I am an insurance agent. So many negative and hilarious posts about my job. Thought I’ll offer another perspective to some people who are considering joining.

My credentials: I am under 30, in this line for years, quarter-million annual taxable income, MDRT and all the other awards, blah blah blah….

1. Do not underestimate the privilege of having no liabilities & responsibilities.

I joined this line at 21, and only needed to take care of myself financially. This means I could afford to earn only $12k a year back then while building my career slowly and organically. Treating every day working as a learning opportunity rather than being super despo to close the sale. Those desperate to close the sale usually fail because consumers are not idiots. Then it becomes a vicious cycle, no sale = no money = more despo. Trust me, you will earn like nuts the first few years. That’s normal. Those “successful”, “young” agents that earn money “fast” are liars. There are so many dirty tricks in this industry to con the consumers. If you know you know.

2. Literally get good at money.

So many agents only call themselves “investment specialists” but can only sell their companies’ ILP. That’s bull. I know so many junior agents that do not even have a brokerage account and whatever issues the client has, ILP will always be the answer. While you are earning like peanuts, you should invest your own money and be legit good. Attend courses like CFA, CFP, ChFC, Certified Private Banking etc and APPLY the knowledge learnt. Do your own investments, talk to doctors to be aware of medical trends, be extremely familiar with all the different hospitals processes. Personally, I have certain qualifications and run my own investment holdings company, hence clients trust my advice more than some XMM in a LV bag talking about why her ILP is the best.

3. Network like f.

Consumers can buy insurance online and this trend will increase in the future. So what is the agent’s value proposition? I am the problem solver. Need some free legal advice? I can set up an informal dinner with my lawyer clients. Need a medical appt soon, I can bypass the long waiting time and set one for you within 3 days. Need to divorce your spouse? I know many private investigators and dirty tricks to increase your chances of winning. Need car mechanics and workshops? I get kickbacks from the shops and pass it to you as a form of savings. Need renovators and interior designers? I know people. Wanna get a job in IB (JP, UBS, Morgan Stanley etc), I know people, lemme set up a lunch. This network is exclusive to paying customers only, not even my extended family or friends have access to it, unless they are paying customers. The more the customers pay, the more priority you get in my network. So, it becomes a bidding war among customers and it makes good business sense.

That’s all. You can earn a lot in this career, but it is all blood sweat and tears. Young naive people also quite dumb ah, you think can just suka suka earn $100K fresh out of school, with no qualifications meh? There is always a price to pay, hope this enlightens people out there.

Maybe I shall do a confession exposing how agents appear successful? and churning practices? hahahahaha

When I was 14 I found out my dad stepped out on my mom and got another woman pregnant when I was a baby, so I have a half-sister I’d never met. My mom found out when she realized he was making child support payments, and she kicked him out for a few weeks but she eventually forgave him on the condition that he never contacts the “affair baby” (her words) and she never has to hear about or see her.

I’d grown up the youngest of the family with 4 older brothers so little 14yo me was just excited to have a) a sister and b) a younger sister at that. I begged my dad to get me in contact with her and eventually he gave me her name so I could look her up on social media. Turns out she knew already she had half-siblings, her mom was pretty open with her about the situation, and she had always been pretty curious to know us, so she was happy to be in contact with me.

I gave my mom a heads up that I was talking to my half-sister and she was obviously very unhappy about it and said she just didn’t want to know about it. My half-sister and I became really close, I didn’t tell my mom about it, it was weird but we made it work. Fast forward 6 years and both me and my half-sister were starting to think about moving out of the home. We both felt like the most obvious thing to do was get a place together, since we both needed a housemate at the same time in the same area, and we were so close, but with my mom’s issues with her, we weren’t sure.

Eventually, I just bit the bullet and asked my mom how she’d feel if I moved in with my half sister. Again she was obviously not thrilled about it but said she’d be fine with it as long as she doesn’t have to see or hear anything about my sister. I took that to mean if I wanted to spend time with my mom I’d just go visit home or we’d go out somewhere together. After we moved in, I found out my mom meant she wanted to come visit me sometimes and she wanted me to either have my sister leave or hide in her room for that time.

She’s acting like I should have known that without her telling me, and she’s upset with me that I refuse to kick my sister out of her own flat or make her hide like Harry Potter, “I’ll be in my room, making no noise, and pretending I don’t exist”. It turns out she’s also mad at me for moving in with her in the first place, apparently, I was supposed to know that when she insisted she’d be fine with it, she actually wanted me to not do it.

Here is what netizens think:

• Think your mom needs marriage counseling and therapy. She “forgave” your father but faulted his child when it wasn’t her fault. Guess she thought that by pretending the child didn’t exist, her marriage isn’t broken and her family remains whole.

• My grandmother did this and my grandfather didn’t even cheat. He was married before he met her and had kids together. When he got with my grandma, she banned him from seeing the kids or contacting them. I didn’t even know I had other aunts and uncles until he passed away. My mom’s two half brothers wanted nothing to do with him after he cut them off like that, but my mom’s half sister was devastated because before that, she was a daddy’s girl. Neither of my grandparents were good people, but I never understood how she could punish literal children for her own jealousy.

• My husband cheated on me and got a young woman, 10 years younger than our sons, pregnant. Our marriage ended despite his protests because it was not his first time to cheat. He ended up marrying the young female. We have a grandchild that was born two months after this child was born and they are the best of friends. I see her at birthday parties, I hear about her through the other grandchildren, etc

Hi, I’m looking for some advice. I’m going on my first staycation with my new boyfriend this weekend. We’ve been together for about 2 months and this is the first time we will be intimate. All throughout my life, I’ve worn highly padded bras.

I’m in between an A and B, but I’ve been doing this so long that I know how to make my boobs look like a large C or even D. I know my boyfriend likes it because he’s complimented me a couple of times. This weekend, however, I’m afraid that my boyfriend will be disappointed when our clothes finally come off. I really like this guy and don’t want to upset or lose him. What should I do?

Here are what netizens think:

• Are you going to marry this guy whom you like so much that you are willing to give your body, the one thing that is most precious to women, to him? How about the next guy and the next and then finally the one whom u are going to marry in the end? Are you going to share this past with him? How will you teach your daughters? Think deep about it.

• Just be honest. And remember that size isn’t important. If he loves you your size isn’t important. He may be worried about his size anyhow… so it will be double reveal.

• A person who really luv u wun mind ur size for goodness sake! So wat if u r A cup? I hav a gf who A cup but many suitors! I was B but aft breastfeedin B look like A so wat? Does it mean my hub goin divorce me? No rite? B proud of urself n ur size! Learn to luv urself 1st!

• He is going to find out sooner or later.

My best friend recently got a boyfriend and she keeps prioritising her boyfriend over me. I haven’t seen her in like 3 months and she rarely texts back now. Her work is busy so I can already hardly see her, but yet she always has time for her dates.

There are some activities I want to try with her but I am afraid to even ask her as I know she will take the idea and do it with her boyfriend instead (I did that and true enough, she keeps asking me for the place now so that she can go with her boyfriend).

Am I overreacting? What can I do? I feel like a second option now and it sucks.

Here are what netizens think:

• Declare your love for her.

• Wahlau the comments here are so mean leh…to poster, it’s not overreacting but it’s certainly an attachment issue that you hv to work out yourself . obviously you hold your friend in much higher esteem/importance than her regards for you. And I think it’s totally humane to feel the way you do..i mean even close siblings can feel that way too if the other sibling got partner…what you can do is talk to her about it (but also risk a few things) or just slowly disengage yourself from the attachment and find other things to occupy you/other friends to do things with..you can feel hurt but don’t drag it out and just let go. Sometimes ppl drift apart due to the most random reasons. You can still value your memories together & her importance in certain periods of your life but move on from prioritising her in your activities. Close that chapter & be happy for her. Plus value your new self without her. The only thing you can control is your emotions & responses. Don’t make yourself into someone you don’t like because of someone who doesn’t value you as much as you value them.

• She is your best friend but you may not be her best friend. And sometimes best friend is just not enough. In the end.

• You should seduce the boyfriend. That way, when they hang out, he will ask your best friend to ask you along so that he can see you. And you get to see your best friend. Win-win.

I read a post here about a 10/10 girl or something and the comments were mostly not useful or just mostly trolls.

I am in a similar situation to the OP where I want a girl who is (8-10)/10 but I am probably much lower. I also have friends (both gender) who are in similar situations.

If you are someone that believes that someone’s rating (not a good word but for discussion sake, pls let it through) should be static, then this post is not for you, move on pls.

The premise for this post is that you can improve your rating and possibly even become a 10/10 from a 0/10.

I think there are two main benefits of this thought –

Firstly, it is basically self-improvement, pretty sure it makes someone feel more confident, feel good and probably has results in a better life.

Secondly, you can get your 10/10 girl or your dream crush or whatever.

By the way, this 10/10 is not just physically attractiveness, it could mean other aspects such as personality or whatever.

I am a CS student so I think of things logically and step by step so there are here are questions:

Assuming I am starting out as a 0/10 person,

1) What are the main aspects I should work on to reach 10/10 (not limited physical attractiveness, can include others as well)?

2) How should I approach this problem?

3) What are resources that I can refer to, if any?

I hope this helps other people as well and is a positive thread.

There are quite a number of guys and girls in similar situations.

–

deleting my cousin’s wedding pictures that I wasn’t paid for?

My younger cousin’s wedding was last December and she asked me to be the photographer for the wedding (I’m a semi-professional photographer).

She told me what types of photos she wanted and I gave her a quote of just under 1k. Wedding happens, I take the pictures, I edit them, then wait for payment which we agreed I’d get in full after the wedding before sending any pictures.

However suddenly she didn’t have money and wanted to set up a payment plan to pay it off in 8 months AND still get the pictures now.

It’s not that I don’t trust her but once you start opening such doors you’ll find it hard to close them so I told her we could do the payment plan but the photos will only be released when the full amount is paid (didn’t even add interest).

She didn’t respond. February rolls in and she asks to at least see ‘samples’ to confirm that they were worth the price.

I sent 4 pictures and she says she’ll show them to her husband and get back to me. Cue silence for a week or two until I asked for an update and she responded saying she’s still discussing it with him.

I told her this was getting long and she must just start paying now and she ignored me again.

So I’d saved the photos on my roommate’s flash drive temporarily while I was waiting on an actual hard drive. June came around and he texted me while I was at work saying he needed to use it and took it from my room but saw that there were still files on it.

He couldn’t move it to his laptop because it didn’t have space (thus him needing the flash) so he was ‘asking’ if he could delete the files.

I saw fine and he deleted them. I still had about 20 of the photos saved on my phone from when I was choosing/sending the samples so I just explained the situation in a message to her and sent the existing photos free of charge.

That was last month and I’m still getting flamed for this. She’s been slandering me online and it’s quite literally created a division between our families and to the point that our mums don’t talk now.

I obviously feel bad but also feel like given the circumstances, I wasn’t really in the wrong though still acknowledge that it’s obviously very shitty for her that I would’ve wished to avoid.

My supervisor called me because I “used obscene language in shared customer notes.” She doesn’t know basic corporate acronyms

All of this was done over a teams meeting using shared screen.

She showed me a note in our company wide shared customer note system about a call I had with the customer. The note stated “transferred call, fu, see drop in for additional info.”

She said she was having trouble understanding what I was trying to say. I bounced around different parts of the message trying to clarify everything I could.

And in my mind, I kept thinking that she couldn’t mean the FU. I laughed uncomfortably and said, “I’m not sure what the issue is”

She clarified that the obscenity wasn’t acceptable, and I asked her to tell me what obscenity.

I explain that FU you meant “follow up,” and she claims that I “came up with that answer really fast,” and she was going to have to double check that.

She never brought it up again, I never signed anything, and she left the company a few months later.

Makes me start laughing every time I think about the stupidity of that entire situation.

My job was being threatened because an idiot manager didn’t understand corporate acronyms. And she made twice as much money as I did. I’m just not willing to play the stupid corporate games to advance

Netizens’ comments

1. “You came up with that answer really fast” is reminding me of “you didn’t even check” when I told someone we didn’t have any rooms available. You’re right, I didn’t check, because you’re the fifth person who’s asked me that in the last half hour, and the answer has not changed.
2. I used to have a folder on my desk labeled “FU on BS accounts”. I swore it meant “follow up on balance sheet accounts.” It didn’t. But I wouldn’t have had to follow up if the accountants didn’t FU on them in the first place.
3. Reminds me of when my awful boss years ago claimed she told me to do something via chat and got angry at me. I was so fed up I took a screenshot of our chat, printed it out and handed it to her. Her reaction was priceless.