Hire in Singapore like a Boss

A lot of Singaporean have been ranting that the foreigners are taking away all the jobs. Most of them are undergraduate that have no ideal goals, who just wants to be an average Joe. I am a university undergraduate living in Singapore too. I too, am unhappy about foreigners snatching our job. But if you can think like a boss, you will understand why foreigners are hired instead of local.

So you just started your company, small and volatile. Any mistake made could mean the downfall of your company. Certainly you do not want that to happen. Definitely you will need someone more hardworking, reliable, educated and cheap. So does a typical Singaporean have any of these traits? On the surface, it seems like a yes. Actually, no, it is not always the case. Not to be sexist but, this is even true when it comes to Singaporean male. Why? Singaporean males still need to go for re-service in National Service. Mind you, I am a PES B NSmen. I also have the fear of being recalled back during my holidays.

Singapore government once said that foreigners are hardworking than Singaporeans. They got that right. I mean, the best thing us Singaporeans can do is complain about everything. Just four words to describe: No action, talk only. We complained about how to get married and have kids when our salary isn’t rising. We complained about the cost of CoE keep rising. We complained about the inefficiency of our public transport. Then we complained about the foreigners snatching our job. For the males, we complained about the needs to go back for re-service. All these complaints were made but any actions done by us? We do not even work hard to make our own life better.

The foreigners are different. They got nothing to complain about. They do not need to go for National Service. They do not need to care about getting cars. They are happy about their salaries. They are so new here that they do not know how empty our trains was back then in the 90s. All they need to do is, focus, work and receive. They are willing to do anything you ask them to do or they are pretty much screwed.

Not to mention that Singaporean males need to pass IPPT every year. If one fails, he needs to go for remedial training. Their precious weekends will be burn and they will have no energy to work during the weekdays. How could one be expected to work hard when they don’t rest enough?

Being hardworking would mean the foreigners are more reliable. I already mentioned the fact that they do not need to worry about going back for re-service. The only thing they worry about is their motherland. Singapore entrepreneurs need to worry about their male employees getting recalled by the military. The government only pays losses for the people whom are recalled. Not the company he is working in.

So, let’s say I own a small company with only a few local talents. We are working on a major business project. All of them are so important that if I lose one of them, it will drastically affect my project. Just happens that one of my employees receives a letter of recalling and he needs to go serve the army for 21 days for oversea exercise. The employee has his pays covered by the government but who is going to cover that empty slot for 21 or more days? Now are the local employees reliable? They are not because of the system.

Why don’t these entrepreneurs hire local females then? They don’t need to serve National Service. Female employees, whether they are local or foreigners, they are as ‘reliable’. But a company cannot just run on one gender. There must always be a mix to balance things out unless you are running a beauty salon or something.

If one is reliable, that means he/she is educated to some level. By education, I just mean that employee should have at least educated in his/her job scope. The best thing is that employee always has the heart to learn. Foreigners who came to Singapore in order to work are normally prepared. I am excluding those who came to work but they do not know how to speak in proper English. At least they know what they are specialized in. Their university, though not ranked as the best, at least teach them certain skills. That is the ability to learn from mistake.

Singapore universities may have a decent rank. However, students can just slack through the whole 4 years. The only times you see them studying is the time when the finals are coming. All those last minute hard works tend to score them at least a ‘B+’. The bell curve system in Singapore universities is there to fail students just for the sake of failing.

Singaporeans who are holding a Polytechnic diploma are the worst of all. They possess little skill to be reliable enough. I gone through Polytechnic only to learn that things I learn in Polytechnic are barely enough to be use in my college. Let alone going outside to work.

All bosses will take the salary of each employee in mind. The cheaper they are the more likely employees will be hired. So does this also apply for large companies with a lot of employees? Yes, it does even though it seems hard to keep track. In fact, the more employees the boss hires, the more the boss concerns about their salary. The only jobs that have some sort of fixed salaries are civil servants.

Locals are not cheap to hire. They want a high standard of living. They are always pestered by a system to get married as early as possible. The worst of all, inflation rate in Singapore rise randomly. The best way to solve all these problems is to get a job with a high pay. Small companies can’t offer high wages. Large companies are too large to hire more unless that person has a special talent in him/her. This means the locals will probably have a lower chance to get a job with decent pay unless they work as a civil servant.

Foreigners are different. They can deal with having a lower standard of living. Due to our high-value currency, most foreigners can get ‘rich’ in 5 years. Then, they return to their country and probably start their own ‘business’ there or get married, kind of. Most foreigners would not stay here and become a citizen. It is obvious that they can take lower wages to perform those tasks above as compared to local. If I am a new entrepreneur it would be obvious that I would hire someone cheaper to cut some cost.

An employee’s efficiency is sum up by his/her hard work, reliability, education and cost. A newly formed company needs its pioneers to be efficient in order to be successful. If you are the boss who would you hire? It is up to you to decide as these scales are constantly changing.

Being seen as villain, forever a villain I am.

4th of August, 2011, I will never forget about this day. This is the day where I saw one of the most vicious forms of humanity. When a person wants you to be the bad guy, he/she will find every way possible to make it so. What happened on that day was just a small chapter of my 2 years in National Service. But this one small chapter made my heart chill for eternity. This chapter taught me that for the 2 years, my morality principle is nothing but a mere weakness and once identified as a bad person, people would try everything to make you the villain.

I had been accused of theft. This may sounds like a menial thing but the interrogation made it otherwise. To be frank, everything was just a misunderstanding to start with but it is unfortunate that the interrogator does not see that point. Or should I say the interrogator did not want to see that point. To imagined that the interrogator shares the same rank as me. He had always been mocking me and had treated non-existence for the past 1.5 years. On that day, he was out there to prove to everyone that I am the worst villain in Blazer Battery of 21SA.

The ironic thing about the accusation was that his watch was already found. So why bear so much grudges with me? I did see the watch but I did not take it. So what if I am the 'last person' who saw it? Probably, I am not the last person who saw it because it had been 10 fucking hours since I left the mess and had not enter it. Someone else might had seen it and put it in a safer spot. But the fuck up part about the accusation was he threatened me to confess to on something I never done. The first sentence that comes in my mind to reply his threat is, "Why don't you go fuck yourself?" Okay, I had been rambling so much on this paragraph. So some of you might ask, how did the incident goes anyway?

This was the day where my battery had a cohesion to 'somewhat' celebrate personal who are ORD-ing next day. I actually see this 'celebration' as Hongmen Banquet but this is another side story to it. So I walked to the entrance of 'The Colosseum' in Iluma and I saw the interrogator was staring at me. I could tell that he got something to question me and this can't be good. He face look so darn pissed. So he asked.

"I asked everyone and everyone had confirmed that you are the last person who had seen my watch. So tell me, why didn't you tell me that?"

"I do not know that you are looking for that watch." I replied.

In reality, he had treated me as non-existence and hence I do the same to him by ignoring him in the mess two days ago. But the truth still apply, I did not know that he is looking for that watch. On the side note, I did not actually remember this sort of minor things in my life. I mean, come on, it is just a watch and it is not mine. I had upheld my morality to leave it alone until the owner finds it. Sure, others might not think the same but when we talk about responsibility, the interrogator is at fault for leaving his stuff behind.

"Don't lie to me. I was looking for the watch 2 days ago and you were watching me searching for it." He just repeated his first question in another word so I reply him in another word. "Erm. What? So you are actually looking for that watch?"

"Yes, so why in the first place you did not tell me that you have seen my watch?" This was still the very first question and I am not even a criminal to begin with. I thought that in order to break this ‘while(1) loop’, the keyword was to remind him that his watch is already found by someone else. Hence the reminder "Why are you asking so much about it? Your watch is already found. You should give it a rest"

"Give it a rest? Peter Mark had been caught red-handed for stealing PSP. Should the whole battery give it a rest now?" Yes, finally the loop had been break. But the next question really did not have any sort of link. I saw this question as he was accusing me as a thief so I reconfirmed it. "You are accusing me for stealing now"

"Yes. I am warning you. Don't think that I am afraid to punch you. I give you one last chance, did you steal my watch?" I was shocked! He had threatened me to confess on something I never thought of doing. This was the worst kind of threat ever. I interpret this threat as, "You better be the bad guy I wanted you to be or else!" I really felt that I should taunt him with, "Why don't you go fuck yourself." However I said this to him instead, "What I told you is the truth, no matter how hard you are going to punch me, my answer will remain the same."

So I just realize one thing. For these 2 years, my morality was a weakness more than strength. I upheld my morality for not to take revenge of them in anyway. Sure, I might bitch about them now but never did I reveal their name. It is not because I am afraid of them. It was just because if I seek revenge, this will go on forever. But my 'let bygone be bygone' attitude was seen as an attitude of not treating things seriously. I was seen as I did not take revenge because I couldn't.

In a way, I had the chance of taking revenge of them. I can just be a miserable psychopath and kill them off anyway without caring about others. After all it was just my life and how I am going to play with it. But I chose to just leave them alone, ignoring them and even apologize to them if I did offend them in someway. I just want to put an end to this nonsense. However, they refused my peace offer. All they wanted was to see me in my bitter end. They think I did all these because of guilt and felt they had the rights to humiliate me over and over again. To their eyes, I am just a villain, a hypocrite and a son of a bitch. I am nothing more than a criminal and a prison of war at their disposal. Even so, when a police caught a suspect, it does not make any sense for the police to torture the suspect no matter how much the evidences are point toward him or her. It is up to the judge to decide if the suspect is guilty or not.

Life is all about making choices. It was just your choice to see whether or not someone is good or bad. For this case, I am seen as a villain. Everything I did, be it good or bad will always leaves a negative impression. If I do something good, I will have ulterior motive. If I do something bad, of course I do bad things, I am a villain. Likewise if a person is seen as a hero, for whatever things he did, people will say he did it for a good cause. Someone just killed like a bunch of soldiers who were serving under a totalitarian rule. He does that for a good cause as totalitarianism is evil! But come to think about it. In which moral aspect that tells you that killing is good?

For the past 2 years in National Service. I am being seen as a hideous villain who can't do anything right. I am clumsy in fixing vehicles and my ideas never put emotion into consideration. But just because I am hideous does not make my heart a ugly one. Just because I am clumsy in fixing vehicles does not makes me stupid in general. Just because my ideas never put emotion into consideration does not mean I never care about others overall.

One should not judge a book by its cover. Likewise, one should not judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Albert Einstein had this very famous quote. If you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will forever think it’s stupid. To put it simply, if you only judge a person on one task he/she cannot do well, he/she will think he/she is stupid. So in National Service, don't be surprised by the fact that some people can't do things right. They did not choose their vocation, SAF did. Likewise, never to judge a person's intellect just by the way he/she speaks or by his/her education grade. Judge a person's overall.

A Lament over a Dead Game Series, C&C: Tiberium

16th of March, 2010, the official release date of Command and Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight (C&C4). It's already been over a year after the release of C&C4, the last and probably the worst Command and Conquer Tiberium series ever made by Electronic Arts Los Angeles (EALA). Sad to say, the original EALA team was disbanded before the release of C&C4. Thus, there won't be any patch for the rest of the Command and Conquer series published before the release of C&C4.

I saw this coming after playing the close-beta of C&C4. I was so disgusted by the gameplay. It was completely different from Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium War and I will not classify it under Real-Time Strategy (RTS) like Electronic Arts (EA) does. What EA did is just making use of a famous title to sell their new idea, a cheap marketing strategy that betray the trust of the fans and possibly even violate the true purpose of game designing as the only thing that EA is thinking about is making more money instead of making games that are enjoyable.

Once again, EA had betrayed the trust of Command and Conquer fans around the world and made billions out of them and I sympathizes those loyal fans that trusted EA blindly without seeing a clear picture of what’s going on. There were two major features of a RTS that were removed in C&C4, resource gathering and the need of building a base. Even in old RTS like Dune II and Warcraft, they have implemented resource gathering as a need to build up an army to overwhelm your opponent and building and organizing your base formation is an important asset of a RTS. The focal point of a RTS should be build up your base, collect resources, build up an army and decimate your opponent’s base. Not having a ‘crawler’ unit going around spamming units that doesn’t need resources and capturing checkpoints to build up a counter in order to win. These are the golden rules made by the first generation of RTS but yet they are broken by C&C4.

Probably some fans might argue that it shouldn't be about the genre that makes a game 'Command and Conquer'. They are right. At times, it's not really about the genre of the game that makes a game worthy of a title. It is also about the story. Command and Conquer: Renegade is a First-Person Shooter developed by Westwood Studio, like other Command and Conquer Series, it holds the title 'Command and Conquer' but it is definitely not a RTS as I already said that it is a First-Person Shooter. However, it features an in depth side-story of the First Tiberium War that is concluded with GDI manage to stop Nod's Project ReGenesis. The ending is simple, but at least we get a sense of what happen in the end. Unfortunately in C&C4, EA has rushed the game so much that they screw up the ending. Most of the fans were expecting an epic ending on GDI finally being able to destroy Nod for good or Nod having an epic scene of 'ascension'. However, both GDI and Nod ending feature a white screen with Kane getting into a pencil-drawn Scrin portal that has a poor portal animation. The difference between the 2 endings is minimal and hardly classified as epic. Both ending just conclude Kane has 'ascended', so what's the point of playing through the campaigns of GDI and Nod when they get the same conclusion.

Whenever EA released a new 'Command and Conquer', they will ditch the previous one. A very good example I can use here is Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. Even before Command and Conquer 4 is release, EA have stop patching the game. It's already been 2 years and Red Alert 3 is still at 1.12. Remember, Red Alert 3 is just one Command and Conquer Series before C&C4. This just simply shows that they don't care about their fans and all they wanted is to proceed to publish the next money-making game. They don't care if the game they made is a good game.

A great series was killed by the tyranny of EA due to the lack of understanding what the fans truly want but just uses the reputation of the series to earn more money and disappoint their fans again and again. Unfortunately EA is always successful in using this cheap marketing strategy and kept making its profit from that. A game designer should not make use of the game purely to make money but use the game to bring entertainment for people. This should have been the culture of the game industry that gaming film should uphold. They might not be able to make too much profit from doing so but they should not succumb to greed. I hope Blizzard do not become another EA.