Why do financial advisers try so hard to be the “ideal” person?

Minus the “I’m here not to sell you anything but I’m here to share with you” and when you reject their approach they kept pushing you to set up appointments, one thing I don’t get is the over-glorification of their efforts.

The sob stories they post on Instagram once they achieve “Top Rookie” or “MDRT”, the endless motivation quotes to tell them to keep going when times get tough, expressing their love and admiration to their mentors etc.

Telling everyone else that their job is the most meaningful cause they’re helping others. Like is it’s a whole shit fest.

I don’t see other professions acting the same way they do? Like we do have our fair share of problems at work but we never post it online.

Professions who truly help others like social workers, nurses, paramedics and many others do it on a daily basis but they don’t flaunt it on social end.

Why they like that ah?

Netizens’ comments

1. I know of 1 insurance agent, actually removing her IG that contains the photo of her husband and tries to act like she’s single to be appealing.
2. The whole industry is based on deception and false confidence in something which is fundamentally uncertain. What do you expect?
3. If you got trouble hitting quota you want your Director to throw you some good bones? Or you want them to throw you challenging leads? Of course must be grateful la. Or appear so

The most successful agents I know, including mine, are no nonsense, get to the point and do the work properly and fast

He knows I only buy protection policies. He nv pushes any ILP to me because he knows I won’t buy. Rather than spend 3 hours convincing me, he spent 15 minutes to get the paperwork done and move on the his next client

I refer people to him because he no nonsense no pushy. Do some of them buy ILPs? Yes and I say they need it because they spendthrift and dunno how to invest. Better to lock up their money in an ILP then

He also service some high net worth contacts of mine. Again no nonsense. Sell them what they need. Their protection policies are crazy. And they have exotic insurance for exotic stuff they own

He spams me info on new policies. I choose to read or just ignore. But if I see something I want, I reach out to him and we just transact. Another 15 minute deal

Anyway I digressed. Most agents don’t think for themselves. They listen to their top. They think what the top did to get there is correct. So they just blindly do. But they don’t realised it’s them burning their network. The top gets a cut but at no cost

Male 28 here. This happened at lvl2 West Gate toilet. Something very uncomfortable just happened to me.

I went into the toilet to one of the urinals. This one guy made eye contact. I thought he was adjusting himself as he was touching his crotch during the eye contact.

So I casually walked to a urinal and he joined the urinal right beside me.

As I was doing my business, I could see from the corner of my eye that he was jerking off and looking my way. I quickly finished up and walked out of the toilet fast.

He also walked out and tried to follow. I quickly asked my girlfriend to walk fast w me to cut him off from tailing. It was very terrifying.

Seeking some advice on what the best course action could be. Any legal advice and ways to retaliate if the dude was mentally unstable?

Edit: changed level

Update: got a call from police for some clarifications. They said they’ll take note of it. Please do file a police report too if you faced something similar.

Take note of the time, place (mall floor/unit number), how the person looks like (clothing, facial features, skin, height, age).

See if there are any CCTVs around. Would not want this kind of thing happening to a younger group of kids.

Netizens’ comments

Ehhh maybe we saw the same guy at different time, I was there 10mins ago. Westgate. I was walking to the urinal and saw one guy walked out of the toilet, then he somehow walked in with me and stood at the urinal beside me when all the other urinals were empty.

I was a bit sus of him so I side eyed him and saw him stroking his D, not sure what should I feel but I finished my business and went to the basin, saw him turning his head looking at me in the mirror.

I guess at least I look attractive to some people of the same gender? If I think of this event positively.

I don’t even know whether I’m in the right or wrong….. Gf and I are in a 5Y RS.

Basically what went down was, my girlfriend had a bad day so I surprised her with Mac delivery and she was dumbfounded by why I only ordered for her, and in her opinion I should have ordered for her family as well.

Her argument was that if she was the one ordering for me, my family can’t be watching me eating only (but what’s wrong with that???) she goes on to comment that why do i do such things, the things I do are weird and we have diff mindset.

Anyway my POV is that I’ve never met her family before and ordering for them just didn’t cross my mind, all I knew in my head was: gf feels down > order food to make her feel better

Never thought that I’ll have to deal w this negative feedback from her.

Edit to add in as to why I haven’t met her family:

I’ve recently ORD (23M) just started my career and will be starting PT uni soon.

I haven’t “met her parent’s standard” yet and she doesn’t want her family to worry or feel disappointed for her since I started dating her when we were 17 and I had nth to my name while her sister’s bf were I’d say kinda rich(?).

Their bfs lived in condo, had cars and already had a degree. My family was completely the opposite, we weren’t well off, had debts to clear etc. I guess that’s the part that she thinks will worry her family.

Netizens’ comments

I once surprised my gf with a nice bouquet of roses at the airport , when she saw me she gave me a weak smile , which slowly changed into an angry scowl, eventually she told me she only wanted a single red rose .

So we all can control how we react to negative circumstances, she chose to react that way , instead of seeing it as a loving gesture from me .

And I chose to break up with her a while after that , as there’s too much red flags about her

How can one provide feedback about your immediate supervisor without coming off as a backstabber?

Context: my immediate supervisor provides minimal guidance in my work and is uninterested in pushing for things/initiatives that management wants him to drive. For the former, he sees it as giving me autonomy to prioritize my own work.

Recently, his boss had a short informal one to one chat with me and asked if I am being provided with enough guidance. Prior to this, they had many clashes, both direct and indirect, talking about his lack of output, which my immediate supervisor does not acknowledge. His boss knows I am struggling and stated that it is not fair that so many things are loaded onto me.

When he asked me this, I was unable to give a specific reply and only mustered a soft “got la…” and weak smile. I didn’t want to state that my immediate supervisor is actually not really driving things (which he already knows) and start stating examples of when I was left to work on something when everyone has gone home (which he also already knows).

What makes this slightly complex is that my supervisor is actually quite a nice person outside of work. We are on friendly terms.

The boat has sailed, but I know there should be a professional way of approaching this question without coming off as a backstabber or turning it into a complaint session. Or in this case, leaving things unsaid. Help out a sis here, any tips? 🙂

Also… Why does he want to hear from me when he clearly already sees and knows what’s going on?

I used to be an innocent and carefree guy, growing up in an average household in Singapore in the late 90s and early 2000s.

I did quite decently for my studies, not too good but it was enough for me to go through the route which most got study people go to (Express stream – Poly – Local Uni).

I was a sociable guy, people liked me and I was always invited to parties and gatherings

Throughout the years when I was growing up and schooling, I met people from all the different backgrounds, the rich kids, the not so well to do ones, the guai lan kias and also the guai kias.

I was pretty sociable, so I was friends with all of them. Everywhere I went, people would acknowledge my presence and people all seemed to like me.

Life was pretty good and enjoyable as it was.

However, things soon started to change when I was approaching the third year of Poly.

I was around 18-19 then and was introduced to partying by some of the popular people in Secondary school. Week in and out, we would visit the clubs (Zirca/Rebel, Helipad, Zouk @ Jiak Kim) thrice a week, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

We could go to the clubs and then wait around for the first train before heading to school for lessons, we had lots of energy then and our bodies were still young (if you ask me to do it now, I would die straight).

Due to the fact that we were going to clubs so often, our allowances and even part time work salary could not keep up with the expenses.

Entry fees at that time for an average club was around $20-$30 for normal nights and we could claim two drinks from the bar for that price.

Of course, two drinks were never enough for us and we would also spend extra on drinks either by buying from Holiday Inn or just from the clubs itself when we felt like ‘balling’.

Banks were promoting student credit cards at that time, it seemed perfect for me

So how did we get the money for all these privileges when we were at that age and couldn’t keep up with the spending?

Well, at that period of time, many banks would go to the tertiary institutions (Polys, Unis etc) to promote the student Credit Cards.

It was free to sign up and had no annual fees as long as we were still schooling and even after we ended our education journey, we could always call in to ask for the annual fee waivers and the best was there was a credit limit of $500, an amount which was considered big for an average student at that time.

What added more importance to a student like me was that it gave us free entry to some of the clubs before a certain time, which enticed a lot of students my age to sign up for it as most people at that age just started to party.

All you had to have to qualify for the student credit card was you just had to be studying in one of the institutions on the list and had to be at least 18 years of age.

I signed up for one of the cards, and it all went downhill from there

As fate would have it, I signed up for one of the student credit cards from one of the banks and it all went downhill from there.

I had told myself when I signed up for the student credit card that I would only use for free entry into the clubs I wanted to go and not spend on anything with it but as we continued partying every time, the $500 credit limit was too tempting for me not to spend.

I started by using the credit card to take taxi home whenever I was too high to wait for the first train and subsequently from there, because I had already spent on the credit card, I began to buy drinks with the card from the clubs.

It then became worst when I started to use it to pay for my dates with girls.

I would then try to earn back whatever I spent on the credit card to clear the bills at the end of the month and it became a never ending cycle.

I was spending ‘future’ money, and then working to get the money to clear the ‘future’ money which I spent using the credit card.

I soon lost control of myself, and found myself starting to owe more and more because I would only clear the minimum sum of the credit card, and the rest of the money owed accumulated interest and the amount eventually snowballed to something which was pretty much unthinkable for someone at that age.

It then became worst when I went to serve the nation, I was only taking a few hundred dollars each month from the Army and it was never enough for me to spend as I was posted to a stay out unit and had to pay for my daily expenses.

I eventually cleared all the debt from this card when I finished serving the nation and took up a few part time jobs, but because I had already developed a habit of spending ‘future’ money, it carried on during my years in University and even till date in my thirties, I am still caught in a never ending cycle of credit card debt.

Looking back, I wished that I had never signed up for the student credit card and had spent within my means. I desperately need to break this habit of spending ‘future’ money, but I am so caught into it and my materialistic needs that I don’t know when this will stop.

My girlfriend was beautiful and had the kindest heart. I was in a blissful state of mind whenever I was with her and I simply felt like I was on cloud nine. We had been dating for a few months and things were going great.

I work in a female dominated environment, and she didn’t want my colleagues to hit on me so she came up with a ‘plan’

One day, my girlfriend told me that she wanted everyone to know that I was attached. She wanted to make sure that everyone we knew was aware that I was taken and that she was the one I was with.

I didn’t know how to respond, so I asked her why she wanted everyone to know, and she said that because I was working in an environment that was female dominated, she didn’t want people coming up to me to flirt with me or even hit on me.

I tried to explain to her that even though I was working in a female dominated place, it did not matter because they won’t dare to be so daring. But she was adamant that she wanted to make sure everyone was aware.

So she came up with a plan secretly and decided to put her plan into action when we had S- one day.

Executed her plan while we were having S-, gave me many visible ‘chops’ on my neck

While we were getting it on, she started to kiss my neck and then gave me a lot of ‘chops’ on my neck. It was something that she did not do before and she was doing it so vigourously I felt that my neck was a passport getting chopped by the officer.

I then realised that this was a part of her plan all, she had deliberately given me the ‘chops’ on my neck so that whoever I meet will see them and know that I had a partner.

I’m not sure how it happened, but I had somehow ended up dating three guys who were all friends.

I hadn’t been looking for a relationship and honestly couldn’t believe my luck when each one of them asked me out separately.

I didn’t know that they were friends, but it was fine with me though

I thought I had stumbled across some dating luck, until I found out they were all friends and they each asked me out one by one separately.

I started to get suspicious that they knew each other after I followed one of them on social media and realised that he had a group photo of them together.

We soon established that they all knew one another and we even went out together before just as friends.

They would out of the blue look at me then look at each other then laugh

However, they would often all laugh and exchange knowing glances whenever we were out together and I felt like I was being judged.

I was too afraid to ask what was going on, so I just kept my head down and pretended like nothing was wrong.

Then one night, I decided to follow them to a bar after they had left without me because I wanted to hear if there were any gossip about me.

Realised that they shared their intimate experiences in bed with me to each other

Then, to my horror, I heard them discussing my s- skills. They were comparing me to each other and rating my performance.

They were talking about how I was good in some areas but not in others, and I felt like I had been betrayed because all these were supposed to be private.

I never found out who was responsible for starting all these talks first but, but I know that I will never trust them again.

In the end, I decided not to hang out with them anymore.

Chased out despite being sick

Hi to all. I am just curious to know, does anyone here have toxic family members whom will ask you to leave the house and stay in a hotel whenever you are sick?

Family ask us to move away because we were sick, all scared to die

My husband and I were sick for the last 3 days. We have the common flu symptoms, sneezing, coughing and fever.

Instead of showing us any concern, my in laws actually asked us to move out to my mother’s home to stay. In laws said that if we stay we will spread the germs to our entire family of six.

My mum is a single parent and never been married. She texted me to ask which day am I returning this week to have dinner with her. I visit her weekly.

My own mother don’t let me go home for a month just because we had flu

I told her my husband and I were sick, guess what my mum replies was? She asked us not to visit her for 30 days. 30 DAYS???? I was shocked.

My in laws were worse and pathetic enough, my mum was worse. Until this hour while I was typing this out, my sis in law was still trying to ask my husband and me to go back to my mum’s house to stay.

What is family love? To me it’s all bulls-t. There’s no such thing as family love and acceptance in this world.

It’s a good thing we don’t intend to have any children. I do not know what kind of a mother will I be, since I am surrounded by toxic afraid to die people each day.

In between we will still be staying at home, my husband says those whom are scared should move out, not us. We deserves our rest.

I screwed up by lending my friend money

Before anyone passes judgement, I know I was damn stupid to lend my friend 5 digit worth of money, only for everything to be lost in a scam.

Told him to settle others first, because we are friends

We were all victims of the situation, especially my friend, so I tried being understanding about the due date in which they would return the money to me. They owe about 6 digits worth to multiple people.

A lot of people say this money is confirm lost, no need to look back at it. But 5 digits is a huge sum, and at this point it is a matter of principle.

I didn’t need the money ASAP so I told my buddy they can take their time to pay back, focus on the more kancheong ppl first.

Really took his sweet time, go holiday also don’t want pay me

It has been 2 years, and I can’t help but to be impatient because I see them going on trips to Japan and Korea and all that with their family.

Like hello, did you forget you got debt to pay? I’m trying to be nice and give you your human right to enjoy life la, I don’t want to be an ah long.

But this money is a big deal to me too. Just because I don’t make noise, doesn’t mean you can take advantage right?

I’m sure they are not doing it on purpose, but it does make me anxious.

I’m not one who wants to lose a friendship because of money, so i’m stuck

Especially now I’m planning to get married, I need that cash soon. I never want to lose friendship because of money, because honestly this is my buddy buddy.

When I fell on hard times they helped me out big time financially also. But the difference is I paid my dues on time, they are currently not doing that.

What do I do? I know I already screwed up lending him, not going to do it again, but I want my money back. I know for a fact he can pay.