Raise(gst) after raise(ministerial salary)

10 years ago

Parents: Ah boy, when you grow up what you wanna be?

Ah Boy: I wanna be a doctor/lawyer/engineer/architect

Parents: Good Ah Boy!


Now

Parents: Ah boy, when you grow up what you wanna be?

Ah Boy: I wanna be a Minister.

Parents: Very good Ah Boy!

What's my point here? Well, the following may gives you a better idea:

Annual salaries of heads of government:

1. Singapore Prime Minister US$1,100,000 (S$1,958,000) a year

2. United States of America President: US$200,000

3. United Kingdom Prime Minister: US$170,556

4. Australia Prime Minister: US$137,060

Annual salaries of heads of government:

1. Singapore Minister: US$819,124

2. UK Minister: US$146,299

3. US Cabinet Secretary: US$157,000

(Source: Asian Wall Street Journal 10 Jul 2000)

.....And now, another raise in time to come. How to not want to be a minister. With such high pay to help people and just blast them when they are asking for too much help...

ST Nov 29, 2006
Ministerial pay 'lags behind benchmark'
But decision on whether to relook salaries rests with PM, says SM Goh

By Sue-Ann Chia

BRATISLAVA (SLOVAKIA) - MINISTERS' salaries are pegged to that of the private sector, but they still lag behind the benchmark.

It is therefore likely that when civil service pay is reviewed, ministers' salaries will also be looked at, said Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday.

Last week, the Government indicated that salaries of civil servants are likely to go up as it must keep its wages competitive to recruit and retain talent in a tightening labour market.

At an interview yesterday wrapping up his visit to Europe, Mr Goh was asked about the likelihood of the pay increase, including for ministers.

He replied: 'Since the year 2000, six years have gone by with very good growth rates in some of the years, so it's time to have a look at the salary of the civil service as a whole, including the salary of the ministers.'

Right now, he said, ministers' pay packets are at 50 per cent of the benchmark, when they should be at two-thirds level.

According to the formula agreed upon for over a decade now, ministerial pay is benchmarked to the salaries of the top earners in six chosen professions. It is set at two-thirds the median income of the top eight earners in each of these six professions - that is, the pay of the individual at the mid-point of the list.

The online thief with no spell-checkers.

This must be the worst phishing letter I had ever received. But I took special note of it as it seemed to be from UOB, rather than the majority of them from banks you never heard before.

If anyone would actually fall for this, that person really deserves it. There are just so many suspicious points to this entire email.

The logo is too stretched, so many spelling and grammatical errors and what the hell is a Bank Review Department?

Shaken.. Not stirred.. (The Sinkapore version)

From Monk.. to Nun

As painful as this may seemed, I just can't help laughing...

Monk uses machete for unkindest cut

Bangkok - A Thai Buddhist monk cut off his penis with a machete because he had an erection during meditation(???) - and declined to have it reattached.

A doctor and a newspaper stated yesterday that the monk said he had renounced all earthly cares.

The 35-year-old monk, whose name was withheld, allowed medical staff at the Maharaj hospital, about 780km south of Bangkok, to dress his wound, but he refused reattachment, hospital chief Prawing Euanontouch said.

"We cleaned up the wound and gave him some stitches, but he declined to have his penis reattached because he said that he had abandoned everything," Prawing said.

The Singapore Rat Race

I totally empathize with Ms Tan. But comparing the situation from 1980s and now seems a bit unfair to me.

We don't have distractions like blackberry, handphone, pagers, emails back in 1980s.

Typewriters are still the most common office tool and Personal Computers was just released as a plausible replacement.

And life-long employment and iron rice bowl is something everyone work towards

With fierce competition marring businesses in any industries, things just had to be weighed in dollars and cents.

(Sadly) That's the reality of life now. I guess Ms Tan missed the conception and evolution of Globalization.

Indifference: The 'in' thing?

More means of communication now, yet HR has become less personal. Don't close mind to the suitability of contract workers for permanent jobs

Thursday • November 23, 2006

Letter from Zarina Jaffar
Letter from He Xiu Yun

MS CINDY Lit-Tan's observation of the indifferent attitudes towards job applicants ("Not hiring? Let job hunter know", Nov 21) rings true.

However, I would like to assure Ms Tan the practice of not informing applicants of the outcome is not an "archaic HR practice".

In the 1980s, when I was a fresh school-leaver, job interviewers were more caring and reassuring. There was no such thing as telling us to wait for a call and giving us that sense of false hope.

I received letters by post thanking me for my time and interest and telling me the company would keep me in mind for any other suitable post. Each time I received such a rejection letter, I felt glad the wait was over and grateful that the company had been courteous enough to respond. Such a company would always have my support and good wishes, despite the rejection.

When I applied for a job through employment agencies, it was a pleasant experience — a consultant would interview us personally to match us with suitable jobs.

Thus, when I accompanied my sister to register for a job recently, I was surprised to find that all the indifferent consultant had given her was a card with the website address. She was told to apply online. It all seems so cold and unwelcoming.

After 15 years as a homemaker, I intend to return to the working world now that my children are all independent. The job market and HR practices seem to have changed drastically — and for the worse.

Elaine's wedding

@Four seasons hotel on 21/11/06

To Derek & Elaine: may your marriage be full of bliss and joy.

Counting back, this is the fourth wedding I've attended for this year. A record attendance for me I must say. I wonder whose turn would it be for 2007?

Pictures from Singapore Motor Show 2006

My 27th Birthday

No prize for guessing where I spent my 27th birthday on 13th Nov. It sure didn't kick in how old I'm beginning to get until I went for a revision class yesterday at school. I have classmates from the full-time programme. Classmates who are 10 years younger than me. omg...

Then again, I always believe that men would look better with age. e.g. Pierce Brosnan. Of course a suit and an accent might helped.

Back to my itinerary.

We checked into The Sentosa (Or Beaufort) on Saturday's afternoon. I'd stayed in the Rasa Sentosa before twice so this makes for a good change.



The place reminds me of Nirwana @ Bintan. Very relaxing atmosphere that one should just pig out in.



We checked in without wasting much time. Needed the air-conditioning.

Wa Lah!



I love the extensive use of wood. It makes the room very cosy. Maybe a little too cosy because we spent too much time on the thick, comfortable beds.

And I also found out that my wife becomes excited when she got her feet wet.



And you gotta check out the pool. You could actually just walk in and take a look. There's no closed gates or anything like that.



Who knows, you may catch some eye candy.

Can't see? Hang on while I zoom in...



Not your cup of tea? How about some nice looking trees instead.



Very quickly, we proceeded to check out the Spa Botannica. This is supposedly one of the best(and most expensive) in Asia. Needless to say, we opted to give each other back rubs instead.



They have this seemingly very interesting mud pool. Just pay $15 and you get to try it, plus get to use the pool and relax at the waterfall(picture). But skip all other. Not worth the dollar in my opinion.



The most exciting thing we did must be the Luge ride. Or rather the Skyride up to the Luge ride.

I always thought I got over my fear of heights. How quickly one's opinion can change in a matter of minutes



I totally enjoyed myself on this. So long had never undergone such adrenalin pumping activities.



**To my wife: Thank you for the thought and planning you took for this to happen.

Insurance

I had always wanted to write something about this topic but my recent schedule has not been cooperative.

And it should be worse now that I just failed my IPPT. Now I have to go for Remedial Training twice a week for a full 4 weeks before my next attempt. And I failed by 6 secs for my 2.4km run. :(

Anyway the topic is insurance, not my fitness level.

Having read Mr Wang's dissection of a typical pitch, it sure makes one think again about forking out money after money is getting higher and higher coverage.

For my current portfolio, I'm already paying about $650 per month of premiums. And somehow it never seemed enough. One of my agent recently reviewd my policy and if I were to have myself "fully covered", I need to spend another $600 per month on new policies.

I was like "Wow". And my intial $650 was only achieved not so long ago. It was only $150 per month previously.

$1200 per month!. That is like someone else's salary. This is financial planning?

Even if I'm earning $10k a month, spending 10% of it on insurance seems ridiculously high. My savings may not even be at 10%, though I must admit that all my policies are ILP, which carries a return and thus a higher premium.

Yes, the probability of you dying may add a heavy boulder over your family's shoulder. But all of us only have finite amount of money. Would you prefer to throw all $$ into insurance and let your family become overnight millionaires, or should you use that money to better the quality of everday life with your family.

Quantity versus quality.

Post Note: Many of us should be familiar with this.

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CA Burger @ Changing Appetite

Following my attempt to try all the nice burgers I could possibly find, I made a trip to Changing Appetite at the advice of my new friend Kelvin.

He tried it after reading the rave review on Asiaone. And this guy is like the burger addict. So his recommendation alone should worth many pennies.

The place was having this Halloween theme on the day I was there. Zombies, nuns, monsters would be serving instead of your normal waiter(ess)



They sure took pains to do up the decor. But it could be a bit distracting to keep having such "creatures" breezing past the corner of your eye.


If you break it, you ate too much

The burger took quite a while to arrive but looking at the presentation, it sure was worth the wait.



And it came with my fave. ONIONS!!!

One shortcoming though. It made me realised why beef pattie in burger are so dry. So that they will hold together and not fall apart when you simply poke your fork into them. So my beef burger ended up becoming Minced Beef with bread.

A.k.a. Roti John.

And I think they can do a better job at melting the cheese over the pattie for some adhesive effect.

Overall it's nice. The serving is huge and the salad carries a huge portion.

But at $11.90, I can have two Botak burgers? ;)