I was an engineering student at a university in Singapore, and I just had a conversation with a few of my friends that left me feeling a little frustrated.

I had been studying hard for my degree for the past few years, and I was proud of the fact that I was able to make a decent living by working part-time in the IT industry. I was able to make around $4,000 a month, and I was satisfied with that.

My friends, however, were not so satisfied.

They were all working as Grab drivers and making around $8,000 a month. They would often talk about how much money they were making and how easy it was for them to make it. It was a little disheartening to hear them talk about how much money they were making.

I couldn’t help but think to myself, why did I spend all this time at university to make half of what my friends were making?

Sure, I had a degree and I could take on higher-paying jobs in the future, but at the moment, I was making much less than my friends. I was starting to feel like my decision to go to university wasn’t worth it.

I didn’t want to feel this way, so I decided to look at the situation from a different perspective. Sure, my friends were making more money than me, but they weren’t doing anything that was particularly meaningful. They were driving around town all day and picking up fares. There was nothing challenging or rewarding about that.

On the other hand, I was using my degree to do something meaningful. I was applying the knowledge I had acquired to solve real-world problems and make the world a better place. Sure, I might not be making as much money as my friends, but at least I was doing something that had a real and lasting impact.

I realized that university was worth it.

Sure, I might not be making as much money as my friends, but I was doing something that was meaningful.

But this trail of thought was disrupted after I had a gf

She started to say that my salary was a mere $3.2k after CPF and I cannot afford a car nor fancy holidays.

Should I start part-time Grab?

I spent 4000 dollars on food deliveries.

So I was 16 and I just started my first job and I didn’t know what to spend money on, so I ended spending 4000 dollars on food deliveries..

I just feel so f-ed up as I could’ve saved that money instead of being a fat fk

4000 f-g dollars, 1 year later and I’ve finally saved up the amount I spent last year, if I wasn’t like this I would have 8000 right now.

I just wanted to let this out cus I feel so guilty, food delivery is going to kill people I swear, it’s just way too easy.

I’m 11 months free from ordering food deliveries. It felt like coming off an addiction kinda

Netizens’ comments

1. That’s a part of being young and dumb sometimes. I’ve probably spent thousands over the years on dumb sht that I’ve regretted. I chalk it up to being an “idiot tax” and try to learn and move on. Better being a couple thousand now than $100k later in life! You’ll survive, you might just not like it for a little bit, there are worse things in life.
2. This is a great time to make mistakes that won’t have long term effects. You made an error, but more importantly you learned from it. You lost $4000 now, but being more cautious going forward might save you much more than $4000 since you know how much of a moneypit it is.
   If it makes you feel better, I just spent 95k on a machine I’m not even sure I can use anymore after only having it for about a month
3. I once spent $25k on an online gaming account that I played with for only half a year.
4. I’m disabled and sometimes food delivery is the only way i can access a meal. Just to give another perspective on this. The service isnt inherently evil.

I am deliberately pretending to be a little dumb and slow at work – sadly it is the best approach

I had half a dozen jobs in the last 20 years. I tried being smart and energetic, I tried to stand my ground, I tried to be calm, agressive, passive, active. None of these things seemed to work.

Right now I tried the a little slow and dump approach – and for the first time it seems to work.

I deliberately make some small mistakes that are easily corrected and do my work a little slower than average – the boss is sometimes annoyed – but thats it.

I suspect because with this approach I am not on the ”threat” radar? Competent and smart people are a threat to the position of someone.

But the little dumb and slow guy is not a threat to anyone so they leave me more or less alone. Anyone else has experienced this phenomenon?

Netizens comments

1. Yes they don’t want you to suggest something that makes you look more competent because many managers are extremely insecure
2. I will literally complete all my tasks in one go and instead of submitting them, I’ll take my time and show bits and pieces of the progress throughout the week so it looks like the job is eating up all my time and effort. Makes me look like a constantly busy and hardworking employee without actually having to be one
3. I just started doing this same exact thing! I just left a good job because I moved to a different state. At that job, I was well respected, had a lot of experience, and was constantly pushed into management. I was an over achiever. Now at my new job, I decided not do that. Now I’m the slow dumb one and it’s a breeze.
4. I have autism so my personality so it takes me longer to do things. People expect less of me because of my awkward social skills. I get lots of job interviews and I have the education and experience, but rarely land a decent job.
   I can and probably should work harder so I can get a better job. But I don’t like having all the extra responsibilities that come with higher level work and the increased chance of getting fired.
5. people will not think you are any risk, they will empathize with someone they think is no risk of replacing them. now they will even try to help you out, out of pity.

Wife gave me permission to have a FWB

My wife is handicapped and has no interest or ability to get intimate with me anymore. She has told me on several occasions that I am free to find a FWB.

She has even gone so far as to tell friends and family that I have this permission.

There is a cashier at my mini market who I am interested in, but I don’t know how to strike up a friendship to the point that I could tell her of my interest.

She knows I exist and have some things in common with her. Advice please.

Netizens’ comments

1. Do not ask a cashier if she wants to be your extramarital FWB 🤦🏾‍♂️. Go use a dating app
2. I would take the advice on using a dating app and creating a profile that is very explicit and clear about the type of arrangement you are looking for.
   Also do some research and reading on ethical non-monogamy. Your wife has agreed to you having a FWB situation, not a outside romantic relationship. If you don’t actively work on keeping that in check, and end up in a situation where you develop a romantic attachment to someone you will run the risk of emotionally destroying your wife.
3. I would hope you respect your wifes decision for your needs and don’t disrespect her by choosing someone she has to interact with. To me that would be plain mean.
4. All the comments here about your wife’s incredible generosity here must be noted first and foremost. She is clearly an angel.
5. Your wife is so considerate & loving, first of all, that is so understanding & incredible of her. Don’t sleep with someone you both will encounter regularly, or at all, for that matter. 
6. Omg the cashier is only nice to you because she’s paid to be. Also I assume your wife may has to interact with her at some point.

My dad owed a few banks a large sum of money. What can my family do?

Recently my father finally come cleaned that he owes a few banks (Citi, DBS and Standard Chartered) loans amounting of up to 400k.

It really came as a shock to us as he has been loaning from them since a few years back.

Worse still, he recently got retrenched and is currently unemployed. Due to his unemployment, he’s unable to pay his debts and therefore decided to ask my mum for money to pay his interest.

I’m currently at a lost of what to do especially that I’m still in university. Are there solutions where it is possible to reduce loan interest rates as currently its at about 20%.

My mom informed me that she heard of certain organisations that can negotiate with banks for lower interest rates. I really want him to declare bankruptcy as well but he is reluctant as it will affect his job search.

Netizens’ comments

1. You can’t help him if he does not want to declare bankrupt. The reality is that he is bankrupt. Deny reality does no one any good. You can take care of yourself by taking cpf/bank loan for uni, work part time for your own expenses. Shouldn’t be too hard.
2. 100% declare bankruptcy. Sorry, it will be a tough decision, but frankly, you can still find employment in most sectors (maybe except govt or financial services) despite being a bankrupt.
3. My ex bf family was in similar situation where during an economy downturn many years back, they could not repay their debts. The father declare bankruptcy. After that, things seemed to have settled and they are doing very well now.
4. Check in with CCS (Credit Counselling Singapore hor, not Chan Chun Sing) and see what they advice. My bro and SIL also had issues with their debts and managed to get help from them with the repayment plan. Think they managed to get the interest lowered or stopped accumulating.
5. Do not let your mum pay the interest only. Talk to the banks first and secure lower interest rates or better yet, seek to restructure the debt first before paying down some portion of principal.
   Someone else here said to find out where the borrowed money went. Yes, pls do. If he comes clean about the loan, he also needs to come clean about where it went. That may be a more complete picture for your mum to decide if she should help too.

Hired on to a fully remote team, and now, 3 years later they want me in the office or I’ll “resign”

I work for a large company. Like many of the others, they’ve started the “return to office,” drums some months back. My classification was “virtual,” as I was hired onto a team that was always virtual, regardless of the pandemic.

When they started the RTO (return to office) talk they targeted people/teams that had previously been in the office but went remote due to the pandemic. But we all suspected they’d come for everyone.

Sure enough this week they started having conversations with people designated as “virtual” about coming into the office.

I took this job because it was virtual, which allowed me to find a more relaxing balance in life. I can take my dogs out multiple times a day, each lunch outside with them, and not deal with traffic as I had been in the past decade.

In any case, I was told that unless they approve an exception (which is rare) I have essentially 90 days before they’d take that as a voluntary resignation.

I was candid and said that I didn’t plan to resign, but I’d consider it constructive dismissal, or work until they fired me. That is, unless, they were going to offer something for the resignation.

That shitty thing is that I took this job at lower pay due to some stock incentives that still have one more year to fully vest.

Anyways, just another good reminder that especially for these large companies you’re just a number. I’m happy I learned this years back and have been able to maximize my enjoyment and life balance during these last 3 years.

EDITs to Clarify

This job and team was remote years before the pandemic. This was not a covid-related shift. If this was simply a “they let me WFH for a while and now I have to go back,” situation I wouldn’t have made this post.

I would understand some people’s heartache, but I wouldn’t have had an expectation that being virtual was forever. This was a virtual role from day one.