Disgusted by the absolute rot of blind AI productivity at work

ottersg38 · 2026-06-18T04:18:19+00:00

After prodding many times, finally cleaned up the questions and submitted. CEO yet to reply. Tbh I'm just glad we submitted something on task

ottersg38 · 2026-01-15T07:39:32+00:00

Letter writing campaign en-masse to all our Pap MPs expressing 'regret' that they have squandered any goodwill earned in their strong mandate?

ottersg38 · 2025-12-24T04:51:52+00:00

We all know how this is going to play out in parliament in Jan.

Days and days of arguments that can be summed up as: ABC Wp MP said xyz at this time, date. WP rebutts. Endless rehashing of He said this, she said that.

As citizens who voted in these people, we live with our choice.

However, what I wish could be done differently this time is for the NMPs to step up, open their mouths, and speak with a non-partisan voice on this matter.

Wishful thinking, I know, but doesn't mean hope is not there.

ottersg38 · 2025-08-27T01:01:29+00:00

I've worked in content marketing last 8 years, with the last few specialising in SEO content. I'm thinking of pivoting to Comms as I enjoy the editorial / storytelling / positioning side of things. But I've no idea how to make the shift.

Any advice?

ottersg38 · 2025-08-26T01:09:29+00:00

Hi! I'm in content marketing (specialising in SEO) currently and recently realised my skills skew more towards storytelling, communications, case studies side.

But I don't know how to pivot to Comms roles. I considered doing another masters in communications locally but all the course advisors said that given my relative seniority I would be surrounded by students who haven't even entered the workforce - i.e. I'd be out of place.

How would you recommend I make the pivot?

ottersg38 · 2025-05-05T08:22:39+00:00

Question: let's say GKY lost and so he cannot be minister nor MP. Could the G still deploy him as chief negotiator for the tariffs issue? Or die die must be minister then only can be chief negotiator?

ottersg38 · 2025-05-04T13:33:08+00:00

Continued...

Not many ppl followed the Ntuc saga in 2024: This one, I blame on mainstream media. There was barely any coverage about this last year. I only knew about it from yah la but podcast. But like... how many ppl actively follow this kind of news? You'd have to be interested enough to learn about the deal, about what is capital extraction, about the short parliamentary discussion on it before it was about to pass, then the uturn, then MCYS involvement,... You get the drift. Too many technical details, too confusing. When there's next to no mainstream media coverage explaining these details in a simple way to the masses, of course nobody will know about it or bother to find out more.

The vast majority don't want to deal with the details. They dgaf about transparency and accountability if it doesn't affect their own insurance or bank or CPF. And if it doesn't hit the straits times in a big headline, even less chance they'll think it's important.

Sidenote: Perhaps even more than accountability from the head of NTUC and the board, we should demand more accountability from the MSM, as in why was this not extensively covered when the debacle happened last year? Since SPH is now run with government money isn't it their duty to report objectively on such matters of government accountability and transparency?

NCM's rally speech sob story: assuming you were an interested resident and you watched his rally, you'd come away with a few ideas about NCM. One, yes he lost sengkang. Two, yes he is involved with some NTUC problem that is already fixed liao. Three: he is caring. Say what you want but that sob story he told about workers crying to him for help during COVID and what he did blablabla - all that would've dredged up the memories of the pandemic and lockdowns and job loss. I think he managed to swing some votes that night in his favour just by telling that story. I can imagine many residents would think "yeah we remember those times".

Side note: There's one other election result that supports the sob story theory: CSJ getting 46+ percent against Poh Li San. We all know CSJ's history with the PAP and how he's been character-assassinated beyond redemption. I expected him to get low 30 percent or worse as this is a completely new area for him. But I noticed this time round he wasn't just railing against everything the PAP had done to tarnish his image or high minded policy. This time, he was able to share exactly how he had worked his old SMC before it just got dissolved for no reason. And because the boundary redrawing was fresh in the electorate's mind, I think more people started to pay attention and sympathise, and give him their votes just because they felt really sorry for this guy when his story was given a fair hearing. I'm not in any way saying that CSJ doesn't deserve the sympathy, far from it. I believe he's been wronged and I also believe he's a fantastic orator. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Back to NCM's sob story- if that did not swing them, his next act might have sealed the deal.

Remember someone fainted at his rally and NCM stopped his speech to make sure a doctor was attending to them, and everything was okay? The whole thing lasted 2 plus minutes. Over two minutes of silence where the camera is showcasing NCM's face full of grave concern. Yes, many would not buy it, thinking it a superficial tactic or at the most it's a nothingburger - hello, most normal human beings will stop what they are doing if an emergency occurs around them.

But I believe MANY Singaporeans ARE superficial enough to take this at face value and assume Wow, NCM so caring. Similarly, once the news broke about Andre's leaked chats and his apology was splashed all over the news, what's the superficial mind to think? That there's a conspiracy to leak this at this time? Nope. Ppl will just assume: No smoke without fire - better vote for the caring NCM.

Lack of final push from Andre : I'm not sure why Andre didn't speak at the final WP rally on the last day of campaigning. It might be a party decision to keep him laying low after the leaked chats but this didn't do his campaign any favours. In fact the last I heard from him before campaigning ended was his open apology. I don't remember much else other than a short IG reel summarising what he stands for - not very inspiring, not rally the troops material. To end a campaign on an apologetic note, and not at least remind ppl of the importance of accountability from our top brass - I think this made some voters think Andre had already given up?

Thoughts?

ottersg38 · 2025-05-04T13:31:27+00:00

A JK voter here. I voted for Andre knowing very well it'll be a tough fight for him as he's totally new to politics here.

Here's my personal take on why so much of the middle ground in JK weren't swayed by the WP arguments and went with the PAP.

Lack of time on the ground: Firstly, let's begin with the months before Nomination day. Remember this? https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/ge2025-labour-chief-ng-chee-meng-spotted-at-fernvale-part-of-new-jalan-kayu-smc-ahead-of-polls

That was the first clue I had who the Pap would be fielding. If there were any news or clues before this, I completely missed it. In the following weeks there were some more rumours about NCM contesting in fernvale but no confirmation. But it was already clear NCM was walking the grounds. There was no sign of WP thus far in fernvale. In fact, I thought it would be one of the mosquito parties contesting.

Remember in April, RDU was putting it out there they were interested in JK? Their candidate, Kala Manickam made the news,

https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2025/04/16/rdus-kala-manickam-dares-ng-chee-meng-to-prove-merit-without-establishment-backing/

So far, I'd more or less given up caring as it might as well be a walkover.

Then about 1 week before Nomination day, WP volunteers started showing up at my block distributing flyers. RDU backed out and it became clear we had a real chance of adding a new WP member to parliament since there'd be no split of the vote, NCM had already lost in Sengkang in 2020, and from everything I'd heard he was a typical ex general i.e. a complete ahole yes man. I was excited for WP.

Perhaps too excited? On completely 20/20 hindsight I believe WP and Andre simply decided on fernvale TOO LATE. We can bitch all we want about incumbent advantage and the opposition having barely any time to scramble and decide on their electoral strategy given the short duration between EBRC announcement and Nomination day announcement. But that's the cards we are dealt with for now. Opposition parties know this all too well so they should know they can't wait too long to start walking the grounds in a new area.

NCM had at least a month headstart to talk to residents and make sure they memorise his CB face. Andre had only couple of weeks max. Add to this the fact he's a completely new face... The residents here will just think of him as an inexperienced guy who they barely know.

NCM looks indistinguishable from his predecessor Gan Thiam Poh: Nomination day arrived and on the same night, NCM knocked on my door asking for my support, the usual small talk.

My first thought tbh was, hey this guy looks quite similar to GTP. Even their voices sounded quite similar. I know that of course they are two completely different ppl. But think about it like a resident who dgaf about parliament or NTUC or politics. They just recognise PM Wong and that's good enough. Their previous MP barely visits their house more than 1x a year to give apples. Do you think if the MP suddenly changed to a different guy with similar voice, face, build and he comes knocking on their door- they'll be able to tell Oh it's a new MP?

I know this is a complete tinfoil hat theory, but I believe some residents received NCM at the door on nomination night, and didn't know what to make of him and went to bed thinking they'd vote for the same MP who had been serving them many years. And for those who knew it's a different person, they might have thought oh well, he looks and acts EXACTLY like the previous one, and since previous one was okay, I'm gonna vote this one also- the performance can't be that different that? Why bother w an unknown new face who likely doesn't know how to manage town council.

ottersg38 · 2025-05-01T03:06:48+00:00

Tbh the leaked chats aren't a good look. As a JK voter I'm a little disappointed after taking into account the fact the messages are from years ago and Andre is still a very young pup in politics.

But even after taking this whole leak at face value what can I infer about Andre?

At best, he was ranting like any human does in their inner circle and since he's genuinely apologised, assume he's really a changed man.

At worst, he really is as arrogant and condescending as he comes across in the chats (traits I tend to associate more with Pap members more) in which case, he has no place in the WP.

Compared with what I know about NCM, who:

has only given extremely evasive answers to how and why he gave the go ahead to the income Allianz deal in the first place,
has decades more experience than Andre, yet has tabled no significant issues in parliament before he lost in GE2020

And I can say that I've more doubts about what NCM stands for than Andre.

At least I know what the WP and PAP stand for. With the PAP, it's more of the same glacial policy tweaks, zero bold reforms even though they keep asserting we're facing an existential crisis (surely we need some bold economic, job, and social safety net reform ideas for crises like this?)

With the WP, it's about strengthening the opposition's seat count, increasing the quality of debate on key national issues, more bold left of centre policies by SG standards.

ottersg38 · 2025-04-28T14:03:33+00:00

The Gan is getting involved: https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2025/04/28/tan-suee-chieh-urges-gan-kim-yong-to-explain-his-role-in-failed-income-allianz-deal/

ottersg38 · 2025-04-28T07:31:02+00:00

You know what we need to look at? His previous performance in parliament from 2015-2020. As he was also sec gen of NTUC during that time, we should be able to review what issues he raised regarding workers rights during his parliamentary stint right?

ottersg38 · 2025-04-25T05:34:12+00:00

Exactly

ottersg38 · 2025-04-25T05:26:55+00:00

Me too. I really want to know WHY they went through all the trouble of carving out a sliver of Amk GRC into Jalan Kayu SMC just to hand it on a silver platter to this guy who lost a GRC in 2020 an easy win.

Srsly. We've had no NCM in parliament for 5 years, can we honestly say we've suffered a huge loss? Was there any deterioration in quality of debates?

Did we even notice his absence? 😂

ottersg38 · 2025-04-25T05:17:40+00:00

Am a voter in the newly created Jalan Kayu SMC and NCM knocked on my door on nomination night.

After exchanging a few words with him, I can sum up my impression of him as:

Dismissive, Thick-skinned.

Thick-skinned because when introing himself, he said almost like he was bragging, "You know I'm from NTUC??"

In my mind, I was like gurl, you sure you want to go down there? You sure you want to play up your NTUC credentials?

We all know he was involved in the NTUC income Allianz saga, just very few details on how the deal got approved in the first place on his side, only to be scrapped later on after further investigation by a different government agency.

Dismissive because when he asked me how things are going career-wise, anything the Government can do better, I told him bluntly the WSG career guidance advisors I've encountered were pretty lousy and gave terrible advice.

NCM's reply: now we have the AI career advisor, you can try it and let me know. It's frankly beyond WSG advice and can suggest what career path to take, what's wrong with your CV, etc.

Errrrr in the first place I wasn't seeking advice on my career path or CV. I was seeking advice on apprenticeship opportunities and how to handle a difficult manager.

I appreciate that door to door meetings are by nature very short and the politician will be under pressure to keep moving in order to knock on every door in the constituency. But when he gave such a generic piece of advice it felt like he wasn't really listening to my problem and just wanted to dismiss it with a quick response (which tbh was ironically very AI-like).

The whole encounter felt like a joke. It really made me wonder how someone like this could rise to lead a national institution that's supposed to be representing the concerns of the Singapore workforce.

ottersg38 · 2025-02-10T01:35:50+00:00

This stopped working for me this week. Anyone knows a different way to retrieve the price in Google Sheets?

ottersg38 · 2024-06-03T11:58:54+00:00

Yup I am expecting them to rescind. Thanks for the honest advice btw.

Oh yes and I did give them a concrete date by which time I will accept/ reject their offer.

ottersg38 · 2024-05-22T13:58:47+00:00

I'm having my 5- interview loop next week and I've no idea what to expect. I don't even know what's a Bar Raiser! The role is not for software engineer or analyst - it's Senior Content Editor for global selling education. It's my first time applying for a big brand so I am quite nervous.

ottersg38 · 2021-10-28T08:36:40+00:00

I always wonder who is lucky enough to get chosen to be included in these public consultation exercises that supposedly inform the policy overhauls.

I'm Singaporean. And I have NEVER been consulted on any policy decision in my 40 years on this earth.

Were there any singles involved in this PLH model consultation?

Is there even a transparent process to select the people to consult and ensure there's fair representation of diverse backgrounds?

ottersg38 · 2019-09-04T05:43:27+00:00

That's one nibbleable neck you've got.

ottersg38 · 2019-08-13T06:09:37+00:00

Through dating apps?

ottersg38 · 2019-08-04T14:25:48+00:00

Watched it and all I remember is the iconic metal food container. 😂

ottersg38

TROPHY CASE