Bro, I really cannot standard already. Sit down at my desk today, open TikTok, then open LinkedIn, and my blood pressure straight away shoot up to 180.
You all remember a few years ago, everyone and their mother saying must go local uni, must get that paper, otherwise your starting salary will be pathetic? My parents everyday bird-nesting me, “Ah Boy, study hard, get degree, then can work in CBD, air-con office, stable life.” So what did I do? I took tuition loans, mugged until my hair drop, drank enough Kopi O Gao to float a battleship, and spent over $40,000 on my degree. Four years of my youth gone, just like that.
Fast forward to now. I’m sitting in my cubicle, doing data analysis and writing reports until my eyes cross. Then my boss—this typical boomer manager who doesn’t even know how to convert PDF to Word—comes over and shows me this new AI tool the company just subscribed to.
He press one button. One. Bloody. Button.
In three seconds, the AI generate the exact same report I spent three days researching, formatting, and double-checking. And the worst part? The AI English even better than mine. No grammar mistake, no typo, and it don’t even need to take 1-hour lunch break at Amoy Street Food Centre.
I stream of consciousness thinking: I spent forty thousand dollars. Forty. Thousand. Plus four years of interest. All for a piece of paper that is currently being outperformed by software that costs the company maybe $30 a month. The math is not mathing, guys. I am literally paying off the debt for a skill that a machine is doing for free.
Now my department talking about “restructuring” and “upskilling.” Upskill what? Every time I learn a new skill, the AI updates its version and learns it in two nanoseconds. I feel like the biggest chump in Singapore. Should have just gone and open a home-based business selling overpriced croissants or become a property agent, at least OpenAI cannot view HDB flat for you (yet).
Anyone else feeling this existential dread? How to justify buying BTO like that? Sincerely, a very broke, very bitter graduate.