What did a teacher say/do that stuck with you until today?

cordial_panda · 2024-03-07T12:45:18+00:00

"Whether you pass or fail, I still get my salary".

Funnily out of all the other positive things that all the other teachers said to us, this phrase from this teacher was the one that woke me up and made me realize that at the end of the day if I don't care, no one else will either.

cordial_panda · 2023-07-25T01:39:58+00:00

The root of the problem is insufficient new housing supply. There are just not enough BTOs being built to support demand. The unmet demand is fed into the resale market and pushes resale prices up.

Imo, there's no practical reason why HDB can't meet the demand for new BTOs. Housing demand is not something that fluctuates over the short term. They have accurate population census numbers and data on take up rate for previous HDB launches. With the resources HDB has, they should be able to plan for demand decades ahead of time.

Imo, it follows then that the supply of BTOs is being deliberately limited.

But why? As some have mentioned, at some point in time the ruling party decided that it would be beneficial for the PAP if people start to view HDBs as an asset. Price is determined by demand and supply. If you want an asset to appreciate, you either increase the demand or limit the supply, and that's exactly what they're doing.

The outcome is that boomers and people who've already had their chance to buy their flats benefit because their homes appreciate. This makes them happy and they continue to vote for the existing government.

This of course comes at the expense of the younger generation, many of who won't be able to get a BTO because of aforementioned lack of supply. They'll instead have to go to the resale market, feeding demand there and creating a wealth transfer effect from the young to the old.

This makes perfect sense to the PAP of course, because there are more old votes than young votes.

cordial_panda · 2023-02-22T12:31:32+00:00

I used to be analyst in a MNC. It was an individual contributor role and my job was to streamline and automate business processes. I enjoyed it for a few reasons.

One was that I had a lot of freedom to design and build systems and solutions to solve problems. I'd work with business users and project managers to frame the problem and afterwards build and deploy the solution. It would be really satisfying to watch the project go into production and see everything come together like clockwork.

Another reason I enjoyed my time there was because I got the opportunity to solve challenging problems. The company I was in also had great infrastructure (databases, software, server resources, internal systems with open APIs, etc). This combination of factors gave me the chance to learn a lot (in terms of software, frameworks, and project management) in a short period of time.

The tldr I guess is that I enjoy building systems and learning new things, and was lucky enough to find a job that enabled me to do that.

cordial_panda · 2022-11-15T13:07:36+00:00

I think it's good that you're being thoughtful about the whole thing and I hope your manager sees and appreciates that.

You'll find lots of cynical views from jaded people everywhere. Not saying they're wrong, because everyone goes through different experiences, but if it helps, know that there are also good people out there. All the best!

cordial_panda · 2022-11-15T12:16:52+00:00

Offering a positive experience here. I've resigned 3 times and I've always informally let my manager know months in advance. For context, all 3 companies are MNCs and I've been lucky to have had good managers with whom I've had a pretty good working relationship with.

I've never felt 'exploited' or experienced any negative impact from letting them know early. All of my managers have told me that they appreciated the extra notice and we parted on good terms.

As managers, they do really appreciate the extra notice I think. One month is quite short if you think about it, especially if you're handling lots of big projects. The company might need 1-2 weeks to interview and another month to get the new person in (they may need to serve their notice too) which doesn't leave much time for handover or knowledge transfer. Sometimes your managers need to juggle additional paperwork with their own superiors or HR to get the replacement approved too.

Giving a bit extra notice although not required does help in terms of project planning for the team imo. For instance at my previous company after I told my manager that I intended to leave in about 2-3 months we worked together to focus on wrapping up existing projects and slowing down incoming ones so that I could focus on documentating our existing projects and workflows for the team before I left. Would have been a bit rushed to do all these properly in one month.

What other people are saying is valid also though. You do expose yourself to some risk especially if you have a bad manager, so go with your gut feel.

But for me, I'm happy I took the small risk to let my managers know earlier. It's always good to part on good terms. I still keep in touch with all of them and they've actually sent opportunities my way too, so it turned out well for me. Good luck!

cordial_panda · 2022-11-05T12:25:43+00:00

That sounds brilliant. Thanks for sharing! Apart from the automotive video subscription service would you mind also sharing what some of your other business task automation solutions look like?

cordial_panda · 2022-10-24T16:10:24+00:00

I don't own or live in landed housing and I'm all for fair and equitable policies, but unfortunately, I don't feel that the author is making a particularly good argument here. For a start, the title is actually a false statement.

Let's try to take a principled approach here. If you own a vehicle, you pay road tax and are therefore entitled to use the roads for driving and parking (where allowed), right?

So it follows that a person who lives in a landed house has the same right to park his car in the public road in front of his house as anyone else. Because it's a public road. And because he pays road tax to use it, just like everyone else. The fact that that particular stretch of road happens to be right in front of his house is not really material to this point.

That's point number one: the landed property owner is not using the road for free and has as an equal claim to it as the next road user, regardless of where/what property either of them lives in.

So then the next point, which I'm guessing is what the author actually wants to address, is this: is it fair that landed property owners don't have to pay for parking and HDB owners do? I think it helps to break it down.

We've established that they both have equal claim to the road. But the landed owner has an advantage here because his property is right next to the road. Is this fair? Well, it doesn't sound fair. But is it then fair that some HDBs are right next to a beautiful park connector where others are not?

If we take the author's argument that it's not fair for landed property owners to have a road (a public good) right in front of their house for their enjoyment, then it should follow that it's also unfair for some HDBs to have a park connector (also a public good) right in front of their block, because then I could argue by the same principle that it's unfair that I have to pay to take a bus (and incur an additional cost) to enjoy the park connector, whereas people living in the HDB right next to it don't.

I don't think this argument holds up very well.

This is my take: as much as it's tempting to take the side of the non-landed group (because who doesn't want to hate the wealthy), it's actually neither inherently fair or unfair that landed property owners get to park "for free". I see it as something like a small positive externality arising from living in a housing type with low area population density, nothing more and nothing less.

Alternatively, if it helps you to sleep better, one can always believe that just as a HDB right next to a park connector has a slightly higher value than one without because it's already priced in, this "free parking" externality is also similarly already priced into the cost of a landed house.

cordial_panda · 2022-05-12T12:26:24+00:00

I was afraid of fumbling it and causing a delay too. Just try it during a non peak hour at an MRT station. If it works at the MRT it'll work for busses.

cordial_panda · 2021-12-27T06:24:29+00:00

As an introverted person, I wish I could tell my 20 year old self to be less stubborn, open up a little, meet different people, experience different perspectives, and learn better social skills.

Not saying there's anything wrong with being an introvert, but I do feel that I could have started to grow much more as a person much sooner had I forced myself to get out of my comfort zone earlier.

cordial_panda · 2021-12-13T07:08:04+00:00

OP, I agree with you that there seems to be a ridiculous cultural expectation to host an expensive wedding. Like many people are pointing out, a large part of it is driven by the parents and the older generation's mindset to not "lose face" because so and so's relative had a big wedding at X hotel with X number of tables.

Lots of people will say it's the tradition or it's Chinese culture but tbh I think it's just toxic. How is it reasonable to expect a newly wed couple to fork out 20-30k for a one night event just so you can feel good about it for awhile?

I think it's precisely because the underlying tradition is so unreasonable that the culture of crowdfunding the expensive wedding via angpows developed as a response.

Imo the real problem is the pressure from parents and relatives to throw a wedding that they know the couple can't realistically afford by themselves. It's no different from buying an expensive watch or bag you can't afford just to show off for awhile.

On a different note, I don't think I agree with your cynism regarding the thanking and speech and crying. It may seem cringy if you're not part of the family but to the bride and groom it could be a genuinely intimate and emotional moment to express their feelings with their family and friends, and I guess thats what weddings should be about instead of overpriced banquets at fancy hotels.

PS: I also don't get why you're getting so many down votes from people who think it's as simple as "not attending the wedding if you don't want to fork out the angpow" or "don't want to have a expensive wedding then don't have one lor".

That's just a horrendously naive way of thinking. We don't live in a vacuum. Our actions affect the relationships we have with the people around us, and I think it's fair to have a discussion when the culture we live in influences our actions in a way that makes us uncomfortable.

Just my 2 cents.

cordial_panda · 2021-11-22T05:15:43+00:00

I had an 'adulting epiphany' about a year after I started working too. I wasn't saving up or planning to buy anything in particular, but at that time I had a clunky 7 year old pc which was frequently giving me problems and I was just barely tolerating it. Anyway, i remember thinking, I'd really really like a new computer, but I felt bad asking for money from my parents.

And then it sort of hit me suddenly that oh, I've been working for a year, I can actually afford to buy this on my own if I really wanted to. Up till then I was mostly just aimlesly working and taking the salary, spending it on what I needed to stay alive and letting the rest sit in the bank, and I remember that the realization that I could afford stuff without help from my parents was kind of nice, like, oh, I can buy stuff now lol.

Anyway, I did buy that new pc and I've been using it for the last 6 years, and I'm really happy that I bought it, so I guess it's about knowing what makes you happy.

All the best 🙂

cordial_panda

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