karl marx.
i think its time i started writing a new chapter
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