Everyone I know is leaving or already left

[Addadude]

This is a rather transient place.

I dunno about that. I'm here 22 years and counting.

[sundaymorningstaple]

This is a rather transient place.

I dunno about that. I'm here 22 years and counting.

Yep, each year you get closer and closer to me. I'll always have 12 years on ya, but the percentage get closer and closer as the years go by!

[BBCWatcher]

I'll always have 12 years on ya....

That's only guaranteed if your remains remain in Singapore, and only if you count such time.

[sundaymorningstaple]

We'll, mandatory cremation after 15 of years of burial kind of stuffs it then. (anyway, I doubt if they would put me in the coffin the way I'd request anyway. Face down. and the opposite direction in the coffin. (That way the world can kiss my arse!) At any rate, I'm not planning on sticking around regardless of where I'm at. I'm gonna go up in a plume of greasy smoke if not in Singapore. If here I'll still go up in a plume of greasy smoke until I hit the scrubbers which prevents it from going airborne. The ashes will be dispensed with in the nearest rubbish chute or way, way offshore where I spent the best years of my life (preferable). Course it could also go the other way, according to some, I don't know how to age. I might well see triple digits. My boss won't let me retire until I'm 75. (That's going to punch a hole in my SS if the CPF doesn't!). I don't really worry too much about it. The crap I've survived thus far, I figure I've been on overtime for the last 30 years!

[BBCWatcher]

My boss won't let me retire until I'm 75. (That's going to punch a hole in my SS if the CPF doesn't!).

At ordinary marginal U.S. income tax rates, true. It could be worse, and indeed it would have been if you weren't waiting until 70 to start collecting those U.S. Social Security retirement benefits. Well played, I'd say.

[Addadude]

This is why we all need to care more for the environment and think about the world that SMS and Keith Richards are going to have to live in.

[the lynx]

This is a rather transient place.

I dunno about that. I'm here 22 years and counting.

Well at least Brah will know that you, PNGMK and SMS are still around. He won't be so lonely after all

[rajagainstthemachine]

I'm still here and might be for another year or so at least. I could try and apply for PR but i know what chances i have with my race :S

[sundaymorningstaple]

I'm still here and might be for another year or so at least. I could try and apply for PR but i know what chances i have with my race :S

Heck, give it a try anyway, we've seen at least two recently who got approved that I wouldn't have given a chance in hell of approval. So, something is changing, slowly-slowly. One thing in your favour is you are not the stereotype. In fact, you are probably an outcast at home.

[ecureilx]

I'm still here and might be for another year or so at least. I could try and apply for PR but i know what chances i have with my race :S

Heck, give it a try anyway, we've seen at least two recently who got approved that I wouldn't have given a chance in hell of approval. So, something is changing, slowly-slowly. One thing in your favour is you are not the stereotype. In fact, you are probably an outcast at home.

Now only if ICA has a section to show how outcast a person can be, vs the stereotyped natives back home, I am sure me and RAT will score more than enough points there

[sundaymorningstaple]

Squirrel, as many times as you have changed employers here, they wouldn't give you PR. They'll fast track you straight to SC as you fit the local stereotype so well.

[rajagainstthemachine]

I'm still here and might be for another year or so at least. I could try and apply for PR but i know what chances i have with my race :S

Heck, give it a try anyway, we've seen at least two recently who got approved that I wouldn't have given a chance in hell of approval. So, something is changing, slowly-slowly. One thing in your favour is you are not the stereotype. In fact, you are probably an outcast at home.

i think i'll just say freak it! i'll just go ahead and apply this year and see what happens, i won't be disappointed if i'm don't get it. but yes I don't fit the stereotype and i'm already an outcast at home, got nowhere to go.
at least workwise I am not dependent on the Singapore economy, but i just hope it wont be a 2008 all over again.

[JR8]

i think i'll just say freak it! i'll just go ahead and apply this year and see what happens, i won't be disappointed if i'm don't get it. but yes I don't fit the stereotype and i'm already an outcast at home, got nowhere to go.

How well do you know London? I reckon you'd fit in naturally there (if you could deal with the winter and price of stuff).

[rajagainstthemachine]

i think i'll just say freak it! i'll just go ahead and apply this year and see what happens, i won't be disappointed if i'm don't get it. but yes I don't fit the stereotype and i'm already an outcast at home, got nowhere to go.

How well do you know London? I reckon you'd fit in naturally there (if you could deal with the winter and price of stuff).

lol i've been to the UK once, i stayed in the middle of nowhere really, in a place called winnersh Triangle, two stops from Reading. used to take the train to Wokingham and back and then endure a one hour trip to London on the slow train or a 30 min fast train to paddington lol, i think the winter would put me off more than the price of stuff. i hated the winter there, sun would set fast and it looked totally gloomy, the warm climes of south east Asia is more appealing. Then football, beer and music all a plus and a great timezone. i'm not sure if there are any companies that would offer me a job + a work visa there though, thats my feeling.

[JR8]

Ah that's right. Winnersh being in the UK's 'Silicone Triangle'. I had a friend who worked for MS or Google in that neighbourhood.

I can imagine there's quite some difference between living and working in London, vs having to do the daily commute out of London to work. Only relative advantage is you'd be reverse-commuting against the daily tide. Either way those overground commuter trains are quite a nightmare ($/over-crowded/often delayed etc). One time we had a corporate budget-cutting initiative, moving back-office functions out of the City. That meant reverse-commuting to Croydon of all dung-holes. You lose the sense of connection to the hub and the industry buzz of 'belonging' in the City. And appropriately, Croydon is where my career eventually fizzled out.

There was another parallel I did, of living in NYC commuter-belt and 'reverse-commuting', not to NYC but south to Rariton (business park) in central NJ. So my working day was spent in an anonymous old office block in the middle of a 1-2-3000 space car-park with zero facilities within walking distance, book-ended by battling vs commuters up and down the Garden State Parkway. Any time I went into NYC on a weekend it was like 'Woah, oh yeah, I really should have found a place to live here!'. Perhaps equiv. to you working at Winnersh, living in the M4 commuter-belt (Reading, Maidenhead etc), and occasionally getting to visit London.