I recently received a raise at work, and I want to share my experience.

I had been working at my company for a few years, and I had been making the same salary for a while. I was content with how much I was making, but I wasn’t really sure how much I was worth.

One day, my boss called me into his office to tell me that he had decided to give me a raise. He explained that he had been very impressed with my performance at work and wanted to reward me for it. I was elated, as I hadn’t expected it at all. He said that my salary was going to increase from $5K to $10K and I will be working as a senior manager.

I was so excited and couldn’t believe it. I thought that I was going to be able to afford so many things that I had been wanting to buy for a while. I was also excited to be able to save more money, as I had been struggling to save anything with my previous salary.

However, when I received my first paycheck with the new salary, something unexpected happened. I realized that, despite making double the amount of money I was making before, I wasn’t any happier.

Don’t get me wrong, I was still elated with the news, but I didn’t feel the same level of happiness that I had expected.

It was like my mind had adapted to the idea of making $5K, and when I suddenly started making $10K, it didn’t seem that much of a difference. I was still living my life the same way, and I didn’t feel any richer or happier than I had before.

It’s not that I was disappointed with the raise, but I had expected that it would make a bigger impact on my life. I thought that I would be able to buy nicer things and save more money, but that wasn’t the case. I was still living the same way, and I didn’t feel any different.

I think the lesson here is that money doesn’t always bring happiness. Sure, it’s nice to make a bit more money, but if it doesn’t change your life in any significant way, then it doesn’t really matter. My happiness doesn’t come from the amount of money I make, but from the things that I do and the people I share my life with.

In the end, I’m glad that I received the raise and I’m thankful for the recognition, but I also learned a valuable lesson: money doesn’t always bring happiness.

Three years ago, my [36F] mom [69F] was diagnosed with kidney failure, most likely due to high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes which was poorly controlled for years because she doesn’t like doctors and didn’t want to be a “pill-popper.”

She was told she had to go on dialysis three days a week while she was put on the kidney transplant waiting list, which takes years to find a match on average.

She was firm that she did not want to be on dialysis, and told me to give her one of my kidneys. She said she had raised me and provided for me all these years, put me through school etc., now she needed this from me.

Filial piety is very important to our culture (we are Chinese). I was taken aback by this, but after thinking about it, I also thought it was the right thing to do based on my own values.

I love my mom, I care about helping people, I was already signed up to be a deceased organ donor, plenty of people live with only one kidney so if I can give a kidney to save someone else’s life then I should, especially if it is a loved one, etc.

They make being a kidney donor sound very good in theory–people with only one kidney can live just as long as people with two, and if you ever need a kidney you get priority on the transplant list.

What they leave out is you have to basically turn your life upside down after because you now only have half the reserve.

I had been completely healthy before but only a year after the surgery they found that my remaining kidney couldn’t handle doing the work of two and was now also in the early stages of failing.

I had built my life around food, I was working my dream job as a chef and ran a food-travel blog as my main hobby. However to protect my remaining kidney I basically had to cut out meat, fat and sugar from my diet, and limit salt to just 1 gram a day which meant I had to quit my dream job as a huge part of it was tasting the food I was serving.

I don’t have any other skills so the only job I was able to get was as a secretary. Almost all of the food I can still eat is very bland and when I do travel I often have to bring my own food or survive on salads.

Meanwhile, only about two years after transplant, the kidney I gave to my mom also failed. She would often not be taking the immunosuppressants for after the transplant because she could not tolerate the side effects.

it’s possible her hypertension or diabetes were still not optimally controlled, and she also did not make any of the dietary changes. She is now back on dialysis and the waiting list.

I’ll probably get flak for this but looking back I cannot help but think it was not worth it. I bought my mom maybe two extra years at the cost of thirty years of my life or more that would have been free from worries about chronic health problems.

I also lost my career, my main hobby, and my husband and I had been thinking about starting a family but my doctor told me it would not be advisable for me to have children.

I was previously healthy but am now on several medications to try to stretch my remaining kidney as far as possible before I have to go on dialysis. And even if I do get a kidney transplant, I will have to take strong immunosuppressants with significant side effects for the rest of my life.

My mom lived a full life, almost 70 years, and to try to buy her a few more years I feel like I cut mine in half

I (34M) was left to pay the dinner bill for gf (29F) and 6 of her other girl friends

So this happened many months ago when my gf and I were only officially dating for 2-3 weeks at the time. We had been talking for 4 months leading up to officially dating.

My gf told me we were going to her friend’s bday dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and she told me to bring cash to split the check with other guys at the table. It’s the banquet family style dinner where typically 10 people sit at a table and 7-8 courses come out. The birthday girl had about 50 guests, so 5 tables in total.

Keep in mind, this is the first time I have been to a bday dinner like this. When we arrived, the table we were assigned to was me, my gf, and 6 other girls. No other guys at the table. Where the other tables had plenty of guys mixed around.

So the way these dinners apparently go, each table gets a bill for the food served at their table, and the guys sitting at the table will split it with other guys at that table. If it’s a table with only girls, the girls split the bill amongst themselves.

However, being the only guy at my table, I was left with a $700 bill after tip. The waiters basically walked the bill up to me with their emv device and shoved it in my face. My gf was next to me and didn’t say anything, she just watched me pay. Then her gf’s thanked me and that was it.

I felt taken advantage tbh. Had I invited people out, I would have gladly paid the bill. I told my gf days after my displeasure seeing that we had only been dating for a few weeks. She told me that it’s sucks, but that’s just how these types of banquet dinners work. And that in the future if there’s another dinner and I’m not there, someone else’s bf will be paying for her. But I don’t really see paying it forward is a valid excuse.

Honestly, I felt like it’s a scam her and her friends have so girls never have to pay for these bday dinners trying to get nice guys to pay.

I am fortunate enough where the cost of the dinner is by no means a financial issue, but I work hard for my money. I felt like a gun was put to my head and I had to pay. I would look cheap and embarrass my gf if I didn’t pay for them. Which my gf even admitted she would have felt had I not paid.

I thought about so many different scenarios that would have been appropriate with the position I was put in. Should her gf’s have offered to pay? Should my gf have paid and split it with her gf’s? Should I only have paid for me and my gf that night?

Friend tricked me and set me up with a guy. I wasn’t even looking for a relationship. Now the guy wouldn’t stop bothering me.

For context, I met my friend for lunch, before our food arrived, she said a guy friend of hers was in the area and asked if he could join us for lunch. I agreed since it would be mean of me to let him eat alone, knowing we are nearby.

I know him briefly but just as an acquaintance. So the 3 of us managed to keep the conversation going for a short while till my friend said she had an emergency and left me alone with the guy.

I tried to be polite and stayed till we finished our meal. That is when the guy confessed our friend set us up. He said he had good feelings about me and wanted to get to know me.

That was when all my politeness went out the window. Firstly I was upset to be lied to. Why can’t he just be upfront instead of tricking me to show up at a restaurant? I was also upset with my friend for being involved in this trickery too.

I declined meeting him again but he insisted I give him a chance and continued to contact me. How many times do I have to say no? Now my friend apologised to me after knowing he was so persistent and creepy.

His looks is barely average. I don’t care if he’s loaded. That’s a hard no from the creepy vibes he’s emitting. I’ve since blocked him. I can sense him wanting to bed me from the way he looks at me and it’s a huge turn off.

Guys, have some dignity. When a girl says no. It’s a NO!. Stop trying to hard sell yourself. If you’re so confident of yourself, don’t use tricks to get a date!

Netizens’ comments

1. Why are you bashing another person’s looks, have you looked at yourself in the mirror first?
2. My friend knows you. He said you’re not chio that’s why your friend set you up.
3. “His looks is barely average” Are you actually Scarlett Johansson.
4. These are the types of girls who complain there are no good guys left on earth but constantly reject every one who expresses interest in them.
5. “His looks is barely average”…bet if he looks like Jackson Wang she would had hump at him at the very 1st moment
6. we lie to ourselves 99% of the time, when we say “it’s not about the looks , but what’s inside”

This feels weird to type out. My (25m) wife (24f) is going on holiday with another guy. I feel like there’s a 0% chance she’s cheating on me.

I don’t think she would ever do that but I just hate the way it’s making me feel. We’ve been married for a few years now.

Basically, my wife has a new male coworker that she has really enjoyed lately. That’s great, I’m all for new friends regardless of their gender.

We haven’t really had a relationship with insecurity about friendships of another gender. I have friends that are girls, she has friends that are guys. It’s basically always worked for us.

Anyway, my wife and this guy have become closer over the past few months that they’ve worked together. They send each other memes all the time. It feels like half the time I’m talking to her that she’s really just reacting to these messages.

They’ve also hung out a lot after work. Going to get drinks and stuff often late into the night. I typically don’t receive an invite. My wife just goes.

She doesn’t do so secretly, she texts me letting me know her plans but it’s a little frustrating that she just goes out without inviting me and often last minute. Especially knowing that we haven’t spent much quality time together in a few weeks.

More recently, my wife and this guy have recently been talking about this cool hike that they want to go on. The only problem is that it would be an overnight trip that they go on, just the two of them.

I am bothered by this. I know you can travel with platonic friendships but I can’t help but feel bothered. I really don’t believe she would cheat on me.

I just feel like I’ve been moved to second place by my wife as she goes off and has fun with someone she enjoys more.

Meanwhile, I’m just the guy that does chores, comforts, and supports. It slso doesn’t help that I’ve only interacted with this guy a few times and usually for not very long. So I don’t really know him that well.

How do I handle this situation? I want to be honest and communicate how I’m feeling but I don’t want to come off as insecure by telling my wife what she can and can’t do.

I also know that she is looking forward to this trip and I don’t want to take that away from her. I feel like I’d be selfish to do so in this situation. If I should just let them go, what do I do with what I’m feeling?

Had this friend years back. She was my primary school friend. We met again in JC and in uni; and hang out.

Whenever we share a meal together, she’s always eating more than her share. When payment comes, I always have to pay first then she return half.

Once, she went to Japan for work. I sent her off, even bought her a scarf, gloves, toothpaste and toothbrush because she forgot all of these.

When she came back, she didn’t bother to buy any souvenir or snacks for me, but she would tell me how much she bought for all her colleagues in the Japanese company based in Singapore.

She even said there were many leftovers for her colleagues. Those were just small things like biscuits. But I was even worth a biscuit. Not even a thank you or whatever. I let it go but didn’t mention anything.

Then when she got a bf, she didn’t bother to meet up or pretend to contact. A few years later, she invited me to her wedding and I just ignored her.

She expected me to go to her wedding and pay for an ang bao? Til today she doesn’t understand why I ignored her.

Know how to take advantage of people and pretend. This kind of friend, I don’t need.

Netizens’ comments

1. You are just a friend of convenience. She will remember you when she needs something. Drop this type of user and if you insist on helping her in future, do not expect any appreciation.
2. Go for the wedding and place a $10 ang bao in there. You’ll have your past contributions balanced out
3. Well there are two types of friends in SG. Friends of convenience is the primary type sadly. a Friend to be taken advantage for because of acquaintance. But there are those of the 2nd type. they come to you when you are in need or been with you in heart even without contact. As we get older, we need to differentiate both for our sanity.
4. You should go to the wedding with a $2 Ang Bao to make up for your losses over the years

Left a job after 10 years

So about 4 weeks ago now I left a job I had been doing for 10 years. I liked the job, and I was very good at it. Over ten years I had become an unofficial supervisor.

When something went wrong mgmt would call me in to take care of the issue. It was no skin off my back I liked what I did and it was not a burden.

For many years I worked training new employees on how to do the same job as well. At that time I was told repeatedly by my mgmt that I was one of the best performing employees at what I did.

In ten years I had never gotten anything less than excellent in a yearly performance review.

A supervisory position opened up and I submitted my application for it. I did not get the promotion but someone who had been at the company longer than I had did so I had no complaints about how it turned out.

Several months later another supervisor position opened up and I applied for that. After all of the years working at being the best at what I did that I could be, all of the excellent performance reviews, after training more then 100 employees I was not even given an interview for the position.

The person that got the job had been doing the same work I had for three years and was a person that I trained on how to do the work.

He was a great guy but he was now my supervisor, he now made more money than me, he had less experience, he knew less about the ins and outs of the position. to top that off a friend told me about a conversation that a person in mgmt had with them and had told them that I would not be promoted or considered for promotion.

I was pretty teed off that a manager would have that conversation with anyone other than me considering it was about my role as an employee.

I quit with no notice and start my new job next week making more money for less work. the benefits are better, as an added bonus my transportation costs fall to zero and I get a 3000 dollar hiring bonus on top of it all.

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO QUIT if you are being mistreated, you never know what may happen you can only be afraid of what is right in front of you.

unpopular opinion here. as a girl, i think it is not necessary to a guy to pay for first date.

a first date can be at hawker centre. tbh, hawker centre and coffeeshop food represent good value for money. i dont think it is necessary to have a car too.

in fact no car equal no liabilities. public transport works great. wedding can be small scale. tbh nobody cares after the wedding.

that being said, a 12k monthly salary for a guy is a deal breaker, as this is min salary to enable the guy to get a 75% bank loan for a typical 900sqft condo at $2000 psf.

Netizens’ comments

1. While you are choosing people, people are also choosing you at the same time….
2. If he already can get loan all by himself, need you for what?
3. Apart from their private parts, what do women provide in a relationship?
4. Can eat cheap food and no car but need expensive house HAHAHAHA
5. Like a guy saying its normal for a him to do all the housework by himself without the woman doing anything. But also a deal breaker if she paid for the condo and hired a maid
6. Lol ask my ex-girlfriend her thoughts on us going dutch on our first date at a chicken rice stall
7. The question is not about what you want, the question is about what you can get. If all else is equal, and a man with options has to weigh between you and another woman. And you have the upfront difficult KPI to meet, you can be assured you will be placed lower on his priority list of commitment.
8. 12k means each of you earn 6k can liao. Most importantly partnership & common goals, babe. If partnership fails, he earn 12k also won’t fork out a single cent
9. You continue dreaming ok?

As a working adult who has been in the office world for about 4 years since graduation, I think I finally understand why I am so down with my current life and miss my army and uni days so much. Just one word, bros.

These years in the corporate world, the toughest thing has not perhaps been the work, or adjusting to working life vis-a-vis student life. It is no longer having “bros” around with you all the time anymore.

The same kind of camaraderie of army or uni days is impossible to form at the workplace, ppl have their own agendas and focused on climbing the ladder and all the related office politics, or they don’t want to mix work with personal, or they just see work as work and colleagues are not friends (fair point).

I know my bros are still there, but the truth is that friendships mostly don’t end in dramatic “you betrayed me” fashion.

It’s ppl drifting apart, slowly, the harsh reality of priorities setting in. Want to meet ppl is no longer a spontaneous “eh tonight supper/eh tonight drink aimai” thing, it’s like setting up a work meeting, eh does Friday work for you, what about Sunday afternoon, etc.

Hanging out together as a gang no longer happens, usually it is a smaller meet up, at most a yearly thing. Instead of creating new memories together, all these meetups tend to end up being mere reminiscing of the past.

Ppl will say, this is life, this is the next phase. You lose friends. I don’t disagree at all. But if the only options ahead of me for the rest of my life are (a) being married and spending the rest of my life with 1 woman and possibly pop out a kid or two, or (b) remain single for the rest of my life, all the while with a boring office job. then I cannot help but feel sad because the best days of my life and well and truly behind me.

I’m somewhat envious of the foreign workers who live together in dormitories. Communal living. Yes I know, it’s hard as shit work, but they live together, eat together, sleep together, drink together. Shouting together. Doing crazy shit together. I miss that.

Maybe I shd get a more exciting career. Most important is a job that allows me to stay in, something ppl usually hate in army but I realise, is so good.

I fell in love with a married colleague, but I have a gf.

To be clear, I didn’t know she was married at first. We are from the same department but don’t have any mutual projects or friends, so we never got to interact before.

Last month, we went on a company retreat and happened to be in the same grouping. She seemed very smart and cheerful to me, and I found her attractive. At first I thought it was a silly crush that would pass, so I didn’t think much about it.

At night there would be drinking parties in the hotel, so on the last night we were in the same room with a bunch of other people. Somehow we ended up chatting at the balcony about life, and I felt the spark very strongly.

We didn’t do anything but I felt this strong urge to kiss her, and I felt bad for thinking that way because I have a gf. I had to force myself to physically get away from her because I was afraid of doing something I will regret.

It’s been a month since then, and I only found out she’s married after stalking her social media. I know its bad for me to feel this way about her, but I really can’t help myself. I tried to avoid her in the office but I also cant see anyone but her.

I know this is completely unfair to my gf, but ever since the retreat I don’t have much feelings for my gf anymore.

Netizens’ comments

1. Dont break people’s marriage
2. Rule #1 of being in a relationship is to keep a distance from the opposite gender even though she’s a co worker. Just talk about work.
   If you can’t even follow this simple rule, please don’t be in a relationship.
3. It’s probably just an infatuation cuz of novelty. U better think things through carefully.. is it really love or just lust… Don’t spoil your relationship because of this. However if you really don’t feel anything then just let your gf go. Even if u don’t cheat with this colleague u might cheat with another one.
4. Your gf is better off single than to be stuck with a guy who has no feelings for her anymore.
   However, love is a decision and commitment, not merely a feeling. Therefore, you can also take the time while you’re single to learn how to be focused on just one.