My boss is making me feel guilty for not wanting to participate in weekend “team buildings”.

I started working in a new company a few months ago, and i really love my job.

The team i’m in is very “tight-knit”. They like to go out for drinks, they like to go on vacations together, they organize team buildings very often.

I was part of one team building 2 weeks ago, and now they are organizing a weekend (friday – sunday) trip away, however they don’t allow any families and spouses on these trips, which i understand.

Let me be clear – this isn’t a business trip – its a vacation.

Today I told my boss that i like going out with them (even tho most of the times i’m being forced to participate), but i’m not comfortable leaving my spouse for a whole weekend to go partying with my colleagues.

I told her that me and my fiance work opposite schedules – he works night shifts and basically the weekend is the only time i get to spend with him, and told her that I’m not comfortable going on the weekend, when i spend time with my colleagues 9 hours a day.

Basically she started acting rude, saying that i’m being irresponsible for my job, and that wasn’t a family trip – because of people like me we can’t be a good team. Also she said that its “unprofessional” to not be able to “live without my spouse” for a weekend.

Honestly i felt really hurt by those words because i love my job and put all effort to do it the best I can. But I also love my family and love to spend time them in my free..

I love my job but honestly that attitude is making me sick.

Getting an interview after months of looking. Of course its fast food. I’m 55 years old. But I need an income!

I haven’t worked since 2020, because of lockdowns and a sick relative I had to take care of. Been applying for many career oriented jobs, but threw in some fast food/retail applications because I am desperate.

I’ve done fast food before. pay sucks and you are overworked….My Bachelor of Science is useless as I haven’t used in 20 years. I’ve applied for those jobs anyways and the crickets chirp loud lol.

Maybe the experience will be a stepping stone to show I can still work. I really hope I don’t get trapped and end up there until I am 90.

Just venting, it’s an income and I will be able to pay bills if I get it. I was really hoping for receptionist or similar….wishful thinking

any other older folk have thoughts?

Netizens’ comments

1. Honest work is honest work.
2. If you get the job Continue applying to other jobs. You are way more likely to get an interview somewhere better if you are already employed, even if it’s fast food. Maybe especially if it is. My dad called it “job hunting from a position of strength”
   You got this! Nothing wrong with fast food either. A friend of mine has a retirement account because he was a general manager at a fast food chain for some years.
3. I had to quit my job of 22 years right before covid due to an injury when I was 44. I took a warehouse job for lower pay and quickly absorbed 4 peoples’ jobs when they laid off people. I was recently wooed back to my old job for a lot more money and no physical. Our old experience is needed.
4. Sadly a degree that long ago is near redundant, and it’s the experience the degree afforded to give in the relevant field that’ll now count. I did one in the 90’s, in career change now, and I’m just about to finish another Bch of Sc. and landed a good graduate job next year, I’m in my early 50’s. I don’t even mention the old degree in resumes and interviews. But I hope I’m wrong in your case and you can still leverage it. Sometimes they can work against you if your seeking entry level jobs…just a thought.

My bf [30M] wants me [25F] to stop wearing makeup, getting my nails done, and straightening my hair. Is he trying to control me?

My boyfriend recently told me he does not like when I wear makeup, get my nails done, straighten my curly hair, and wear perfume.

He said when I do so I am a fake person, I am disrespecting him and he constantly says I look and smell like a prostitute.

Mind you he knew before he started dating me that I like to do those things listed. I rarely get my nails done and I only straighten my hair when I am getting a haircut because my hair is easier to maintain.

I wear makeup to work but it is not heavy. I only do my eyelashes, eyebrows, and some blush. I love my perfume and I love smelling good I don’t see an issue with it.

I’ve told him multiple times that it is very disrespectful to tell me I smell like a whore and his rebuttal is that is what prostitutes smell like.

I told him I feel like he is trying to change me, control me and disrespect me. He claims he is not.

Netizens’ comments

1. Hol up…..disrespecting him with choices you make about your own body? Leave this one alone
2. Im a social worker who has spent a portion of my career working with domestic violence victims. While I can definitely say that this will escalate, this behaviour from a partner is often the early stages of domestic violence when they begin to establish control in a relationship. It is often followed by isolating the person from friends and family, heightened verbal and emotional control and ultimately physical violence.
3. When my sister got her first boyfriend. First he told her he didn’t want her to wear blue eyeshadow, it made her look cheap. So she stopped wearing blue eyeshadow. Then he didn’t want her to wear any eyeshadow or mascara. She stopped. Then it was all make up. She stopped.
   The thing is, if he’d told her he didn’t want her to wear makeup, she would have been like you’re ridiculous no. But he got her to do it bc the “requests” were small ones.
   They’ve been married for 40 years. He’s never worked. She hands over her entire paycheck and he spends it as he sees fit. She does not have her drivers license and sometimes she’ll wait for hours after work for him to pick her up bc he’s at the bar drinking.

Are adult relationships in Singapore destined to be more unromantic?

Had another date with a woman I met through online dating. Felt like I just went through another job interview. I was asked about my job, salary, whether I am dating to marry and BTO, while I asked about hobbies, passions, interests, etc.

I am 35M and date around my age if it matters. This is the fourth date I’ve had with a woman in a row who has no chill.

I miss the good old uni days where I would just laze around in my ex-gf’s room and do nothing all day. Or study in a library before catching a movie with friends. Or sneak out in the middle of the night to do some intense physical activities which shall remain unnamed.

Is it an unreasonable ask to find someone with some chill? Has work and adult life killed romance? Is the BTO-marriage rush really that big of a factor?

I rent a room in a HDB flat way out west for 750/month. I don’t see the rush. Why so kancheong?

Edit: I guess I didn’t make it clear in my post, but I am looking for a serious, monogamous long-term relationship with someone special. I state so in my dating profile.

I have no problems with the questions themselves, but do you really have to ask them on the first date?

Netizens’ comments

1. I personally think it’s to ensure both of you are on the same page. the older you get, the less time you can afford to waste with a potential relationship that may or may not be worth investing into. I might be wrong but that’s my understanding~
2. Most people at that age are looking to settle down on a certain timeline and don’t have the time to mess around anymore. No point finding out you share the same hobbies or interests if you’re gonna end up parting ways afterwards due to a fundamental incompatibility in life goals and future plans.
3. In Sg probably. I feel like relationships sometimes are approached here more as a business partnership than a romantic relationship. Just part of the standard package of The Singaporean Dream

Handed my two weeks and boss said effective immediately

I was working in this restaurant for 7 months and I was the only employee that stayed there for so long, because they kept hiring and firing people.

One of the chef who is also the owner, was being really toxic , calling people names, demeaning them, not letting them even complete their sentence. so I decided to leave.

I thought of letting them know in advance because I thought I have been working here since long so I should . But oh well, I felt really bad when he said no need to come from now onwards.

On top of that he wrote in email to other employees that I won’t be allowed to return to work because of my performance. Restaurant owners are really mean.

Netizens’ comments

1. That’s a plus, not a minus. You were being nice to even give a notice in the first place.
2. That means you were fired. Make sure you got proof of termination. IF they refuse that means you still offically work there until your specified date.
3. This happened to me at a corporate job too. You are disposable, no matter the company. Treat them the same.
4. I once turned around a company in three years (doubling revenue each year). I worked my ass off for 70 hour weeks to make it all work. The owners who insisted on micromanaging it as it grew were too lazy to keep up, making the office fall behind on project reporting and invoicing, and started treating me and everyone who reported to me like shit. At the same time I was feeling like they were looking for a reason to fire me and replace me with someone their shithead kids had gone to high school with.
   They mandated everyone put a “time sheet” app on their personal phones, that also tracked location. They said was the tracker was turned off when the employee logged off at the end of the day. I checked the admin settings, and they had been set to track 24/7 no matter what. I told everyone that worked directly for me. They said no to the app. The owners then made it a mandate to download and use that app or you would be fired.
   That was on a Friday morning. That Friday afternoon I interviewed with another company that had an opening and would pay more. The next Monday I took my chances on getting that job and turned in my resignation, effective immediately.
5. I work with restaurant owners on a daily basis in my job, and they are some of the meanest, dumbest, and most toxic people I have ever had the displeasure of speaking to. The entitlement is unreal, and the amount of tax fraud these people try to commit is mind blowing.