I just turned 21 years old earlier this year, and thought that my life would finally become better for me but then my whole world came crashing down on me.

I have always been living with my father, the two of us were borrowing a room from our relatives. It was crammed but we lived there for about a good 10+ years, since I was in primary school.

My parents were divorced, I don’t really keep in contact with my mom anymore. The reason me and my dad didn’t apply for a rental flat was because my mom used my name to rent a flat and she stayed with her new boyfriend.

Life was pretty comfortable. Me and my father got so used to living in our relative’s home. My PC setup was a small coffee table propped right in front of my mattress, as soon as I wake up I was already in gaming position. Anyway we just stayed there until when I was nearing the end of my poly years, that’s when my relative told us we need to find a way to move out.

As every Singaporean would know, getting a property in Singapore is like a really huge milestone. I don’t know how me and my father are going to pull it off, so we came up with a plan.

Instead of wasting 2 years in NS, I decided to sign on and landed my self a nice $2.9k vocation (Of cause I didn’t make this decision lightly, I have weighted many factors in, including which vocation would suit me best). Now that I have stable income, we should be able to get a decent loan from HDB or bank. Together with my father’s 80k in his CPF OA, we just might be able to get a BTO or SBF.

That’s when I learnt that my father had deferred a HDB loan a long time ago, back in 1997. The interest has accumulated until a good 200k+. HDB was kind enough to waiver off half of this resale levy, but its still over 100k. Okay fine, how about public resale? We went back to crunching numbers and smashing calculators. My father has already applied for HLE twice so HDB loan is out of the question, we went down to DBS bank to ask for a loan, and after assessing me and my father’s situation, we learnt that instead of the expected 170k we could loan for 25 year tenure, we could only get 100k+ due to my father’s income and age.

Forget about getting resale, we couldn’t even pay the upfront cost for the cheapest options out there, and we haven’t even factor in the COV yet. I have only started working for a few months so I don’t have much savings as well yet.

So we went back to try and apply for a rental flat, and HDB rejected us because our combined income exceeds 1.5k.

A few days ago my relative gave me and my father a deadline to move out. I have already wrote a letter to MP to try and help us out with our situation, and am still currently waiting for reply.

I have also applied and got accepted for a part-time degree program. I am awaiting payment of school fees and have set aside 16k so that’s even less savings for housing.

With increasing property price the trend, plus the pandemic, BTO delay, etc, I feel I got caught in a really bad timing. I admit some of the issues I’m facing is due to our poor decision making in the past, even way before I was born. There is still a lot of things I don’t know about the world but with the decisions I need to make, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed.

If HDB rejects us again, we may have to look for a private rental. But honestly the reality of working just to pay rent and continue cramming in a single room, and we don’t even know what kind of restrictions the landlord might impose on us. Things seem to be turning for the worse, and if my salary goes to paying rent, how can we break out of the cycle?

I am thinking of asking my father to stop working so that our combined salary is just nice below 1.5k. We will have to wait until our next reporting of income tax statement. I don’t know how well this plan might work or if it might backfire on us.

Currently looking out for private rentals while awaiting HDB response, I don’t have any experience with this so I may contact an agent. If anybody has experience with this I would really appreciate it if you can share your knowledge. I heard there are some rental offers out there that are out to scam foreigners, there was a story about a flat that rented out to like 10+ people.

A man shared how he is a widowers and his daughter recently caught him sleeping with his date and now refuses to talk to him.

Here is the story

My daughter won’t talk to me. And I don’t know what to do.

Her mom and I were school sweethearts and had her young. We lost my wife over 2 years ago to cancer. Ever since it’s been me and her. We have both gone to therapy since it happened to cope with the grief. I was especially destroyed by it, she was the love of my life.

When I met my coworker “Maya” I didn’t expect to develop feelings. For the past 4 months we’ve worked together I just did. She knows about my history with my wife. And she’s been pretty respectful about it. Finally over a month ago I asked her out on a date, she said yes. I didn’t tell my daughter about any of this because I wasn’t ready to admit to her that I’m interested in someone else. Figured to date a while and if I felt it was really gonna go somewhere then find the right time to tell her.

This weekend my daughter was gonna be with her best friend’s family to celebrate her birthday at their home. She was meant to stay there until Monday morning. So thinking that I’d be free, Maya and I went out on our 3rd date. At the end of it we got pretty caught up in the kissing. We just wanted to be together.

And my place was the closest. We got intimate last night and fell asleep. My daughter showed up wayyy sooner than expected. Her work asked her to cover a shift on Monday so she decided to drive back early before Sunday traffic hit. She found us asleep together and lost it. When we talked after Maya left she accused me of not caring about my wife and she’s disgusted I’d move on so easily. I know what she’s saying is coming from her grief.

I tried talking getting through to her. She didn’t want to hear it though. All day today she’s been ignoring me. This is killing me. I can’t lose my daughter too and I don’t know what to do to make this situation better. What can I do for her to make this easier? This isn’t how I wanted her to find out about this

For some reasons (undisclosed here) , I may be incomeless for a few years. i have about 200K savings, staying in my parent home but i gave them a lump sum of 50K at one shot. told them is for next few years of me being jobless( not that i want)

Should not have any expenses since i would not go out at all! So maybe phone bill cost $30 per month and insurance which i should have enough saving to tank for five years of payment.

Anyone similar situation to me? So my question is has anyone also incomeless for a few years? So when u get back to salaryman – how did u cope. And what u do when u are incomeless and mental wise all ok? Asking for reference and mental preparation

Netizens’ comments

• Might want to have a plan? Like what you intend to do during these few years.
  Last time I had a friend who did that, left the company and took a break for a few years, then back in, after a few years,she quit again but was feeling restless at home so she got a job which is different from her previous job, which also means she will start at the bottom but get to learn new stuff and she doesn’t mind since she has the financial means to do so.
  My mum was let go after her boss sold the company but like my dad said “her backside got nails, cannot sit at home one” , so instead of retiring, she went out to find a new job.
  Depending on your industry, you might have to play some catch up after the break to get back on track with the newer technology etc.
• Here’s sharing my experience: I took an unplanned and unintended career break due to illness, from approx 2016 to 2021. I can’t really put a finger down to the number of years I stopped work, cos I had stepped down my employment gradually from FTE to part-time, to self-employed, then freelance, until my health required me to stop working totally.
  When my health got better in late 2020, I started reading up on how to re-enter the workforce/restart my career after a break. Honestly, despite all the hell that the pandemic caused, there were two good things that came out of it that benefitted me:
  The SGUnited heavily subsidised training/skills/mid-career programmes that came with monthly training allowance. I personally took a 9-mths long SGUS prog in digital HR to brush up my rusty skills and make myself more relevant to today’s needs, and also got to upskill in the newer tech skill
  WFH corporate jobs were previously rare in Sg, but companies were forced to make it happen and now some of them have realised the good in a hybrid workforce. Though it’s still too soon to say for sure, we will have to see how things go after Apr 26.
  And remote/hybrid work arrangements were what I really needed so as to manage my energy output better to avoid crashes/relapses. I have since started working in Feb 2022, although in a lower role but getting to restart is of more importance.
  In terms of finances I can’t really offer much advice given that I actually had to turn to family for help ultimately cos the medical expenses plus not working expended all of my savings. But the break also forced me to cut my monthly bills to only what is most essential, and I realised that a lot of the expenses that I thought were important or necessary may not actually be. So it’s important to rank your expenses I think, and perhaps as you go along your break, you can slowly cut away those things that you can do without.
  Finally, to end this off, I can’t emphasise enough that HEALTH IS WEALTH. Please take care of yourselves first and foremost, be it physically, mentally, emotionally. No matter how much you slog for any company, or offer your time and money to any religion, or bend over backwards to cater to your friends/network/etc, when disaster hits, not all of them will be willing to stay with you to ride it out and give a helping hand. But I also don’t regret or blame the higher being for having to go through what I did, cos the “social cleansing” really helped me to now know who are my important people (honestly many of those whom I thought would be in this group ended up taking flight but it’s okay, good riddance to them).

I am currently working as an intern at a certain e commerce company here which I shall not name, I am supposed to work here until the year end and I am dreading going into work almost every day.

It is not that my superiors are nasty. They are friendly and teach me stuff. However because most of the employees are not Singaporean, the work culture is quite different, even the way they treat Singaporeans is also different.

They only care about their fellow countrymen, so if the team consists of people from different backgrounds, the team will not be bonded. It is quite obvious that they are only friendly with each other for work relations.

Recently a new full timer joined my team. He is also from that country. As such, he is treated extremely well. He was given a tour around the office and they even treated him lunch.

Back when I joined, there was no such treatment lol. But I guess it is because I am a temporary staff there is no need to treat me that well. I am fine with that.

However, my supervisor has been assigning work that was meant for me, to him. Hence ever since he joined my workload has become significantly less and I don’t learn as much anymore.

I am also kept out of the loop for projects that I used to be part of, and he has replaced me. My supervisor even asked me to give him my script which I spent 1 entire month working on, so that he can take over my duties.

Now I dread going to work because I want to be busy and learn things but now I cannot because everything has been passed to this new guy.

Maybe my supervisor finds it easier to communicate with someone of similar background as her, so she stopped giving me important tasks and instead gave them to him.

It has come to the point where every day I have to ask for work because I have nothing to do. But the work assigned to me is extremely mundane.

I miss the days before this new full timer joined. I really don’t know how I am going to handle the next few months in this team.

Netizen’s comment

Do not overthink. From your perspective, it appeared that they are giving you less work and make you less important.

Take note that you are not a perm staff and will leave the company in a few months. From the company perspective, they have to plan the handover of your tasks to the perm staff. This is a normal hand over plan.

You may take this as a learning point as an intern. One day if you become the boss of the company, you will do likewise, by transferring the tasks to a perm staff before the intern leave. Your asking is valid as you have yet to see the world.

One time I shocked my friends with how loud I was in bed (f19)

So earlier this year my friends and I went on a girls trip away, and they accidentally overheard some uh… let’s say “sounds”

That night we hit the town and the theme was “cowgirls”. We all went out dressed like cowgirls with the hats and everything and it was very fun.

The night goes on and we get pretty damn drunk. I met a guy at a bar who was a really cute and he managed to steal me off my friends for a while.

After some time talking with him and getting to know him I was pretty much glued to him for the rest of the night.

He bought me a ton of drinks and when we went outside we made out. I flirted with him a lot after that and asked him back to the hotel we were staying in.

He agreed and we went back and hooked up in my hotel room. The thing is, I was heavily intoxicated, and drunk me knows no limits.

Especially when it comes to noise levels. I’m naturally very loud in the bedroom but combine drunk me + loving it and you get a very noisy girl.

So me and this guy is getting it on and he’s hitting it good. I’m really liking it and getting into it. He’s hitting all the right spots and I’m enjoying every second. It gets hot and steamy, and after he finished, I finished.

That was that (or so I thought). He leaves early the next morning and I meet up with the girls again. They’re all giving me the eye, looking like they’re holding back laughter and I’m like “what?”.

That’s when they play the audio. They all came back drunk af together and they decided to record how loud I was being outside my door. It turns out drunk me is way louder than she thinks she’s being.

My friends all found it hilarious and were stunned that I was that loud. It must have been the main talking point for the next hour. It was all just a bit of fun though, I’m glad they enjoyed their free show.

I (34f) had lunch with male coworker (34m). Husband (35m) is furious.

Spoke to him on the phone during my quick morning break and said I’m really hungry today – the weather always makes me eat more!

Told him I might grab a sandwich at lunchtime and he suggested getting something hot from a cafe. Then spotted a male colleague at the school I work at and he asked if I fancied lunch at the cafe, another female colleague would be joining us.

I said yes – stomach was growling and I’m not one to sit in a cafe by myself anyway.

Lunchtime, female coworker changed her mind so me and male colleague popped down and ate (his wife teaches at the same school but she didn’t fancy coming as she had stuff to catch up on).

Great lunch, a good natter, happy days! Finished work, and my husband called me, asked who I had lunch with – I said someone dropped out so me and male colleague went anyway.

He had a massive strop, hung up on me, called me back to carry on having a go at me (eg. “Does his wife know you went for lunch together?!” And I said “yes? Of course she does”)

It was a quick half hour in a busy cafe with a hot chocolate and a panini – I was honest, no reason to lie, but sort of wish I had.

Have I crossed some sort of line by having a bite to eat with my colleague?? Be honest, I am happy to apologise for being in the wrong, but I just didn’t read that much into it and my husband clearly has… and now I’m wondering if he’s projecting.

Things were rocky lately anyway, and it feels like everything I do is wrong these days.

Once again, I just wanted unbiased opinions, I guess; my friends would be on my side regardless but I WANT to hear if I’m the one in the wrong here!! I had such a lovely day, not just lunch but at work in general and it just feels ruined now!

Small business owners/managers and their egos

I’m not sure if this is a common experience for freelancers but just want to rant on 2 recent experiences I had:

Service-based business, middle manager reached out to my cold call for help with his “complicated accounting system” (it’s Microsoft Excel VBA and each retail shop has its own Excel file). Work was done, but the fella kept dragging payment. Only when I gave him deadline before I file for Small Claims Court then he paid up, but not before asking for a discount.

Retail shop owner looking for help with his broken website (it’s WordPress, namoamitabha), we met up at a McDonald’s. I told him I was in an SIM tee, and he spent 5 minutes pretending not to see me despite me being the only guy with that tee in the restaurant.

Called him on mobile and he finally acknowledged the reality. First thing he asked was “oh you from SIM?”, and I explained to him I graduated from university more than a decade ago, and it was a free t-shirt. End up after discussion, he went to DIY fix his site with Wix.

No hard feelings on the meetup since no work was agreed on and it was just a preliminary discussion, but it was certainly really weird.

That said though, I have had positive work experiences with other people. Just find a certain demographic of people being really weird/egoistic with their business plans. I wonder if this is a common thing in SG?

Netizens’ comments

1. I mean go for biz meeting probably don’t wear you SIM tee would be best especially if you are no longer a student there. It’s all about image, your client probably don’t take you seriously that’s why jerk you around.
   Imagine someone show up for job interview in SAF t-shirt, similar feeling.
   Just my opinion do what you like.
2. I think it’s about creating respect and boundaries while being professional. Of course you need to be good in your work and provide a service they need.
   If you lower the customer qualification criteria just to get more jobs then eventually all you get are those customers.
   This kind of ego and behaviour happened even in MNC or with “educated” folks it’s an individual behaviour thing not a company thing. But when you qualify them then you are less likely to deal with such folks and also can produce better quality of work since the client also knows what they want.