Is it normal to feel sad when you aren’t included by people whom you think are your friends?

I am an introvert and i have never opened myself up to anyone. I used to have a group of friends who i hung out with in school but in that group, i would only interact with them once in awhile.

I used to be awkward as well but most of the time i could vibe with them and sometimes they would try to include me into conversatioms by diverting attention to me.

Occasionally went out with them (which was a huge thing as an introvert) but i would never be the life of the party and i think i was kind of just there, absorbing the energy from the party.

Which is why, after the 2 times i was invited to hang out, i was never asked again. I would still hang out with them in school and nobody else.

For many years since, they would celebrate each other’s birthdays, plan events and etc and i had just been forgotten.

I would see it on social media and feel really sad about it. There isnt really much i can do other than just let it be but i never found another group of friends to hang out with since as i am very introverted.

So seeing them all still together even after so many years since graduating still hurts me alot. I have tried reaching out to them personally to talk about things and tried to invite them to hang out but i would get short uninterested replies.

I think i am supposed to move on but i am not sure of how to do it, i deleted my social media accounts for about 3 years and recently came back to see those posts again which again reignited the pain.

I dont know what to do honestly.

A man who just graduated and step out into the workforce was kind enough to offer his parents an allowance despite not making a lot.

Hence he started asking the internet if it’s wrong for one to not give their parents an allowance.

His Scenario:

I just graduated from uni and started working with a monthly salary of 3k. When I talked to my parents about giving them an allowance (10% of my pay), they rejected my offer with the following reason:

1. My earning power isn’t alot. They want me to focus on saving up for myself first.
2. Both of my parents are still working. Their salary and savings are more than enough for them to retire. Hence, they don’t see a need for me to give them allowance.

However, after looking through online forums, this seems like a unfilial thing to do. What are your opinions on this?

Here are what netizens think:

• Your parents have already told you what you wanted to know. When you’re earning more, then they’ll probably be more open to taking the allowance. If your parents have already told you, you don’t have to care whether it’s unfilial (from the pov of others) or not, people’s tongues will always wag.

• Its their choice. If they dont need it – dont give. Alternatively take them out for dinners, give them gifts

• You’ve got good parents. Don’t feel guilty please, you have the rest of your life to be good to them.

• This. If your parents don’t want to take your allowance, then they don’t care for it. Meeting them, having a meal with them, or going on holidays with them would be more valued by them than allowance.

• Your parents seem like the really understanding sort. As others may have said, you can certainly express your gratitude to them via other means in all the other little things — help them with housework (if you’re still living with them), volunteer to get lunch/dinner for them, buy the occasional household appliances for them if there is a need. In my experience, parents usually won’t mind us doing that.

With the number of scams out there, one always has to be careful who they talk to. A woman shared how she was scammed after talking to a man on Facebook.

Here is the story:

I knew Justin (jwc) from facebook and he portrayed a luxurious life with strong forex trading. Taking a leap of faith, I opened a trading account and made money at first. He then asked me to pool the money with him as he is having too many customers and is hard to do the trading 1 by 1.

He also has some investors to transfer money to me and said that it can be held as collateral and profit disbursement as his personal bank account is constantly maxed out with transactions daily. Things started to get ugly when he couldn’t give us back the weekly profit as promised. I then received a text saying that I may have transferred money to an account related to an investment scam which I made a police report promptly.

His investors that transferred money to me also made a police report against him but as the money was transferred to me before RELEASING it to him, I’m now implicated and my bank account is frozen. I called up the investigation officer and was told that i’ll be called down for an investigation.

I now live in anxiety as i have 2 young daughters and a wife to feed and this happened just because i trusted his forex investments.

Avoiding scams:

For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688. Anyone with information on such scams may call the Police Hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. All information will be kept strictly confidential.

I joined a company recently. My manager was very friendly towards me for like the first month. As I am new to the industry she was very helpful in coaching me on the basic procedures. I was very grateful to her and trusted her.

As the day goes by she started to reveal her true character. I was performing well in my job and everyone in the company was praising me. But my manager did not praise me once even then I was not bothered as my responsibility is to complete my job perfectly and get my remuneration on time.

Things got worse, every morning she came to the office she will ignore me but I will greet my colleagues and also will greet her genuinely. She will not reply and I was not affected. She started to monitor me very closely.

She will stand behind my desk, shouting at me in front of everyone despite it being a small blunder. But when another team member does a mistake she will be like tell them nicely and say all will be fine.

My laptop given by my company was defective and it will shut down on its own. I have highlighted this issue to her several times but she turns deaf ears to me. She expects me to reply to her emails and supplier emails promptly. Due to my laptop problem, I couldn’t work efficiently because it keep shutting down.

Other department managers request the new purchase of laptops for their staff, unlike my manager who just ignore our team’s request and ask us to use the same old laptop. We don’t mind using it but it’s laggy and she is pressuring us to submit work on time and be productive.

She dislikes us advising as she thinks she is the only one who knows about everything.

Many staffs working under her tender their resignation as she keeps being unreasonable and taking credit for our work.

Since there was a high turnover, she ask me to do the work of the staff who left.

I just joined I have to cope with my workload and also juggle 3 person’s workload.

I didn’t give up I worked overtime and also worked on Saturday and Sunday to complete all the work.

But still, she scolds me saying I’m not efficient!

After much consideration, I left the company thinking that there would not be a career growth or work love balance here.

A post on Reddit went viral after a man was punished for being late for work. His manager allegedly stop the man from going for a lunch break as a penalty for getting to work 6 minutes late.

As Reddit is an international forum, it is likely that the incident did not happen in Singapore. Luckily, we do not hear of such incidents happening in Singapore.

Here is the story:

Been working there for 4 months. I was never late and always ready like 15 min before my shift starts. Today I had a tough morning, in a bad mood and I was 6 minutes late for work. My manager called me to his office, complaining about why I didn’t call him to say I’m going to be late. I told him that I didn’t think about calling him as I knew that I’ll only be late for a bit.

After going back and forth, he told me that I’m not allowed to take my lunch break because I’m late and it was super busy. I didn’t bring my lunch, so I asked if I could at least grab a sandwich before starting my shift. He agreed, but only to cut half an hour of my pay..

I agreed and left “to grab a sandwich”. It’s been an hour and a half now since I left and I still haven’t returned. My manager just called me and I told him I quit. I don’t regret it (yet?)

Wish me luck!!

Going Viral

The story became viral with 60,000 upvotes on the thread and over 4,000 comments. Many netizens pitch in their thoughts and started discussing work ethics.

Stories started to pour on the thread with one of the users stating:

“Which is why you don’t start work early. My coworker used to get to work 20 minutes early everyday and would start working and I kept telling him don’t do it.One day he was 15 minutes late because of the WEATHER (which made the bus late) and my boss says make sure you make up that time even though he’s obviously made it up since he was 20 minutes early for work for months. After that, he started on time!“

How about Singapore?

What should one do when an employer is breaching rules of the employment act.

In Singapore, one can always refer to the Ministry of Manpower’s website for employment rights. The topics covered are

• Hours of work and overtime
• Annual leave
• Sick leave
• Public holidays entitlements
• CPF contributions

and beyond.