tzlee.com/blog

  • A note for the Blind Followers

    OK, I’ve had enough of people blindly saying good things about the men in white and that the oppositions suck. We have to discount the opposition because they haven’t been on the job yet – how would I expect you to know how to fix my problems if I haven’t even hired you?

    Yes, due respect for LKY. He’s a great man, but things have changed. This country is no longer 3rd world and cannot be managed like the way it was before.

    I quote a note shared by a friend on Facebook:

    I fear the Singaporean who says “I think the opposition candidate in my constituency is crap, but I will vote him anyway because I think the PAP is arrogant.” I cannot agree with that.

    Cannot agree with what? Arrogance? Arrogance diminishes wisdom my friend.

    No doubt there are really good and smart people amongst the men in white, such as GY, TCH, GCT but I’ve had enough of them especially the MP in my area (now contesting in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC). Let me relate my experience.

    I have a neighbour noise problem. And trust me I’m not the only person in Singapore with this issue. Google it and you will find it. Some people have it worse than me and this affects people’s lives.

    Yes, I’m a musician and I’m sensitive to noise, but I am not unreasonable. I’ve been living in HDB flats since young and haven’t heard such noises at my parent’s flat. Worse even, these noises occur at night right above my bedroom. I can’t sleep in peace or spend a weekend at home without going crazy. HDB flats nowadays are built cheaply with paper thin walls that I can hear every noise my neighbour makes. I’ve tried to talk to my neighbour, called the police, visited my MP and even written in to HDB.

    What pisses me off is my MP being the last resort not giving a hoot about my neighbour problem. When I asked him if there’s any law governing these issues, he said “not really” and there’s nothing much he can do except write a letter to HDB. Yes, he did indeed write a letter to HDB, but I’ve never seen the HDB officer visit my flat to even listen to the kind of noises I have to put up with.

    So what do I need my MP for when he doesn’t even bother? I’m not saying all of PAP is bad, but some shit needs to be fixed.

    And I quote my friend again:

    But I don’t think voting against someone good as a statement against the GRC system is entirely logical…

    So if I vote for the same group, I will get the same guy who will not solve my problem anyway. How about let’s say have you ever done a project with a crappy team mate? Reality of life is that if you have a bad team mate, he/she drags you into the water. If I stand up for such a system, I’m supporting gerrymandering and the GRC bullshit.

    I feel the severe lack of freedom of speech, the lack of the right to even request for something. I’m not taking about Mas Selamat, the floods and the overcrowded MRT and roads. These are civil service issues that are brought about by the policies that were (or not) made.

    Get this fact right – the civil service will only act by the book and these laws are defined by our government. As of now there are no laws protecting us. Read the first few pages of the WP manifesto, it is quite interesting.

    FYI, I had to take things into my own hands and it got really ugly to a stage that my property agent actually went up to my neighbour with some fruits to make peace. But the issue is still not totally resolved. Take it that I’m firing my MP and finding a new one.

  • Aging Gracefully

    Not many political discussions make it to my blog, but I think this one is worth blogging about since this actually sparked off a long discussion on Facebook.

    Wife’s friend said the problem is not with how CPF works but with Singaporeans not knowing how to age gracefully. I totally agree with this.

    There are many opinions on whether CPF is a good or bad system. Some say it is good because it forces Singaporeans to save and controls their spending during retirement, some say it’s bad because the lower income will have no CPF to start with and they are left to die, some conspiracy theories say we don’t really know if CPF even has enough money to pay out with our aging population.

    Nevermind the speculation. Let me talk about retirement.

    Retirement is a common misconception that most of us have; most people expect to work till the so-called retirement age and then all of a sudden they retire and stop working. This is the very reason why some of you have your old folks telling you things like “(they) have fed you for the past 20 years, it’s time for you to pay back.”

    I’m not against filial piety, but expecting your child to feed you through your retirement isn’t the right mentality either. A lot of people I’ve seen suffer precisely because of their warped idea of this ancient Chinese virtue – their parents decided that it’s time to retire because their children are now working and that they should be given a (hefty) monthly allowance so they can go and play mahjong, visit the casino, buy alcohol and smoke weed when their children have just barely started with their career and are still paying off their study loans. Is this right?

    People say that they worry for their future generations – that they will not be able to afford a flat, keep up with the education system and adapt to the rising costs of living in Singapore. If we continue to have such a mentality living dollar-to-dollar, spending all our money saying that we live only once, and hoping our children will one day make tonnes of money and turn you into a full-time Tai Tai, how are we helping our children ourselves by doing this to them, let alone allow our government to help us?

    I empathize with the people who are not poor by choice but poor by circumstance, but I have seen too many people poor by choice, i.e. they don’t know how to save, spend all their earnings, refuse to work, or just gamble their money away. These are the very people who just blatantly pick any topic and blame the government for their current poor state.

    Get this right guys – no government can solve this problem. If for example Singapore ceases the CPF system and start feeding and caring for these people who are “poor by choice” then the tax payers will have to bear the high taxes – typically in excess of 30% as seen by most developed nations with such schemes. Or if for example we have a minimum wage scheme, people will become unemployed as they are priced out of their value (thanks Prof Ben – insightful discussion).

    If you have worked hard for your money and you pay 30% tax just to feed these people, will you be angry?

    By then you think we’ll still find $3 chicken rice or $0.90 coffee in Singapore when wages and taxes are so high?

    For the middle sandwich class, every one of us should fend for ourselves and plan our so-called retirement which does not necessarily mean to stop working and play mahjong all day long but to continue doing something we love/enjoy as we age and hopefully (and very likely) make decent money during the process.

    For the lower income group – I’m talking about those who can’t even afford to read this article folks. If you have fucking Internet access, you are not POOR – I believe the government is there to help. Go and seek aid.

    The retirement concept is dead folks. Don’t rely on your CPF.

    FYI – just in case you are wondering, I am pretty party neutral. I don’t like the high minister pay, neither am I a Kate Spade fan. I’m not exactly pleased with the increase in CPF contribution rates either since I think it does little for our so-called retirement. I also do think a fair amount of minority party making some noise would help keep the majority ruling party on their feet. Overall, Singapore is still a very safe country and I appreciate that.

  • Impending General Election

    So there has been some discussion on topics that are “close to our hearts”, such as HDB prices.

    Wife read a site/blog that claims that HDB flats are leased to us, so why do the prices go up instead of down as the flats age?

    Simply put, it’s inflation. But why inflation?

    So let’s start from the root of the problem. Singapore’s economy is highly dependent on her workforce. Unlike the middle east, we have no natural resources. So we LPPL.

    (We’re also lucky in that aspect, otherwise we may be at war.)

    We also suffer from an aging population. This is not uncommon – most developed countries have this problem. We will need to fill up the jobs that our parents used to fill to keep the economy going.

    So it’s quite clear now that to grow our economy and to maintain our standard of living we’ll need to grow our population. And so the government has started to “import” population as a desperate measure, otherwise our economy will go downhill – which will actually be worse.

    What happens when we have “imports”? They need a place to stay. Since they can’t buy new flats (which doesn’t make sense anyway — new flats take time to build, and they need a place to stay IMMEDIATELY), they’ll buy resale.

    And with a small plot of land, a shortage in supply of flats and a strong demand from our imports, HDB prices will naturally go up. 99 year lease term? Doesn’t matter. Arboh you want the imports to sleep on the streets?

    So why can’t the government build more flats? OK, let’s turn that question around. Who’s going to build more flats? Ah-ha! We need more imports.

    Get the idea now?

    Economic growth is a cycle. You can’t break it. Too bad… the world works this way – even before money was invented!

    IMHO, we are here in a developed country. We have our problems. Whether we like it or not, we either suck it up and make the best of it so you can live a better life here, or think about how you can get away if you can find a greener pasture elsewhere.

    BTW, don’t get me wrong. I’m not in favor of any political party. Actually I’m interested to see what the opposition has to say. Most have a lot of rubbish to say but no solution yet. We shall see!

  • To Hire and Be Hired

    So wifey’s colleague will be going on a long leave for a period of 3 months and she had to sit-in in an interview of a new guy who would be covering her colleague.

    According to her, the interviewee – a FT, apparently, from another part of Asia – was able to describe his job scope and responsibilities so well she felt that Singaporeans were at the losing end for being really bad at articulating their work experiences.

    However, wifey had a feeling this guy was half bullshitting as he used the term “we” more often than “I”, meaning he was describing his team’s work rather than his individual contribution. However when probed, the interviewee was capable of elaborating details of processes, so she couldn’t really ascertain if it was really bull or not.

    Then I spoke to another friend who had some bad brushes with FTs and he asked if her colleague had asked more objective questions rather than open-ended questions such as “describe your role in your previous job” and wifey said: “Not really.”

    So there are two problems here. We suck at both ends – as an interviewee and interviewer.

    When I was in my first job in a small local start-up I had similar problems with interviewing, so I came up with a 3-page technical test. Rather fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) the test filtered out a lot of candidates and it became really difficult to find a decent hire and eventually we were a little starved for manpower. Over time, some random hires got in and were asked to go, or quit shortly after anyway.

    Where have all the good people gone?

    I’m suspecting the big companies are sucking them all up, leaving small start-ups in the ditch.

    So it leaves all the Tom, Dick & Harrys (hereinafter “TDH”) to search for small-timers who are desperate for manpower to fulfill their growing business.

    But if small companies don’t firm up their hiring process and start hiring any TDH, they may be in for a rough ride.

    TDHs don’t really bother with company culture. They follow some rules set out by HR just for the sake of it. And for a start, many small start-ups lack culture, so TDHs will readily mess that up.

    A lot of TDHs I’ve seen are in for the money, or it’s just another job to fill their idle time. TDHs lack commitment, and will readily switch jobs when a better monetary offer comes along.

    Lastly, TDHs are a waste of time if you send them for certifications. They lack passion and will use your certifications as an opportunity to get a better hire elsewhere, and all your money would have been gone to waste after a year of intensive training.

    So if you run a small start-up, I’d like to suggest that you firm up your hiring process. One good employee is better than many crappy ones. They bring a lot of intangible benefits to a company.

    It’s really not difficult to weed out the TDHs. Test their thought processes, ask them whacky questions, push them to the limits of their answers. A passionate hire will pay attention to detail and will offer creative suggestions. TDHs will probably just answer “I don’t know” and go in search for the next easier target.

    However, if you’re on the opposite side and is going for an interview soon, learn to talk. It’s really a skill, especially if you’re still in school – take your presentations seriously and aim to capture your audience. These are real life skills. If you can’t sell, you have no money! I wished I had taken them more seriously 10 years ago, but it’s a little too late for me now 😉

  • Truth or Dare?

    Do you dare to take the road less travelled? Or simply stick to what you’ve been doing only to find the truth a little too late?

    It’s not all about guts of course, but it’s a calculated risk. The difference is in the calculation.

    That’s probably why Singapore lacks an entrepreneurial spirit – we got the risk formular wrong.

    Many success stories may seem like luck – being there at the right time, in the right place.

    Lee Kuan Yew once said, the situation makes the people. The people does not make the situation.

    I’ve come to believe if one searches hard enough for it, be it anything – love, money, fame, career – you will find it someday.

    Gambatte!

  • Inspiration

    Time to find some arty farty inspiration back. I’ll start on a new musical arrangement for CO, but I will not set a deadline. Let’s see what I can come up with. 😀