Should I move to Singapore?

[disenchanted]

Unless the person who interviews you happens to believe in the patriotism of a country or the payback required for the socio-economic safety provided during your years of growing up, then you will probably never see the 2nd interview. There are lot's of them running and working in all fields of work everywhere in the world. In fact, most countries give extra points to job applicants who have performed military service, especially in the home country. Same for jobs in the various countries civil services.

You don't get paid for preaching here nor do you get paid for ranting here, and frankly, that is about all your posts are doing. They are your personal rant. Preaching is usually for something beneficial. I can see you will never be a true citizen to any country because you find nothing worth fighting for. I actually feel sorry for you. Good luck. You are going to need it.

Call it whatever you want. But thanks, appreciate it.

[taxico]

son,

it's just an internet forum. breathe.

[disenchanted]

son,

it's just an internet forum. breathe.

I know.. I know how rant-ish it all sounded but personal experiences, be them good or bad, define your point of view. Most of you people seemed to have a good time here. I have been through too many things I disagree with to live happily, and all I want to say is those (especially younger people) considering Singapore, don't ignore that. You may be next if you're too idealistic and naive.

[taxico]

i went through tough times too, in int'l school, local schools, during NS and at work. i spent 10 years growing up here and i still don't fit in! life goes on.

you cited HK and taiwan as alternatives - they have their problems and downsides too. i believe there is no "perfect" country.

your experience is not going to be identical to another person's. perhaps a weaker man might have considered suicide in your shoes. a stronger one may brush it off and move on.

IMO none of singapore's "problems" are well hidden. they are reported and plenty of information is available on the internet, including many with experience like yours.

but their (including your parents') lack of foresight/hindsight is not singapore's fault. my advice is to harden up and push on - and you'll do just fine.

[Brah]

I know.. I know how rant-ish it all sounded but personal experiences, be them good or bad, define your point of view. Most of you people seemed to have a good time here. I have been through too many things I disagree with to live happily, and all I want to say is those (especially younger people) considering Singapore, don't ignore that. You may be next if you're too idealistic and naive.

I for one found your perspective a fresh one on this forum. Keep posting.

[Girl_Next_Door]

I have a few thoughts on the 2 years NS, so feel free to chip in (agreeing or disagreeing). Of course, I am speaking from a female perspective.

Do guys really think the 2 years of NS makes a huge differences towards your career, especially when you see your entire career path in totality? I have been working for about 10 years now, similarly to most of my school mates. Most of us started out at the same salary when we graduate. The guys served 2 years of NS. The top student in my class is now a housewife while another is working as an internal auditor for a factory. The guy who was at the bottom of the class is driving a posche (fully paid).

To me, 2 years might sound like a lot, when you are at the start of your career. However, after a number of years, whether you make it or break it, is largely dependent on yourself. You see self-made billionaire below 30. You also see self-made billionaire in their 50s.

NS is always a sensitive topic, to locals and foreigners who have to serve it. Nobody is right or wrong, and everyone is entitled to their own view. Some disagree on the concept and practicality of it, but if you choose to stay in Singapore, you have to accept the rules that is set (whatever it is). One man's meat is another man's poison.

If you choose not to accept the rules (or accept it selectively, whichever goes your way), nobody is stopping you from leaving. I just don't think using the 2 years as putting yourself backwards in life/career, is a strong reason. It sound more like an excuse.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I'm afraid I have to agree with her. Especially looking at it with 40 years of hindsight.

[disenchanted]

Brah, thank you, I appreciate it although I'd rather not have that fresh perspective now..

Girl_Next_Door, sorry to disagree but army is not only about the time you spend there. The thing that bothers me the most is how mind-numbing, inefficient and oppressive environment it is. I don't mind serving the greater good for some time but in reality it feels like the entire job can be done by a quarter of the people and 75% of your time and effort is simply wasted away since its compulsory for everyone and they have excess manpower. Add the same process for a very tangible portion of your life and you will understand the (frequently latent, as majority wouldn't want to 'lose face' as I voluntarily do here) frustrations of NS liable males.

Its rather hard to think positively of a country that is not only sick of foreigners (when I'm outside wearing civilian clothes I do get that vibe), you feel is wasting your time and energy and after you're done, and burdens you with ridiculous expenses with little positive perspectives for future. You may simply feel screwed over.

Its very encouraging that your classmate succeeded in life afterwards. I do hope eventually NS only remains a distant memory but being inside of it and not even believing in your 'job' making any sense is extremely draggy.

i went through tough times too, in int'l school, local schools, during NS and at work. i spent 10 years growing up here and i still don't fit in! life goes on.

you cited HK and taiwan as alternatives - they have their problems and downsides too. i believe there is no "perfect" country.

your experience is not going to be identical to another person's. perhaps a weaker man might have considered suicide in your shoes. a stronger one may brush it off and move on.

IMO none of singapore's "problems" are well hidden. they are reported and plenty of information is available on the internet, including many with experience like yours.

but their (including your parents') lack of foresight/hindsight is not singapore's fault. my advice is to harden up and push on - and you'll do just fine.

Thanks for overall support. I can imagine you went through lots of comparable frustrations yourself when you were of my age. Just for the record, I agree there's plenty of similar statements as mine online but a bulk of them in Singlish which is completely alien to most foreigners who might be starting their research.

And just to add, yes there are no perfect countries, but different people suit different countries more than others. Again, I don't want to sound accusatory and I know I only have myself to blame for all that happened to me over the past years, but Singapore has plenty of peculiarities that majority of outsiders don't even understand, yet often try to downplay. NS, love it or hate it, is just one of them and in my particular case it was just the last droplet of water that spilled the bucket. Regards.

[Wd40]

I have a few thoughts on the 2 years NS, so feel free to chip in (agreeing or disagreeing). Of course, I am speaking from a female perspective.

Do guys really think the 2 years of NS makes a huge differences towards your career, especially when you see your entire career path in totality? I have been working for about 10 years now, similarly to most of my school mates. Most of us started out at the same salary when we graduate. The guys served 2 years of NS. The top student in my class is now a housewife while another is working as an internal auditor for a factory. The guy who was at the bottom of the class is driving a posche (fully paid).

To me, 2 years might sound like a lot, when you are at the start of your career. However, after a number of years, whether you make it or break it, is largely dependent on yourself. You see self-made billionaire below 30. You also see self-made billionaire in their 50s.

NS is always a sensitive topic, to locals and foreigners who have to serve it. Nobody is right or wrong, and everyone is entitled to their own view. Some disagree on the concept and practicality of it, but if you choose to stay in Singapore, you have to accept the rules that is set (whatever it is). One man's meat is another man's poison.

If you choose not to accept the rules (or accept it selectively, whichever goes your way), nobody is stopping you from leaving. I just don't think using the 2 years as putting yourself backwards in life/career, is a strong reason. It sound more like an excuse.

Well, I do think that 2 years matter. It depends on which 2 years. The market is very cyclical. If you enter the industry during the right year you can make a fortune throughout your career, whereas if you enter the market 2 years later and its a recession, your entire career is f**ked.

I know plenty of cases where people who graduated during boom times, whether its the IT boom or the financial boom are now happily settled in the US, whereas guys of equal caliber who graduated during recession couldnt ever get back to the kind of career path that they would have otherwise got.

I know there is an element of luck associated with it, but just think about it. People who would have otherwise graduated in the year 2006 during the boom time and made a great career, because of NS they graduated in 2008 and would be cursing it.

When you spend 2 years in NS and if those 2 years somehow cause you to miss out on 2 years of boom, then its a real loss, because remember in our lifetime, you arent gonna get too many of those boom periods, just a few and you need to make the most of them.

[Brah]

Maybe the question to ask is by contrast, for those who served elsewhere and not during war time, did their experience pay off in the long run?

I can see how high school dropouts and maybe others without a solid future or clear direction would benefit from the regimen, training, physical fitness, and disciple; how much of what was learned paid off for after service - was it time well spent, or would it have been better spent in schooling or work?

That may be missing the point as the duty to serve is a duty and not a choice, but as I didn't I don't have that perspective.

[taxico]

i joined the ARMY ROTC (voluntarily), completed my 2.5 years of NS in singapore, went back to the US to complete my training as a cadet and received a commission (voluntarily), and then entered active duty (voluntarily).

i cannot summarize my experience in a single post. i cannot espouse the the lessons from challenges i faced during those days in even a 100 posts.

but i will say that i'm a better person because of everything thrown at me and that i've learned to appreciate life and the notion of "possibilities" by pushing the limits (known and unknown).

despite being able to take the easy way out at so many points in my life, i didn't.

with hindsight, i daren't say i would choose to make the same decisions again if i could relive my life... but i know right now i have no regrets.

making a choice to fulfill an obligation by going through the motions is markedly different from answering AND going beyond the call of duty.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Frankly, I was gonna roast him. As a veteran I'm pretty disgusted at the crap I'm hearing.

[Girl_Next_Door]

Girl_Next_Door, sorry to disagree but army is not only about the time you spend there. The thing that bothers me the most is how mind-numbing, inefficient and oppressive environment it is. I don't mind serving the greater good for some time but in reality it feels like the entire job can be done by a quarter of the people and 75% of your time and effort is simply wasted away since its compulsory for everyone and they have excess manpower. Add the same process for a very tangible portion of your life and you will understand the (frequently latent, as majority wouldn't want to 'lose face' as I voluntarily do here) frustrations of NS liable males.

I can't help laughing at this paragraph. You have just described many organizations/companies in Singapore as well as Globally, and unfortunately, changing job doesn't often means the end of this environment. You should save this posting and re-read this entire posting 10 years from now. If you are lucky enough to have experienced life, you might be able to see things differently.

Well, I do think that 2 years matter. It depends on which 2 years. The market is very cyclical. If you enter the industry during the right year you can make a fortune throughout your career, whereas if you enter the market 2 years later and its a recession, your entire career is f**ked.

You already said yourself that the market is cyclical, which means it moves in cycles (in case you don't understand the words that you used). If you seriously think 2 years differences will f**k up your entire career, your career life is either very short or you need to evaluate if the problem actually lies in you (not the timing) or the career path that you have picked (maybe its simply a field you will never ever excel in). The same theory goes back to a billionaire who earns his bucket of gold in his 50s. Does that mean that his life is already f**ked up, because he did it only in his 50s? How about the billions of people who never earn their billion dollar or even their million dollar?

[disenchanted]

Girl_Next_Door, then imagine doing the same thing, complete with dumb office politics, with negligible income. Besides, if a private company really was as wasteful as the SAF, it would be long gone.

Frankly, I was gonna roast him. As a veteran I'm pretty disgusted at the crap I'm hearing.

If you're proud of your own time in the army, then good for you, especially that you served during a very serious and tough conflict and I understand your perception of NS must be like of a holiday camp. I disagree with most of your posts on it but I don't dismiss what you say as 'crap.' Can we please continue the good tradition of respecting fellow posters here? Especially that whether I/you like it or not, I actually DID enlist unlike lots of other PRs who chose to use the system first and bailed out on the last minute yet later proclaim how much they miss Singapore. Maybe you may find my posts disagreeable and myself annoying, but at least I'm honest and sincere in what I do and say in life.

Taxico, also, lots of respect for commissioning in the US. Both you and SMS apparently spend the time with sense of achievement and of constructive work being done. I have no idea how was it back during the draft and after it in the US army/Navy/USAF or even SAF during your days, but in the camp I'm at, pretty much everyone but regulars feels they're wasting time doing silly jobs. Even during my BMT last year, we spend ridiculously little time doing actual training. I'm not frustrated at 'tough' things being thrown at me, but rather by pointless things when I expected and hoped to gain real skills and contribute in a real sense. And from my own observations, majority of NSFs has pretty similar mundane and 'unglamorous' vocations.

From this heated discussion I think we can clearly say that both army life and Singapore is obviously not for everybody. If it fits you then enjoy it. But countless folks before me, both expats and locals, also left feeling they have better perspectives in their own areas elsewhere or because they simply liked some other place better and felt more at home there. I wasn't one of those kids who hated Singapore from the very beginning, In fact I loved it a lot and now I simply don't after realizing its not for me. Is it a sin or can anybody be wrong saying they don't fit in somewhere? Personally I knew I'd have to pay the price of being here and wasn't too happy about it even before enlisting, but so I am actually doing it. But I hope for others to think more carefully if Singapore is really the place for themselves, that would justify the 2 years in the NS for those who might face it.

[sundaymorningstaple]

You will find, once you get out of the military and into the real world, your jobs will be much the same. Good bits followed by longer bit a tedium. Just like the military. But unlike the military, you can always quit and find another job, which will be just more of the same. Good bits interspersed with longer bits of tedium. That's life. Everybody who ever went into the military thinks the same way. But most always take something away from it that will stay with them. The deal with the 2 years of wasted time is a washout that doesn't work in my opinion. The average person changes their careers at least once or twice during their working life, so it really doesn't make a damn bit of difference as your first career will probably be short lived anyway. Most don't really find their stride until later. I doubt you will be any different. Hell, I'm on my third career now and still not looking to slow down, having done 180's each time I changed my direction in life. And, while I haven't flown since I was discharged, there are bits of my military life that are still with me even today (not counting the occasional dreams). Would I do it again? Yes. Do I miss it? No. Was it necessary? Yes but the conflict wasn't - but I am patriotic and I do believe in 'giri' and think that's what's missing in today's youth. I don't mean to ruffle your feathers, but I firmly believe that we all need to prep ourselves for any eventuality. Sorry for coming down hard.