How do I cope as a below average guy(21M)? Honestly I don’t have money, height (1.67) or looks.

I’m currently an undergraduate at a local Uni embarking on Y3 in a stem course. All around me are peers who are taller, richer, better looking many of whom have current and or past relationships.

I have a small circle of friends which is mainly from this study group which we have had since our first year.

I tried dating girls but I get like 1-2 matches a months and I swipe ALOT. It’s super sad cause a lot of these people will just leave you on read and expect you to carry the convo .

I also asked out some of the girls who I studied with and hung out with but they all friendzoned me.

I’m 21 and I never had a gf ): still virgin. I’m legit so down bad I’ve been thinking about dating guys. Can anyone here give some advice pleaseeee

Netizens’ comments

1. You need to be comfortable in your own skin first and like yourself. That will translate to self confidence and attractiveness to women. Women don’t just look for handsome, tall or rich guys, they want someone confident with a sense of humour and someone with good character. If you are desperate for a gf, it will obvious to them and it will be a turnoff.
2. To be honest, If I were you, I would rather focus on myself and loving yourself. With that, you could possible build some self confidence and eventually, you’ll match with someone someday. Im 28, dated a few girls before and am just enjoying my life as a single while all my friends are either married or getting married.
3. Anyway, a good portion of the population are below average so it’s not the end of the world. Money can be earned, looks can be improved. But if you look around there are many ugly or poor people in happy relationships. So maybe you’re looking at the wrong things. And honestly, nothing screams creepy more than a desperate guy.

Hi, I am a fresh grad In my first job now, engineering related. Just wanna ask seniors who have grad is my workplace culture a norm ?

No fixed lunch break its ranges between 12- 3+ (usually 3 pm)

The department manager will scold everyone in daily morning meetings for hrs (almost daily)

No basic office supply such as water cooler, fridge , pantry, coffee, stationary etc

Document in traditional Chinese and openly mock others when they consider hiring non-chinese speaking people

Unpaid OT everyday

Asking for engineering improvement project as probation criteria

I don’t know, I don’t have prior experience in other jobs and not sure if I am just being a “strawberry” or is my concerns valid and if should I consider changing jobs.

Here are what netizens think:

• That’s usually what being an engineer in manufacturing is like. Very normal toxic culture

• Just by staying in that job is deep disrespect for yourself and also supportive of that environment- breeding source of greed and ugliness in humans

• Is the senior or dept head someone u want to be 5 years later?

• Sounds like a typical SME or taiwanese company. Is that a taiwanese semiconductor mnc?

• This sounds like Japan’s black companies in documentaries

• Sounds like Austrian labour camp,work your ads off for checking if the toxic gas works to make people work

• Seems like the company is trying to push for improvements but the people working there are too old and does not know the current trends. good to know how things work manually, then jump ship. If is really too hard, is ok to jump out now as well, but with a job offer secured of course.

To car owners, how much do you spend monthly on car expenses? Do share tips to cut down on costs if you have any!

23F (fresh grad) I do not wfh so I have to travel ~30km*2 to and from work monday to friday and I incur ~$400 in petrol expenses monthly. Thankfully, parking is FOC at my workplace. Obviously I feel the pinch and would like to ballpark my own expenses amongst other car owners.

“It’s either you spend or don’t own a car”

it depends what car you’re looking at, first there’s the monthly installment. which is currently pretty high due to the coe rise. i’m paying 2k / month.

than there’s petrol. I’m paying around $200 per pump which last for a few days (this also depends on what car and how much you commute)

there’s insurance which is a yearly thing. as for maintenance, it’s cost a few hundreds to service, wear and tear depends on the repair needed. ranges from a few hundreds to thousands.

having a car in Singapore is really not affordable. you’d need to make sure you have more than enough to comfortably pay all these, no matter what car you get.

there’s no tips on how to cut costs on owning a car, it’s either you spend or just don’t own a car.

New car will cost more but long term cheaper

Before petrol prices went bonkers and just before I sold my car, I was spending about 950-1k per month all-in, including averaged maintenance costs and paper value depreciation. If I had a 60km commute daily, my all-in expenses might have gone up to about 1.2-1.3k, also factoring in higher maintenance costs.

It was a pre-loved (actually loved and taken care of, not abused) 13 year old Japanese car.

A new car will certainly cost way more than that, but cheap and good actually exists on the used car market if you “buy the dip” (bought mine in 2018 when COE was low) and spend the time and effort to learn how to spot common issues with cars in general and also the model(s) that you are eyeing.

If you want convenience of owning a car, look beyond money

Ballpark – $1.6-1.8k/mth incl Instalment, Insurance, Petrol, Road Tax, Season parking etc. If you wanna get a car just to go work and back and $$ is the sole factor in your decision, just take cab.

You want the freedom and convenience of owning a car, u may wanna look beyond the dollars and cents as key factor.

$400/month on petrol is “average”

As a fresh grad, you got a car, you are already doing better than quite a lot of others.

From your comparison, I believe this car was a gift to you

Anyway, to answer your question, $400 per month is quite average in sg based on our governments take on increasing petrol prices in an article last year. If you still wan cheaper petrol, you may have to change your driving style or visit our neighbour.

Car related expense such as maintenance repairs, tyres, card top up and car wash items have to be included too.

Maybe you can do your own calculations and add in these figures. I will provide you a list to fill up

Instalment Insurance Road tax Petrol x 12 Season parking x 12 Cash card top up $150 per month (depends on your usage) Repair (depends on new or old car, new mostly under warranty) Servicing (based on your mileage, 2 times a year) Tyres based on your mileage, change every 2 years. So find out how much your tyre cost and divide half Car wash (if you wash yourself and buy products yourself, probably $200 a year)

For me, I enjoy modifying my car so probably not the same comparison. There is no fixed amount for expenses since people use and treat their car different.

So if you really wan to ballpark, perhaps fill up the list and see what is your total expenses, rather than just one item

Whenever I hear people around me complain about the rising living costs due to inflation, war and increased taxes, I can’t help but really just want to speak to them the truth especially late millennials and gen Z kids.

No doubt, it is true that consumer good prices have increased significantly over the years, housing getting less affordable, rents are spiking, COE has reached its all-time high, fuel price has gone up, and the list goes on.

However, do people especially kids these days do their part to overcome this situation?

The short answer is NO, as most people that I know including friends and family, and uni mates, they all don’t really treat this as a serious issue, and it’s just sickening to see how people complain everyday without putting some serious effort.

Let me list out a few “hobbies” or in other words, “entertainments” that youngsters do nowadays. Every now and then I see friends sharing stories of their staycations, and their frequency can be as high as once every 1-2 months.

Youngsters also don’t refrain themselves from frequently dining at places like HDL, beauty in a pot, din tai fung, and a whole bunch of fancy cafes and restaurants. It’s so terrifying to the point where it has actually become mandatory that one must dine in at least once a week at some fancy eatery, and I honestly ain’t sure if they realize that. Starbucks or coffee bean has become a usual hangout spot to “study” too, and they can easily order food and drink that cost up to $20-30 per pax.

The convenience of cabbing just makes basic transportation even more accessible that they can just Grab without even actually trying their best to settle for buses or MRT. I personally know a few friends and acquaintances who already got platinum tier for Grab. “I’m lazy”, “it’s too far”, “I don’t wanna wake up so early”, “it’s raining”, “I just wanna chill”, so on and so forth, these are the common excuses to spend tens of dollars just for a short period of unurgent convenience.

I think I don’t even have to point out branded goods and limited-edition clothing and sneakers that youngsters don’t mind forking out hundreds of dollars for per item. Is it also necessary to purchase the latest phone models? I don’t get why people can’t just buy only when necessary or at least wait till the next model releases and buy the current model as its price drops.

There is no need to attend every single one of your friend’s birthday, and instead, do kindly wish them and just go for those whom you’re closer with. If you have friend’s birthday all the way from January till December, and for each birthday, the expenses are unexpected because it’s not up to you to decide the venue and type of birthday celebration, you’ll only end up being a broke-ass. Please have some decency to reject politely, and if rejection would only cause them to be unhappy with you, then congratulations, as you’ve just witnessed the true side of your “friends”.

It’s totally fine not to invest your money if you don’t wanna risk losing money, but at least don’t let your cash flow out so quickly, and have some proper control over your money. You can’t control the government’s plan, as well as the happenings all over the world that negatively impacts your financial situation, but I believe there are a ton of simple and implementable ways to reduce your unnecessarily hefty expenses.

So stop complaining and do your part if you don’t wanna go broke!”

I’m working in the comms industry (client-facing job) and have been in my current job for 1.5 years. I was offered an entry-level role (sort of my first FT job after ive graduated) and was promoted after a year. I was making mistakes here and there but it wasn’t as horrible in the last 6 months.

Tagging the wrong social media account for a content post, grammatical errors, missing out on emails, under communicating (e g. not providing contexts enough explanations) > miscoms with clients, producing work that aren’t meeting expectations at my current position (as a senior associate).

I’ve taken active steps to tackle my lack of attention to details/carelessness:

• penning down to-do-tasks on paper and tracking them
• reviewing and clearing my emails daily
• blocking off time on my calendars if I need time to complete work
• overcommunicate – providing contexts and explain my thought processes to avoid miscom
• using self checking tools like grammarly

It’s not working. I’m still making mistakes and my supervisor is beyond fed up. Had a breakdown during my review once and it has reached the stage where my supervisor asked to vet my emails before it goes to the client.

I was burnt out for a while but the company culture/ppl I work with are super supportive. For the longest time, I always felt rushed so I’ve started to slow down intentionally and really just try to make time and be thorough with my work.

I really want to continue working on myself and prove that I’m taking my job seriously but it’s been hard. I feel dread and anxiety whenever I work because I know I’m a burden to my supervisor and have been consistently making mistakes every week. Am trying to be positive.

I actually don’t quite know what I want out of this thread but would love to read what others think and will appreciate any advices!

Backstory: I have an old friend (20+ years) that is in a difficult spot. My partner and I have offered to my friend a rent-free place to land for a little while, while my friend gets things figured out.

Homeless friend looking a rent-free property

What’s with the salesmen at laptop retail stores?

Recently, i went to take a look at laptops in retail stores, and it felt like the saleman was pressurising me into buying models i have no interest in.

Told me that the laptop he recommended was light with a lasting battery but the laptop was tiny (then of course it would be light :/) and the battery rating was suspiciously low.

I tried to look at newer models but he kept steering me towards the older models with lower specs.

Eventually I just said thanks and walked away, and he promptly started complaining to the saleman in the other section on how customers these days don’t know how to choose laptops.

What’s your experience with these type of salesmen? Do they give good advice or am i just overly skeptical?

(I bought a laptop online in the end)

Netizens’ comments

• Which is why I just buy my electronics online. The salespeople usually don’t know much or may try to push certain brands their boss tells them to hard sell.
• commi$$ion
• Do your own research online and just purchase online. An apple can become a golden apple through the mouth of a salesman.
• Probably told by the manager to push certain products which they intend to clear.
  Which is why I often do my own research before going down. With all the sales talk, it gets pretty confusing if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

A netizen shared how her father uses car rental to drive Grab and Gojek, and he was recently involved in a car accident where the passenger suffered a small injury.

The Grab/Gojek customer agreed not to claim from them after going to a clinic for the small injury, but they later received a charge of $3,500 from the car rental company 7 months later for insurance claim.

The netizen then asked the car rental company for a copy of the insurance claim but the car rental company refused and wanted her to physically come down and take a look.

Here is what she said

My dad is charged 3.5k from insurance claims, need advice

A little bit of context of how this whole situation happened last year..

My dad is a private car hirer driver meaning he drives grab/gojek and so. He rents this car from car rental Company A and he was involved in an accident last year around November.

At that time, he was carrying a passenger in his rental car when he brushed and scratched another car, he braked and stopped in time but the passenger in his car had a small injury to the neck..

Days later, we got the passenger to call back to us as Grab would not give out numbers of others due to PDPA reasons, we checked that the passenger is well and that she had seen a clinic.

She agreed not to file insurance claims as the injury was minor and she understands my dad has to pay quite a hefty amount to the car rental company if she were to report it.

Yesterday my dad mounted a curb while driving causing the bumper and tire to go damaged, he paid a total of $1500 for that.

Suddenly, the car rental company which is known as Company A told my dad that there were insurance claims coming from the insurance company and that he has to pay an excess of $3500 from the incident that happened with the passenger, where can my dad find money when he lost so much during the pandemic???

And I told them that we already agreed with the passenger not to claim and she acknowledged it, how come 7 months later then bring up this issue, and the claim for insurance, it’s so late.

I asked the car rental company to scan a copy of the so-called “insurance claim” but they refused and want me to go down and take a look physically. I am suspecting a bit of foul play in this, we lost the number of the passenger and we cannot contact her to ask why she filed an insurance claim.