Night Owl Chatterboxes - Part LII!
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Originally posted by kopiosatu:
here's something to share
my auntie/uncle's company from australia was asked by NParks to give advice on the problem with singapore's greenary. they said they wanted to bring the standard up.
my uncle (used to be a singaporean) told them in the face. the problem with this country is that labour is under appreciated, everyone thinks its a banghra job. unknown to them, a landscape artchitect (or gardener) earns a starting pay of $2-3K in other countries with good opportunities for increment if you're certified. the certification is recognised in most countries.
so he told NParks, the problem now is that the foreign workers come to singapore. do manual labour for a few years, go back home and start a company with the money and experience. so in the end, the employment ends at that country. that is a problem for us, since there's no one to take care of the trees anymore.
So who's left? Singaporeans lah. but every mother son thinks its a dirty job and there's no money to it.
who's to blame? education, parents, culture... u go figure it out.
another problem is a typical singaporean problem - cost savings.
We purchased D-grade trees, now they are deteriorating. my relatives told them, if you had purchased A-grade trees in the first place, the initial cost (though high) would be lesser than the repair costs now.
They offered land to my relatives to train singaporeans in landscape maintainence, they rejected.
Out of goodwill, they offered to let Singaporean students to get the cert at their nursery in Australia.
recently my auntie came back to singapore, she said singaporeans (in my words) cannot make it.
every little thing also complain, can't do manual labour. lol~
i tell her not to waste time with them anymore and just send them back. I'll go over when my contract finishes and take over them.
Construction too.
In the US, construction workers are regarded as professionals with pretty high pay and respect.
Here, when we talk about them, the first thing that comes to mind is 'banglas'.
Let's face it.... hardly anyone here wants to do such work.
Don't even talk about construction workers.... even jobs as foremen and site supervisors are shunned by many.
I know of quite a few people in my class (mechanical engineering) who wants to go into finance and such..... basically, engineers are overworked and underpaid.
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Fudgie, almost everybody in the workforce is overworked and underpaid except for our ministers.
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seriously for me
i would do manual labour. just pay me well.
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Originally posted by stellazio:
Fudgie, almost everybody in the workforce is overworked and underpaid except for our ministers.
Maybe.... but I'm just giving the engineering sector as an example.That's why you see all those aggressive ads about 'Engineering is the Big E' and such.... we don't have enough engineers. But it doesn't deal the main issue: the wages don't commensurate with the workload.
My own prof (an aerodynamics expert, mind you) actually asked me once: 'Have you ever considered going into banking or finance? It pays a lot better than engineering.'
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Originally posted by fudgester:
Maybe.... but I'm just giving the engineering sector as an example.That's why you see all those aggressive ads about 'Engineering is the Big E' and such.... we don't have enough engineers. But it doesn't deal the main issue: the wages don't commensurate with the workload.
My own prof (an aerodynamics expert, mind you) actually asked me once: 'Have you ever considered going into banking or finance? It pays a lot better than engineering.'
You saw the poly intake issue?
80% of poly places filled up only... Mostly w/ vancancy are those eng courses cos many parents think it's rigid or watever
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i saw 2 ads on the papers today
Airforce is really failing in their recruitment
then again, there are idiots in the SAF forum... or was it military nuts who says his passion is "flying military aircraft"
ehhhh... passion will be gone under a screwed up organisation.
let's see if he has passion when he knows his aircraft will be maintained by NSFs who don't understand the aircraft system. I'm not saying NSFs are incompetent, they just don't have the knowledge... and this kind of knowledge takes a while to set in.
tell me about passion when that time comes
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Maybe he thinks the airforce only has F-16..
Eh wait, i thought he was applying to be a wso on the UAV. Passion????
He doesn't know that he could end up flying a chopper, c130,kc135 etc which are totally different from the F16s he sees in the airshow..
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UAV, fly simi lan?
i rather play remote control helicopters
and they still call SIA a last resort.
he has no idea how good SIA is.
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Originally posted by kopiosatu:
UAV, fly simi lan?
i rather play remote control helicopters
and they still call SIA a last resort.
he has no idea how good SIA is.
Precisely, he just go up into the air and track radar right?
Maybe he thinks all WSO are the 2nd pilot in the F16.
I don't think he's heng enough to join now just in time for the new F15 to be commisioned.
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Originally posted by stellazio:
Precisely, he just go up into the air and track radar right?
Maybe he thinks all WSO are the 2nd pilot in the F16.
I don't think he's heng enough to join now just in time for the new F15 to be commisioned.
Pls lor, they dun even see the F-5 -
F5 going to be decomissioned liao ma.
Wah i heard that my vocation if posted to PLAB tower, on certain days must become chutepicker for the F5's sia...
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Originally posted by stellazio:
F5 going to be decomissioned liao ma.
Wah i heard that my vocation if posted to PLAB tower, on certain days must become chutepicker for the F5's sia...
Yeah... Alrdy close to 30 years in service leI still remembered back in 1979, 1st batch of 21 arrived in spares using C-5
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*me mysteriously appears in a puff of smoke*
Just got back from jogging.
Had to go at a slower pace.... the ground was wet.
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Didn't even know back in 1980s, Simei road names wanted to be named aft the 4 Chinese beauties... Yang Gui Fei is one of them
But eventually Simei St 1 to 4 was adapted
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It's sad that a lot of careers in Singapore is under-appreciated and underpaid. And it's also equally sad that everyone seems to flock to the same few careers that pay well.
kopi, I read your account re. the landscaping situation in Singapore and can't help but feel sad. Our heavy reliance on cheap foreign labour shall someday backfire, esp since we don't remunerate them well, and don't encourage them to stay on.
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It's with a little pain that I'm saying that I don't plan to stay on either...
With the exception of BMW's Designworks studio here, there aren't many opportunities to be what I want to be.
Even if I strike it out on my own, we haven't got the right environment. -
Originally posted by fudgester:
In the US, construction workers are regarded as professionals with pretty high pay and respect.
That impression might not be entirely correct. A significant proportion of the construction workforce here is made up of illegal Mexican immigrants whose quality of work leave much to be desired.
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Originally posted by Meia Gisborn:
That impression might not be entirely correct. A significant proportion of the construction workforce here is made up of illegal Mexican immigrants whose quality of work leave much to be desired.
ah yes ... the ang moh banglas ...
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Guys are u still awake !???
Linkie here to old topic in Club30s.
http://www.sgforums.com/forums/1769/topics/169346
When we were having our personality tests "phase".
Personality test... and my results back in 2005 !
Brute
You are 14% Rational, 42% Extroverted, 71% Brutal, and 71% Arrogant.
You are the Brute! You are introverted, arrogant, brutal, and more intuitive than rational. Like a big, dumb animal, you are driven by your emotions more than your reason, and as a result of the fact that you care very little for the feelings of others, you tend to be rather selfish. Because of your selfishness, you also tend to be a bit arrogant, seeing yourself as big or strong or smart or always correct. This makes you a stubborn, irrational, emotion-driven brute. King Kong best represents the gorilla-version of your personality. Emotional, introverted (King Kong was isolated on his own island, after all), brutal, and arrogant (proud to be the largest ape on Earth!), Kong would probably get along very well with you, seeing as how you share many of the same traits. Aside from, you know, all the fur. So your personality defect is simply that you resemble King Kong to a very high degree. Which probably isn't a good thing, you big brute! -
Biangz! I just heard from a friend back in SG that in one of the wards in my old hospital, 18 nurses quit at the same time giving 24 hours' notice!!!
Must be unbearable work conditions! Mutiny!! 
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Ferret, have you been in here THAT long?!
Wah... never realised! Anyways, my results :
STARVING ARTIST
You are 42% Rational, 42% Extroverted, 42% Brutal, and 57% Arrogant.
You are the Starving Artist! You are more intuitive than logical, and are primarily guided by your heart and emotions. You are also very introverted and gentle.
Of course, this does not mean that you do not have an ego. In fact, you are surprisingly arrogant for someone so emotional and gentle. This is why you are best described as a starving artist. You are very introspective and quite sure of yourself, as any accomplished artist is, yet your views are impractical, guided by feelings, and overly gentle. You probably find math, logic, and similar intellectual pursuits offensive to your artistic sensibilities, and you prefer the open-endedness of artistry because then you know you can never truly have a wrong answer.
So really you have no reason to be arrogant, you big doofus, because the skills you value (emotion, spirit, art, etc.) in yourself are valuable only on a subjective level, meaning your arrogance is purely masturbatory.
In short, your personality is defective because you are arrogant, introverted, introspective, gentle, and thoroughly irrational...posessing most of the traits needed to be a starving--and useless--artist.
So get out there, write a few short stories that are allegories for the spirit, and starve!
To put it less negatively:
1. You are more INTUITIVE than rational.
2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.
3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.
4. You are more ARROGANT than humble.
Compatibility:
Your exact opposite is the Capitalist Pig.
Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Haughty Intellectual, the Televangelist, and the Emo Kid.Harharhar!!!
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Biangz... it's 4:05am now!
I'd better log off and get some sleep if I still wanna head to the Saturday market tomorrow! Bye, folks!! 
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Ang Moh bangalas… that’s actually pretty funny!
The Mexicans in the construction industry here have a reputation for doing fast work, at the expense of quality. A couple of years ago, as a result of damage received from the numerous hailstorms we experienced, our townhome association’s insurance company agreed to pay for the roofs of all 17 buildings in the complex to be reshingled. The insurers contracted the task out to a roofing company that used Mexican labor.
The association’s board (on which I serve as the treasurer) was told by the roofing company that it would take three days to reshingle each building, and that they would have two crews working the complex, meaning two buildings would be reshingled every three days. If everyting went according to schedule, it would mean all the buildings in the complex would be reshingled in just under a month.
Well, everything did go according to schedule, and the roofers finished their work in less than a month. However, they didn’t bother cleaning up the literally tens of thousands of sharp roofing nails that had fallen around the bases of the buildings from when they removed the old shingles.
Then we had some heavy rains after the work was completed, and a number of the townhouse units immediately reported roof leaks. This information was forwarded to the insurers and they sent a building inspector out to take a look at the roofs of the affected units. He discovered that the roofing crew had forgotten to lay down the plastic waterproofing barrier between the shingles and the roof structure on some of the units. Additionally, a significant number of the shingles were unevenly lined up, didn’t overlap consistently, and/or were secured to the roof with an insufficient number of nails.
Mexican "workmanship" my arse...
(The insurer got another roofing company to correct the mistakes.; I think they also initiated legal action against the original roofer to recover the cost of hiring the second contractor.)
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Originally posted by Meia Gisborn:
Ang Moh bangalas… that’s actually pretty funny!
The Mexicans in the construction industry here have a reputation for doing fast work, at the expense of quality. A couple of years ago, as a result of damage received from the numerous hailstorms we experienced, our townhome association’s insurance company agreed to pay for the roofs of all 17 buildings in the complex to be reshingled. The insurers contracted the task out to a roofing company that used Mexican labor.
The association’s board (on which I serve as the treasurer) was told by the roofing company that it would take three days to reshingle each building, and that they would have two crews working the complex, meaning two buildings would be reshingled every three days. If everyting went according to schedule, it would mean all the buildings in the complex would be reshingled in just under a month.
Well, everything did go according to schedule, and the roofers finished their work in less than a month. However, they didn’t bother cleaning up the literally tens of thousands of sharp roofing nails that had fallen around the bases of the buildings from when they removed the old shingles.
Then we had some heavy rains after the work was completed, and a number of the townhouse units immediately reported roof leaks. This information was forwarded to the insurers and they sent a building inspector out to take a look at the roofs of the affected units. He discovered that the roofing crew had forgotten to lay down the plastic waterproofing barrier between the shingles and the roof structure on some of the units. Additionally, a significant number of the shingles were unevenly lined up, didn’t overlap consistently, and/or were secured to the roof with an insufficient number of nails.
Mexican "workmanship" my arse...
(The insurer got another roofing company to correct the mistakes.; I think they also initiated legal action against the original roofer to recover the cost of hiring the second contractor.)
Oh my gosh! That's awful!!
I really feel sorry for the owners of the units!