A Quick Rant – why is public transport for NSFs so expensive?

Full disclaimer – I am in a stay-out unit so this might not apply to all but I’m pretty sure many NSFs have the same concern.

I am currently in a stay-out unit which is about 1h45min from my house (westie being posted to the east side). It costs me about $4 daily to get to and from my camp and when you multiply that by 5 that is $20 a week.

It costs me $80 a month just to get to and from work which is roughly 13% of my monthly allowance of $630.

I know that does not sound like much but when you are trying to scrimp and save every cent you earn with such a low allowance, it would add up over time.

Of course, some might say “Isn’t it more worth to buy a monthly pass?” Well, the monthly pass (for both bus and train) is $90.50, which costs more than what I typically spend in a month.

Yes, I do go out on weekends but I have to do duty at least twice a month on weekends and I would most likely be too shag to go out so at most I would spend maybe $4-$6 total on the weekends I’m out. This still works out to be lesser than the cost of the pass. Paying adult fare when on such a low allowance really sucks.

I have written to my MP suggesting that NSFs should enjoy lower transport fares because of our relatively low allowance but have yet to get a reply from him so I guess that avenue of expressing my concern is gone.

Hopefully more NSFs would lobby for lower transport fares for themselves as we are already giving 2 years of our lives to the government and basically giving them low-cost manpower.

(P.S. On some months I spend more on transport than when going out with friends/eating out because of the 6 day work week I have LOL)

During a flight from Singapore to San Francisco, I sat next to a guy from some third-world country who had the worst BO of anybody I have ever encountered.

I had just sat down and got myself situated for the trip ahead, and this guy comes to sit down next to me. As soon as he sat down, I immediately thought NOPE.

You imagine you mixed rotten apples with fish sauce and the smell was so powerful it came right up to my nose as if someone had just stuffed some smelly tofu deep into my nose.

I was wearing a face mask and I could still smell the full ‘power’ of the man on the flight. Imagine if there were no masks on. I think I would have fainted straight away and possibly pass away.

The flight was completely full so I could not change seats

I got up and hung out in the back of the plane and when the stewardess asked me to go back to my seat, I told her about the guy. She went over to my seat and then came back to me with her hand over her nose.

She let me sit in the flight attendant’s jump seat for a few hours until we got turbulence and I was forced back to my seat. Got off the plane with the worst headache of my life.

I wrote a feedback letter to the company stating that the stewardess had done her best in a crazy situation.

I wish each airline have a policy or plan on how to handle this kind of people.

My Employer is threatening me to take me to courts unless I pay one month salary AND serve one month notice. Am I reading the contract wrong?

I can’t afford a lawyer so before I proceed I need some advice.

Below is the contract excerpt that talk about non resignation.

“It is hereby acknowledged and accepted by you that due to the critical nature of the project for which you are being employed, the continuity of your performance of duties assigned to you during the agreed tenure of this contract is of the essence and you shall not be allowed to resign and or terminate your employment during the first six (6) months of this contract and that a notice period from you of one (1) month is required thereafter to resign from and/or terminate your employment.

Failure to comply with any aspect of this clause will result in the Company seeking compensation from you for a maximum amount of one (1) month of your salary.”

I’ve worked only for 4 months in this company

Should I pay one month penalty AND serve a one month notice?

Netizen’s comments

HR here –

It’s illegal for the company to not allow you to resign for the first 6 months. (https://www.mom.gov.sg/faq/termination/can-an-employer-reject-an-employees-resignation)

Since contract states that 1 month notice is required, you can either:

1. serve the 1 month notice
2. OR pay 1 month notice in lieu to your company.

Please don’t serve the notice and pay the notice in lieu. If they still insist on you doing both, do file a claim with TADM.

Hope this helps!

The workplace culture here varies from different schools. But the place here seriously lacks teamwork. And everything is always left to the very last minute.

This colleague, who is supposed to be helping out in events, has to stay in the office due to ‘there is no one in the office. Fun fact, every single staff here locks the office when there is no one in. So it’s a mystery as to why having to stay in the office when no one is in is more important than assisting with an event. *spooky*

Someone from a higher level who is supposedly your superior tends to MIA a lot and is always bugging into the events when she always claims that ‘she is not supposed to’ but still initiates.

Sure, good for her for taking initiative. Another fun fact, she just became a property agent. Is it a coincidence that she MIAs a lot during work hours? Depends on how you see it *wink*.

You eat what you kill as a property agent. Consider if you have the aptitude to perform as well as them. If you’re bad at it, I can assure you that you will probably be just as discontented working as a property agent as you are right now in a 9-6 job.

So probably she is not doing well that’s why she is doing both a 9-6 job and property agent as well?

So, I’ve been struggling with my girlfriend’ parents and with Vietnamese culture in general. I’ll try to explain the situation as best as I can so bear with me.

My girlfriend left Vietnam around 5 years ago to work/study abroad as she didn’t like her life there (work culture, being pressured into marrying a Vietnamese man, etc). Of course, her parents didn’t like this decision and weren’t supportive so they were not in the best terms with her.

Now, jump to the present. We’re together living in Singapore and as I always wanted to travel to and it has been a while we both didn’t have some proper holidays so we decided to go to Vietnam for one month together.

As we would stay one week with her parents, we would meet most of her family. She explained to me that it was expected we brought gifts to everyone. We spent around $1300 in cosmetics, wine, sweets, etc. I told her I was really uncomfortable with this culture of having to gift a bottle of wine to even the most remote cousin she had because it’s tradition (when no one even bothered to ask news of her for the last 5 years) .

Looting from rich foreign boyfriend

I can afford such expenses but they seem outrageous to me (I paid a big part of it as my girlfriend’s income is lower than mine) as I myself don’t buy gifts for my family unless it’s direct family and generally it would be a book or something like that for a birthday. But I understand it’s a different mindset and went for it.

When we arrived there, most of our gifts were either confiscated by her parents because they thought they were not good enough, or simply looted by neighbours or family who just went through the suitcases to take as many things as possible.

It’s understandable I was mad with the situation but my Vietnamese is too bad for me to speak up properly and my girlfriend was just sad overall so we just let it slide.

Also, I was surprised by how much money and showing off matter to them. Most of my girlfriend family were proudly displaying full-on Gucci, Yves-Saint-Laurent, Channel etc outfits which were clearly fake as they are (most all of them) farmers who couldn’t afford the real thing.

Her uncle even rented a “fancy” car to come to pick up us and visit the town. Again, we privately laugh at it with my girlfriend and just roll with it and accept their comments on how poor we look because we only wear Adidas sports clothes (the weather is killing me, I have no intent to wear a suit)

Now, we’re about to leave the familial house and start our real holidays but we had a very surreal discussion with my girlfriend’s father: he stated I was too poor (joke on him) to be his son-in-law and because I have no intention to come to live in Vietnam to take care of them, her daughter should just date a Vietnamese.

Father in law think $50 very big

He then proceeded to give me SGD$50 in đồng so I can give her daughter some “proper” holidays. I laughed at it as I thought it was a joke but when I realized he was being for serious I just told him this was the last time he would see me with a smile on my face (with broken Vietnamese but he got the message).

We called a taxi, booked a hotel and just left. My girlfriend is clearly sad about this whole situation and I really don’t know how to confront it and her family. Is this a “normal” scenario.

Am I being a douche bag for not understanding their culture? Should I just cross them out of our future together?

When people are travelling, the number one priority is often safety while others prefer to be a walking ATM.

A netizen shared his concerns about travelling with a friend that insist on wearing his branded items to Johor Bahru.

Here is the story:

Thanks for accepting my submission. To make it clear, I’m a Malaysian that has been working in Singapore for over 10 years and most of my close friends are Singaporeans.

My colleague and I planned a 1 night trip to Johor and he told me to meet at his house before driving in. While I was drinking coffee at his home, he was preparing to change clothes for the trip.

I noticed he put on his Rolex and gold chain and I told him not to wear them to Johor. I’m a local johorian, even my 30-year-old Toyota has a steering wheel lock and he is wearing this that could make us a target.

He insisted on wearing them as he wanted to attract easy gold digger girls for a “good night”. I told him not to as it might bring unnecessary danger to us. But he die die want to wear, So I told him good luck and let him be.

After we arrived in Johor and check-in at a hotel, he started to doubt himself as he realised that a lot of people were staring at him shortly after he left his vehicle.

He then started to be scared as we have plans to go out for a drinks tonight, he finally removed the gold chain and rolex and placed them in a hidden compartment of his luggage.

My moral of the story is, even for local johor people we do not wear like this when going out so please remember sometimes safety is more important than how you look.

I hate my father-in-law. May sound extreme but I promise I have my reasons. Married my husband 22 years ago, and I’ve hated his father ever since I met him, before we married. He’s an extremely disgusting, thick skinned, money faced barbarian.

I met my hubby when I was around 20 years old, we hit it off immediately and soon after we dated. Once, I went to his house for dinner.

Just nice his father was there too, the moment he saw me, he started shouting so loudly until the whole HDB block can hear him. “Wah bring home girl ah? Why never tell me before? You never see me as father isit?” My hubby was so embarrassed.

I tried to be civil in the beginning but obviously it didn’t work out, so my relationship with my FIL has always been quite strained and bad.

When I started to learn more about his family, hubby told me (and I also saw with my own 2 eyes) that FIL always takes money from him, and not like $2 or $5 for lunch etc, more of $100-200 a week which he manages to spend it all on god knows what.

Can you imagine spending $800 in 1 month?? Singapore is an expensive country, but not so jia lat one right?? Somemore this was back in the 1900s so prices weren’t as bad as they were today.

MIL also stopped working when hubby got a job, so household expenses were all paid for by him. Safe to note that FIL never worked a day in his life.

Recently, my MIL passed away. FIL demanded to stay with us with the reasoning that their old house is too big for him 1 person to stay. I know although my husband may not say it out loud but he cares for his father to some extent. But ever since FIL moved in with us, my life has been a living hell.

I have one daughter that FIL supposedly dotes on, which is a lie. He talks very big but always no action. Just to show how atrocious he is, when my girl celebrated full month, he didn’t even show up. For her birthdays thereafter, he still never show up. Honestly if he never live with us now, my girl probably won’t know what her grandfather looks like.

Not say I value money a lot, but for CNY, he only give angpao if he’s happy. If he’s not happy, no angpao. I don’t know where he find the balls to come and brag to me & my hubby saying that “天下只有我最疼我的孙女”

Please lah, if you really love your granddaughter, at least show up in her life right?? What’s the point of saying all these things when you don’t do anything to show her your “love” also??

Now that he’s living with us, the toilet he uses smells like dirty public toilet. I have to constantly keep the door closed so that the smell don’t go into my living and dining room. He always doesn’t flush after he pees or poops and doesn’t wash away dirty things that he spits in the basin or on the toilet floor.

I reminded him everyday when he first started living with us but now I give up already, I left the toilet to rot. No way he expects me to clean and scrub the toilet everyday after work to clean up his rubbish.

His room is also as bad. He brings food in even though I have always told him it is ok to eat in the living room, and leaves the wrappers there as if I’m a maid to wait on him.

The cups that he uses also don’t bring out to wash, just put down there and expect people to clean for him. His dirty tissues, I assume from digging nose or whatever, throw all over the floor like nobody’s business. I’ve also left it like it is after repeatedly telling him and reminding him, but no use. He doesn’t change.

My daughter has started telling me that she doesn’t want him around too. I didn’t see it myself but apparently he asked her for money for lunch. She felt paiseh to tell him that she only have 1 $10 note but still gave it to him.

Best thing is he went downstairs to tapao lunch, when he came back, he used finish the $10 and didn’t even bother buying lunch for her. Can you believe how pathetic that is? You take your granddaughter’s money and don’t even bother taking care of her also, what kind of grandparent are you?

As a cherry on top, my hubby now gives him about $1200 every month without him doing anything or contributing to any household expenses. The only thing he does is bring trouble to my life.

On top of this $1200, he asks my hubby for more money using horrible excuses like losing wallet or kena scam. Hubby gives him money out of pity I guess. I’ve tried talking to hubby and FIL but everytime FIL just shouts at the 2 of us and even though we scold him back (which is probably not filial), he still doesn’t change and doesn’t plan on doing so. My house used to be so peaceful and happy but now with him living here, it’s really like hell.

I don’t think anything will change anytime soon, just wanted a place to rant.

It feels like every man is the same

I’m sure many men would jump in to defend this damning sentence but I’m gonna say it anyway – I think men are generally untrustworthy.

These few years have me seen and interact with men across work, friendship and relationship level and I realise that men WOULD cheat if they could. The “loyal” ones are not because they are loyal, but it is because they either have no guts, no opportunities, or simply haven’t got caught in the act.

So many men whom I thought were “decent”, “upright”, “honest”, “professional” – all turned out to be lies. It’s not that they are what they claim they are, it is simply because they just haven’t gotten caught.

Because of this, I find it very difficult to see them seriously in any settings anymore because at the back of my head, these people could be the most indecent, dishonest and unprofessional people – they just haven’t revealed their true intentions, and I should always keep my guard up.

Why are men like that though? Or is it just people, men and women, alike? Seeing so many of these men everywhere makes me feel that none of them is worth our time, tears and heartbreak.

It’s really quite sad because I used to be a romantic at heart and truly believed in love. But I guess this is adulting in its finest.