Listening to United LIVE - Need You Here
much inference
I ended up with a different patrol sector after a last minute switch, yesterday. So, instead of going out to sea with SI Norman, and having the opportunity to visit the CITY, I ended up patrolling the waters off Sentosa - again! Without much ado, my crew commander was a big time slacker. He didn't bother checking any of the boats in the area. Instead, he chose to let the boat drift at the waters off Pulau Sebarok.
Patrol duty in our area is quite boring. Basically, the traffic off Pulau Sebarok is kept to a minimal as it is a restricted area. It was boring to the extent that my crew commander chose to play chess with the entire crew set. He had a field day thrashing us all with much more laughter than serious playing. Later, we played Scrabble on the boat till about 12.30 in the morning. With this kind of crew commander - I can really take it easy.
When I think about my past performance in the "realm of games". It seems to me that I have not been very good at virtually all the games I've played in life. With the except of badminton, I am bad at practically every other game. Bad in the sense that I never win and consistently lose. Games like soccer, basketball, pool, water polo, hockey, tennis; basically, games with a ball in it. I'm really bad at them all. In addition, I happen to be bad when it comes to computer games on ALL platforms from PC to X Box! I'm not spared in card games either! And yes, Mahjong as well! I've never won a game of mahjong in my life - how sad is that? I'm always on the losing end no matter what game I play. So likewise, I lost the scrabble game as well yesterday. I've been booted out of RISK even before it was my turn to attack and for monopoly, I'm forever getting bankrupt! Suay I'd say! Damn SUAY!
I was really tired since I didn't rest before yesterday's tour of duty. However, my crew commander requested that I continue to be on duty till 4a.m in the morning. In the past few night shifts I've had, I've always slept at about 12 midnight, woken up at 4a.m and did my duty till our entire tour of duty was over.
It was a struggle trying to stay awake, I fell asleep a few times trying to man the radar. Not that it matters because the area around us is well lit up at night - but it doesn't bring forth a good impression of my work attitude. Well, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. But I guess its understandable, given that it is my first time trying to stay awake till 4a.m on the boat and that I'm not totally used to the schedule as for yet.
As for my crew commander. He just happily overslept his wake up time of 4a.m by 1 and a 1/2 hours! I was SO DEAD tired when I finally had the chance to hit the sack at about 6 in the morning! With just 2 hours of the fitful rest that I managed to get, I woke up in time to see the boat return to base and helped to tie the boat to the mooring bitts.
It was just a normal, quiet tour of duty with no cases. Patrol duty should be more like this more often than ever! At these times, I feel that NS isn't so bad.
economy
The economy must be really really bad. The government has said that it is on the road to recovery, yet more people are getting retrenched as companies shift jobs to other places with cheaper labour. If the gahmen have to cut CPF rates even at this time. It goes to show how truly bad the state of our economy is.
With just a 3% cut in the CPF contribution, life has become so hard for so many people already. Given the astronomical cost of "subsidised housing" here, transport prices that are only going up by 10 cents every march/september, high medical costs and severe lack of jobs. I feel that it will not be long before the CPF rate gets slashed further.
Even with the 1 billion dollar package, I think the money is not going to the right places - the unemployed, retrenched, fresh graduates. There is simply no point investing in our useless tourism industry! No point spending one hundred million dollars to get a couple of racist whites to come and mock at our country for 1 and a 1/2 days. 1 day in the city and 1/2 a day in sentosa! Our tourism industry has never had any good prospects in my mind. I think 100 million dollars should be invested in the arts - to culture our country - rather than invite external asian discrimination to our doorsteps. Sad to say this, but we still have a very much colonia-serving mindset just for a few more potential pounds from ultra-pompous british folk!
I don't think spending 600 million dollars on public sector construction projects will be good either. Most of the contractors in Singapore employ foreign workers to do the work for them. Think about it, we are paying money to foreigners and not to our local Singaporeans. Foreign workers will save and send their money back to their home countries. Singaporeans will spend and stimulate the economy! Besides, we don't really need many more gahmen (READ: PUBLIC SECTOR) buildings in Singapore already. Some show-off gahmen agency is probably just trying to build another 8th wonder to compete with the other 7 "wonders"! I feel it would be more worthwhile to use the 600 million to invest in the creation of more jobs for Singaporeans that are unemployed and desperately need to find work to feed their families!
As for the 78 million dollars in retraining grants. What's the point of retraining people to take up jobs that they don't want? i.e: Chambermaids, Forklift Operator, Crane Operator, Sales Executive, Cleaning supervisor? Singaporeans don't want such "low class" jobs! And worst, we do not even give the jobs to the study mamas who are willing to do them! Talk about mismatched direction of manpower! We are giving Singaporeans the shit jobs that they do not want, but not other foreigners do not mind doing. Yet, we are also taking away the good jobs for Singaporeans and giving them to supposedly "better" foreign talent - expatriates that cost a bomb! If singaporeans are expensive, expatriates are EVEN more expensive! Perhaps their employment in a company is part of an equation that can "significantly drive up costs". I'm not being racist or xenophobic here, but I'm just thinking from a nationalistic point of view. If one foreigner costs the price of 5 locals. I'd gladly take the 5 locals.
I think we should have more faith in our own countrymen and TRY to make things work! We are way too success-oriented that any talk of failure is now taboo! The preferential treatment to expatriates is just another semblance of our "colonial-mindset" - that expatriates can do the job better than we can! I think most Singaporeans work harder to make things work - so why not just give them a chance? Rather than let foreign talent happily take away jobs that locals can do and mock us in so doing so!
Dad is a great example. Dad told me that by right, some other "foreign talent" with a bunch of paper qualifications from cambridge and harvard was supposed to take his place. Just that the company felt that it would be too expensive. In addition, after seeing my Dad's performance and hardworking attitude, they chose to give it to Dad - for the fact that my dad is willing to go all out to make things work and won't slack in the office complaining that "Asians are just another bunch of uncivilised, uncultured people".
And lastly. Why retrain our workforce when there are no jobs around? What's the point of telling fresh graduates who can't find jobs to "retrain" just because they don't have the "necessary qualifications"? I think if you flip though the classified, it is full of fussy employers - given the phrase "RELEVANT EXPERIENCE for X Years" - knowing full well that almost everyone will not make that particular criterion! It really frustrates many people to know that every job in a "goldmine" of job offers have a catch phrase of a requirement which a vast majority are unable to satisfy.
So a degree is pretty worthless nowadays. Remember, you are just "a test tube washer" as according to a certain gahmen agency? Given the "paper qualifications inflation" - a degree will be worthless soon. Think: A degree from our Local Universities which oh-so-proudly declare that they are "wonderfully great academic instituitions" is not good enough to land you a decent job. And strangeley, the fellas who screw their A's, get a degree in Australia can still find a job upon their return!
Perhaps I'll just rephrase it, "A degree from our prestigious local universities qualifies you for no jobs as you do not have the relevant experience and relevant qualifications but a degree from some shit overseas university does". Are we so biased with this "foreigner mindset" that we treat "foreign educated locals" better than our own locally educated ones?
6 A's cannot go NUS Medicine. But can go UCL Medicine. So like mei says. 3 A's with 1600 for SAT means you can do medicine? Ridiculous! They are killing themselves by changing the admissions criterion all the time. And with all the other JCs coming up with 4 year plans, 6 year through trains, "special deals with NUS/NTU", NUS high school, International Baccalaureate programs. It will result in the ever-changing their fickle-minded admission criterion for a long long time to come. And all this to go to a university where even the professors can't speak properly? (READ: Taiwan and China Professors speaking English) What's the point of studying so hard to go to a university that even our local doctorate students desire not to take up a lecture job in. But would rather teach overseas?
Kill the young now with worthless qualifications in a world of ever increasing "paper qualifications inflation". Kill the workers of the future. And kill the future economy as well. And then blame that we are a "knowledge based economy" with not enough workers with the "right qualifications". Our universities are not helping us, they are indirectly dragging down our economy with their worthless degree programs!
The point is: You study so hard. Go to a local university. Mug like crazy in the stiff competition. Graduate. Can't find a job. Have to seek "retraining". Makes no sense - might as well don't go to university at all! And overseas graduates with "not recognised" degrees can somehow land jobs? Weird! I think the whole university thing needs a thorough shake up!
Yet strangely, our "world class education" provides workers that "are economically viable and necessary to sustain our economy". But where are the jobs? It all boils down to the issue - where are the jobs? Jobs No enough! The gahmen really needs to create some jobs for the time being now, rather than steam roll ahead with a knowledge based economy that will only leave more people jobless and liable to retrenchment without the ability to land another job given their "lack of qualifications".
Probably a good way to just scratch the surface of survival is to go overseas, study till you have a Ph.D in a knowledge based field like Biology, Mathematics, Physics, Political Science, Bio-Engineering, Law and come back. But really, who will chose to come back when overseas, the employers there will be so absolutely keen to have you work for them, given your qualifications, and desire to pay you well when you are "just an ordinary worker" back in Singapore? This is not an issue of loyalty. It is an issue of basic survival - the need to provide food, shelter, clothes and life support to yourself and your loved ones.
Besides, as a "sandwiched" generation, you can't earn enough to support everyone. Imagine. You are married, your wife is unemployed because she is expecting. Your parents don't work. Her parents don't work. You have a younger child. And you make the graduate's pay of 2700 bucks a month. You have to service your housing loan - which is daylight robbery of an interest rate. You have to pay for "subsidised hospital care". You have to support your parents as well as HER parents who constantly whine that you don't give them enough to enjoy their retirement and you have a little kid who gripes about not having "enough money". Even 10 000 buck a month will not be sufficient! (Oh ya, if you do earn 10 000 a month, you don't qualify for public housing!)
Perhaps that's why many couples don't want kids now. Perhaps thats why even more singles don't want to get married. Why get married when everything in our society is so superficial and so materialistic? We are too success-driven for our own good. Now that success will not come for some time, cracks in our society are beginning to emerge. People and Gahmen. Growing apart slowly but steadily.
Think of a Pentium 2 computer: 32 MB of Ram, 100 mhz RAM, 133 MhZ FSB and a old GeForce Graphics card. Suppose we want to improve "performance" (Make economy more competitive). So we "upgrade" (retrain) the graphics card (job market) from a GeForce 1 (labour based jobs) to a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (knowlege based jobs).
The motherboard (job seekers) cannot support the new graphics card (Knowledge based jobs). The RAM is too little (Entrepreneurial Spirit) for the new graphics card. The RAM is not fast enough either (University changes are too slow) and the FSB, Front Side Bus is too slow (Retraining takes too much time). In the end, the new graphics card (Biotech industries, etc) cannot function to the best of its ability (disgruntled biotech companies shifting to malaysia and china thanks to red tape).
And the PC user (Gahmen) expects the computer to put up a better graphics performance (we've been investing the knowledge based economy). But it shows. If you change the graphics card, you need to upgrade the architecture of the computer, namely, make the necessary changes first, not later. We should upgrade our RAM (University courses) to a good future proof one (rather than change university admission criteria yearly), upgrade our FSB (Retrain workforce FIRST while they still have jobs), upgrade our amount of RAM (more entrepreneurs, less reliance on MNCs) THEN we change the graphics card! And everyone will be happy and performance will be boosted!
Now we are going the reverse. Sigh *shakes head*.
much inference
I ended up with a different patrol sector after a last minute switch, yesterday. So, instead of going out to sea with SI Norman, and having the opportunity to visit the CITY, I ended up patrolling the waters off Sentosa - again! Without much ado, my crew commander was a big time slacker. He didn't bother checking any of the boats in the area. Instead, he chose to let the boat drift at the waters off Pulau Sebarok.
Patrol duty in our area is quite boring. Basically, the traffic off Pulau Sebarok is kept to a minimal as it is a restricted area. It was boring to the extent that my crew commander chose to play chess with the entire crew set. He had a field day thrashing us all with much more laughter than serious playing. Later, we played Scrabble on the boat till about 12.30 in the morning. With this kind of crew commander - I can really take it easy.
When I think about my past performance in the "realm of games". It seems to me that I have not been very good at virtually all the games I've played in life. With the except of badminton, I am bad at practically every other game. Bad in the sense that I never win and consistently lose. Games like soccer, basketball, pool, water polo, hockey, tennis; basically, games with a ball in it. I'm really bad at them all. In addition, I happen to be bad when it comes to computer games on ALL platforms from PC to X Box! I'm not spared in card games either! And yes, Mahjong as well! I've never won a game of mahjong in my life - how sad is that? I'm always on the losing end no matter what game I play. So likewise, I lost the scrabble game as well yesterday. I've been booted out of RISK even before it was my turn to attack and for monopoly, I'm forever getting bankrupt! Suay I'd say! Damn SUAY!
I was really tired since I didn't rest before yesterday's tour of duty. However, my crew commander requested that I continue to be on duty till 4a.m in the morning. In the past few night shifts I've had, I've always slept at about 12 midnight, woken up at 4a.m and did my duty till our entire tour of duty was over.
It was a struggle trying to stay awake, I fell asleep a few times trying to man the radar. Not that it matters because the area around us is well lit up at night - but it doesn't bring forth a good impression of my work attitude. Well, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. But I guess its understandable, given that it is my first time trying to stay awake till 4a.m on the boat and that I'm not totally used to the schedule as for yet.
As for my crew commander. He just happily overslept his wake up time of 4a.m by 1 and a 1/2 hours! I was SO DEAD tired when I finally had the chance to hit the sack at about 6 in the morning! With just 2 hours of the fitful rest that I managed to get, I woke up in time to see the boat return to base and helped to tie the boat to the mooring bitts.
It was just a normal, quiet tour of duty with no cases. Patrol duty should be more like this more often than ever! At these times, I feel that NS isn't so bad.
economy
The economy must be really really bad. The government has said that it is on the road to recovery, yet more people are getting retrenched as companies shift jobs to other places with cheaper labour. If the gahmen have to cut CPF rates even at this time. It goes to show how truly bad the state of our economy is.
With just a 3% cut in the CPF contribution, life has become so hard for so many people already. Given the astronomical cost of "subsidised housing" here, transport prices that are only going up by 10 cents every march/september, high medical costs and severe lack of jobs. I feel that it will not be long before the CPF rate gets slashed further.
Even with the 1 billion dollar package, I think the money is not going to the right places - the unemployed, retrenched, fresh graduates. There is simply no point investing in our useless tourism industry! No point spending one hundred million dollars to get a couple of racist whites to come and mock at our country for 1 and a 1/2 days. 1 day in the city and 1/2 a day in sentosa! Our tourism industry has never had any good prospects in my mind. I think 100 million dollars should be invested in the arts - to culture our country - rather than invite external asian discrimination to our doorsteps. Sad to say this, but we still have a very much colonia-serving mindset just for a few more potential pounds from ultra-pompous british folk!
I don't think spending 600 million dollars on public sector construction projects will be good either. Most of the contractors in Singapore employ foreign workers to do the work for them. Think about it, we are paying money to foreigners and not to our local Singaporeans. Foreign workers will save and send their money back to their home countries. Singaporeans will spend and stimulate the economy! Besides, we don't really need many more gahmen (READ: PUBLIC SECTOR) buildings in Singapore already. Some show-off gahmen agency is probably just trying to build another 8th wonder to compete with the other 7 "wonders"! I feel it would be more worthwhile to use the 600 million to invest in the creation of more jobs for Singaporeans that are unemployed and desperately need to find work to feed their families!
As for the 78 million dollars in retraining grants. What's the point of retraining people to take up jobs that they don't want? i.e: Chambermaids, Forklift Operator, Crane Operator, Sales Executive, Cleaning supervisor? Singaporeans don't want such "low class" jobs! And worst, we do not even give the jobs to the study mamas who are willing to do them! Talk about mismatched direction of manpower! We are giving Singaporeans the shit jobs that they do not want, but not other foreigners do not mind doing. Yet, we are also taking away the good jobs for Singaporeans and giving them to supposedly "better" foreign talent - expatriates that cost a bomb! If singaporeans are expensive, expatriates are EVEN more expensive! Perhaps their employment in a company is part of an equation that can "significantly drive up costs". I'm not being racist or xenophobic here, but I'm just thinking from a nationalistic point of view. If one foreigner costs the price of 5 locals. I'd gladly take the 5 locals.
I think we should have more faith in our own countrymen and TRY to make things work! We are way too success-oriented that any talk of failure is now taboo! The preferential treatment to expatriates is just another semblance of our "colonial-mindset" - that expatriates can do the job better than we can! I think most Singaporeans work harder to make things work - so why not just give them a chance? Rather than let foreign talent happily take away jobs that locals can do and mock us in so doing so!
Dad is a great example. Dad told me that by right, some other "foreign talent" with a bunch of paper qualifications from cambridge and harvard was supposed to take his place. Just that the company felt that it would be too expensive. In addition, after seeing my Dad's performance and hardworking attitude, they chose to give it to Dad - for the fact that my dad is willing to go all out to make things work and won't slack in the office complaining that "Asians are just another bunch of uncivilised, uncultured people".
And lastly. Why retrain our workforce when there are no jobs around? What's the point of telling fresh graduates who can't find jobs to "retrain" just because they don't have the "necessary qualifications"? I think if you flip though the classified, it is full of fussy employers - given the phrase "RELEVANT EXPERIENCE for X Years" - knowing full well that almost everyone will not make that particular criterion! It really frustrates many people to know that every job in a "goldmine" of job offers have a catch phrase of a requirement which a vast majority are unable to satisfy.
So a degree is pretty worthless nowadays. Remember, you are just "a test tube washer" as according to a certain gahmen agency? Given the "paper qualifications inflation" - a degree will be worthless soon. Think: A degree from our Local Universities which oh-so-proudly declare that they are "wonderfully great academic instituitions" is not good enough to land you a decent job. And strangeley, the fellas who screw their A's, get a degree in Australia can still find a job upon their return!
Perhaps I'll just rephrase it, "A degree from our prestigious local universities qualifies you for no jobs as you do not have the relevant experience and relevant qualifications but a degree from some shit overseas university does". Are we so biased with this "foreigner mindset" that we treat "foreign educated locals" better than our own locally educated ones?
6 A's cannot go NUS Medicine. But can go UCL Medicine. So like mei says. 3 A's with 1600 for SAT means you can do medicine? Ridiculous! They are killing themselves by changing the admissions criterion all the time. And with all the other JCs coming up with 4 year plans, 6 year through trains, "special deals with NUS/NTU", NUS high school, International Baccalaureate programs. It will result in the ever-changing their fickle-minded admission criterion for a long long time to come. And all this to go to a university where even the professors can't speak properly? (READ: Taiwan and China Professors speaking English) What's the point of studying so hard to go to a university that even our local doctorate students desire not to take up a lecture job in. But would rather teach overseas?
Kill the young now with worthless qualifications in a world of ever increasing "paper qualifications inflation". Kill the workers of the future. And kill the future economy as well. And then blame that we are a "knowledge based economy" with not enough workers with the "right qualifications". Our universities are not helping us, they are indirectly dragging down our economy with their worthless degree programs!
The point is: You study so hard. Go to a local university. Mug like crazy in the stiff competition. Graduate. Can't find a job. Have to seek "retraining". Makes no sense - might as well don't go to university at all! And overseas graduates with "not recognised" degrees can somehow land jobs? Weird! I think the whole university thing needs a thorough shake up!
Yet strangely, our "world class education" provides workers that "are economically viable and necessary to sustain our economy". But where are the jobs? It all boils down to the issue - where are the jobs? Jobs No enough! The gahmen really needs to create some jobs for the time being now, rather than steam roll ahead with a knowledge based economy that will only leave more people jobless and liable to retrenchment without the ability to land another job given their "lack of qualifications".
Probably a good way to just scratch the surface of survival is to go overseas, study till you have a Ph.D in a knowledge based field like Biology, Mathematics, Physics, Political Science, Bio-Engineering, Law and come back. But really, who will chose to come back when overseas, the employers there will be so absolutely keen to have you work for them, given your qualifications, and desire to pay you well when you are "just an ordinary worker" back in Singapore? This is not an issue of loyalty. It is an issue of basic survival - the need to provide food, shelter, clothes and life support to yourself and your loved ones.
Besides, as a "sandwiched" generation, you can't earn enough to support everyone. Imagine. You are married, your wife is unemployed because she is expecting. Your parents don't work. Her parents don't work. You have a younger child. And you make the graduate's pay of 2700 bucks a month. You have to service your housing loan - which is daylight robbery of an interest rate. You have to pay for "subsidised hospital care". You have to support your parents as well as HER parents who constantly whine that you don't give them enough to enjoy their retirement and you have a little kid who gripes about not having "enough money". Even 10 000 buck a month will not be sufficient! (Oh ya, if you do earn 10 000 a month, you don't qualify for public housing!)
Perhaps that's why many couples don't want kids now. Perhaps thats why even more singles don't want to get married. Why get married when everything in our society is so superficial and so materialistic? We are too success-driven for our own good. Now that success will not come for some time, cracks in our society are beginning to emerge. People and Gahmen. Growing apart slowly but steadily.
Think of a Pentium 2 computer: 32 MB of Ram, 100 mhz RAM, 133 MhZ FSB and a old GeForce Graphics card. Suppose we want to improve "performance" (Make economy more competitive). So we "upgrade" (retrain) the graphics card (job market) from a GeForce 1 (labour based jobs) to a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (knowlege based jobs).
The motherboard (job seekers) cannot support the new graphics card (Knowledge based jobs). The RAM is too little (Entrepreneurial Spirit) for the new graphics card. The RAM is not fast enough either (University changes are too slow) and the FSB, Front Side Bus is too slow (Retraining takes too much time). In the end, the new graphics card (Biotech industries, etc) cannot function to the best of its ability (disgruntled biotech companies shifting to malaysia and china thanks to red tape).
And the PC user (Gahmen) expects the computer to put up a better graphics performance (we've been investing the knowledge based economy). But it shows. If you change the graphics card, you need to upgrade the architecture of the computer, namely, make the necessary changes first, not later. We should upgrade our RAM (University courses) to a good future proof one (rather than change university admission criteria yearly), upgrade our FSB (Retrain workforce FIRST while they still have jobs), upgrade our amount of RAM (more entrepreneurs, less reliance on MNCs) THEN we change the graphics card! And everyone will be happy and performance will be boosted!
Now we are going the reverse. Sigh *shakes head*.
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