Hello, I would like to share a story about an interesting person I had a chat with recently. So let's call this guy Bryan (not his real name), I've known Bryan since 1989 as we went to secondary school together back in the day. Bryan did his degree at a prestigious university in America and worked there for several years before meeting his European wife, they then lived and worked in various location across Europe before that marriage ended in a divorce and that was a point where Bryan decided to hit the reset button. He took a year out to go traveling all over the world and finally decided that he wanted to return to Singapore - Singapore was meant to be just one of many stops in this trip around the world he was taking but once he got back to Singapore, he decided it was time to return home. Bryan has been in Singapore since 2016 and has successfully carved a very successful career for himself in my industry there, that's why I thought, okay we do have some things in common, let's catch up and see if there's any synergy to collaborate. I had to ask him why he decided to move back to Singapore and what working in Singapore was like in contrast to America and Europe. After all, I have spent my entire working life outside Singapore and thus I would find adapting back to life in Singapore quite hard, but Bryan managed to do exactly that. Credit where credit is due, amongst all my old friends and former classmates, Bryan is one of the most rich and successful ones in that cohort (and that's probably why I was keen on reconnecting with him and finding out what the secret to his success was). Oh you'd be amazed how some of my old friends and former classmates are now so crazy rich whilst others are struggling to get by. Bryan and I had three chats in a month and explored various angles where we could possible work together two of those. Now there was this one sentence he said which I didn't agree with though - he said that when he was working in Singapore, he felt like he had a distinct "home ground advantage" compared to when he was working in America and Europe, where he was always seen as the outsider or foreigner. I think he did that to try to persuade me to consider returning to Singapore in a less than subtle way which surprised me, but let's look at Bryan's theory about having this "home ground advantage" in a bit more detail now and see if it holds any water. After all when someone as successful as Bryan puts forward a theory, I want to do it justice.
One thing that Bryan has which most Singaporeans don't have are very rich and influential parents, I know that he comes from a rich family so when he returned to Singapore, his father (who is a retired but wealthy and influential businessman) was able to instantly put Bryan in touch with the right kind of people to help Bryan re-establish himself in Singapore easily after an absence of so many years. Whilst what Bryan had described was 100% true, he neglected to realize that it wouldn't be true in the case of me given just how working class my family is and my parents have absolutely no idea what I do for a living. In the case of Bryan, his parents wanted him to come back to Singapore, so they went out of their way to give him every advantage they could. Hence I questioned whether it was not so much "home ground advantage" that Bryan enjoyed, but rather it was more a case of "loving rich parents advantage" which was conditional of course - firstly, you need to have parents who love you enough to want to help you; secondly, even if you do have working class parents who love you and want to help you, they are simply not in a position to do anything for you. But to be fair to Bryan, when he was working in America and Europe, he was competing with other privileged people who got a lot of help from their parents whilst Bryan's parents were not able to help him get a good job in Chicago or Berlin. So I can see how he saw some of those rich, privileged former colleagues as having some kind of "home ground advantage" whilst he had to fight for every position in his career when outside Singapore. If I frame it that way, I can see why Bryan had a distinct "home ground advantage" in Singapore but I could only shake my head because I definitely do not have that same advantage as him - Bryan's family is insanely wealthy, his parents lived the Crazy Rich Asians dream whilst the vast majority of Singaporeans grew up leading ordinary, working class lives. So whilst what Bryan said was true for him, it only applied in his specific set of circumstances and not mine. In my case, I have sold my story as the poor working class boy who came to London without a single friend here but somehow managed to establish a career in corporate finance whilst having to prove myself every single step of the way by being brilliant. No favours, no nepotism, no advantages, I had none of that - but then again, it would have been just really hard for me to do that in Singapore as well given that I had none of the many privileges that Bryan has and I would still have had to compete with people like him in the job market.
On the flip side of that of course, there is another set of circumstances whereby it would have made a lot more sense for Singaporeans to establish their future careers in Singapore - what Bryan and I did by working in the West is massively difficult because you are having to adapt to a different culture, often having to learn a third or fourth language. If you are simply not the kind of person who is fast to pick up a foreign language and more to the point, be able to adapt to a whole new set of social rules, then you are better off staying in Singapore. Case in point, let's look at my nephew for example: he has not made any attempt to learn a third language and his social skills have been a problem all these years because of his autism and Asperger's syndrome. Would it be possible for him to live and work abroad? Yes, but would that be a good idea? Would he rise to the occasion and thrive in a city like Seoul, Rome or Montreal? I don't think so, I doubt it would be the kind of thing that he would choose to do with his life - it's all about making a rational decision to maximize our well being. If my nephew thinks that he is going to be better off establishing his career in Singapore than in Seoul or Montreal, then that's simply a rational decision and the right one to take. I did also have another interesting conversation with another Singaporean recently, let's call her Wendy (not her real name) and she had asked some questions about working in the UK in a Facebook group; the amount of misleading information she had on that Facebook group was very unhelpful so I got into a private chat with her. I saw a lot of similarity between Wendy's situation and my nephew's situation: she did not have someone who was in a position to open doors for her to access more senior roles in her industry and I decided to talk to her because we work in the same industry. You see, Wendy had made an incorrect assumption about the way pensions work in the UK and I was quite shocked that I was the only person in that Facebook who was willing to take the time to explain to her why her assumption had been wrong. Perhaps the others were like, "it is called doing a Google search bitch, you need to learn to look up information online, all of this information is in the public domain so you have no excuse to make any ridiculous assumptions and get it so wrong." Thus I suppose I was a lot kinder to Wendy because I knew that privileged people like Bryan would always have someone in their life who would just step in and correct them in this kind of situations, whilst Wendy clearly didn't and by the same token, I have also made some rather dumb mistakes in the past when there simply wasn't an adult to stop me from making a bad decision.
So what should people like Wendy do? I think it is clear that she doesn't have any kind of "home ground advantage" - if it took a kind stranger like me to help her, I think it is clear that she doesn't have anyone in her life right now who would play that role. Well, at least she is trying to seek help online, which is a good start I suppose, it is better than sitting back and doing absolutely nothing. It is just too tempting to simply shove all your doubts and shortcomings into a massive blind spot. The fact is people like Wendy in Singapore are competing against people like Bryan in Singapore and it is evident that Wendy has no "home ground advantage" in this battle, not at all, oh she is at a complete disadvantage. Wendy may be working in the country she was born in and where she grew up, but that hasn't afforded her any real advantage at all in the job market. Perhaps Wendy is better off in Singapore than in Montreal or Rome, but make no mistake, she has no home ground advantage at all in Singapore. Being less worse off is not the same as having a real advantage, is this simply then a case of someone like Bryan boasting about just how good life is for him? Is this a Crazy Rich Asian in Singapore showing off his latest sports car and yacht on Instagram whilst not realizing that 99% of Singaporeans could never ever afford luxuries like that? Ironically, given the kind of privileged upbringing that Bryan had, he was far more likely to succeed abroad than people like Wendy or myself, given how his parents were able to pay for anything he needed to establish himself in another country. Yet for someone like Wendy, without this kind of privilege, the best option would be to pursue the story of, "I'm a working class person from Singapore, but I managed to establish myself in another country with no help from anyone, thus that's the hardest way to prove yourself, et voila, I have done just that. Hence you know you are dealing with someone truly extraordinary." That was the risky route that I took back in the day and I'm very lucky things somehow turned out okay, but to present that to Wendy is actually a massive ask. What is the alternative for her then? To tell her to simply accept her fate as working class, that one day if she works her butt off for many years, she might be lucky enough to work for a man like Bryan and be his office manager or secretary? Is that the best case scenario for someone like Wendy, to be able to pick up Bryan's dry cleaning but never dream to become as successful as Bryan? I've tried giving Wendy some career advice but I'm never going to be able to help her as much as Bryan's parents have helped him. After all I am not emotionally invested in whether or not Wendy actually does succeed.
Ironically, I'm now in a position whereby I have approached both Bryan and Wendy to collaborate with me (albeit on different projects), I won't go into the technical details of these projects but the bottom line is that if I do collaborate with Bryan, I know that his father and extended family would step in and make sure that it will work out successfully. Whereas in the case of Wendy, I think she's hoping that I will be the benevolent guardian angel uncle who will somehow wave my magic wand and make the deal happen - well, all she wants to do is introduce me to her boss to discuss it. I already told her to get an agreement in writing first as to what her cut should be as an introducer in this process, like she is so clueless I swear. But yeah, the two case couldn't be more different but I can see in Wendy's case, she is so keen to make this work as she has a point to prove whereas in Bryan's case, I've met people like him before. There are just so many people lining up to collaborate with him that he has less of a motivation to make this work, if he doesn't work with me or if our project doesn't work out, he as a dozen other people he can work with. But in Wendy's case, she doesn't have that same luxury. Oh but good grief, there is such a difference between them two - with Bryan, he has excellent social skills and every time I present him to one of the people I am working with in Europe or America, he knows exactly what to say and do. Whereas with Wendy, I feel like I'm constantly having to teach her what to say and do, there is only so much I feel I can do without her driving me up the wall. I think it is a combination of Bryan's upbringing and the time he has spent in the West which has empowered him to have these superior social skills to handle such situations. Let me give you another example which happened today which illustrates my point: so as my regular readers will know, I was invited to Luxembourg recently by a company who want my help on a number of projects and I said yes to working with them. One of these projects involves the China market and so I approached an old friend in Singapore to see if he thinks he can add any value to this project (as it could be very lucrative work). My friend responded by giving a somewhat lacklustre reply in by saying something like he would be "quite comfortable in China". It was hardly the most convincing argument and my first instinct was, "well perhaps he's busy with other stuff so he's not interested in this opportunity at all". If he was really that keen on getting in on this lucrative project, he should have presented a super strong case to me like, "Alex, you want me on this project because I can add so much value to your team - here is a list of what I can do for you on this project."
His response reminds me of what happened a few years ago with my nephew in Barcelona - my point is Singaporeans really don't know how to express what they want. We were in the neighbourhood of Port Vell when he saw a Ferris Wheel. I knew he really wanted to go on it but what he said didn't match that desire, he said to his mother, "I don't mind going on that Ferris Wheel." I had to correct him, that was simply a very poor choice of words, he wasn't expressing himself clearly. If I was carrying a heavy bag and I was getting tired, I might ask him for his help like, "do you mind helping me with this bag please? My arm is beginning to hurt after carrying it for so long." It is clear that carrying that heavy bag is not a pleasant task and if he was happy to help me, then he would say, "no I don't mind carrying that bag for you, I'm happy to help." Thus in that context, saying that you don't mind doing something unpleasant such as carrying a heavy bag is appropriate, but if he had really want to go on that Ferris Wheel, he should have said something like, could we go on that Ferris Wheel please? It would really make me so happy to go on it and I'd really love to go on it please. I promise I'd help you carry all your bags tomorrow if we could go on that Ferris Wheel now. He needed to make an impassioned plea to make us understand how we simply could not leave that neighbourhood without getting on that Ferris Wheel, but instead he used a very poor choice of words to express himself with a lot of ambiguity. My sister realized how totally inarticulate my nephew normally is and recognized that he really wanted to do it despite his rather clumsy choice of words, so she said let's do it, I know what he is thinking. But I explained it to my sister and nephew that in this instance, my nephew was with his mother, the person who knows him so well and can read his mind, so he got away with it. But in real life, he's going to have to deal with other people who wouldn't know him as well as his mother and he is going to have to develop much better social skills in order to communicate with them and get what he wants. This is reflected in the way my friend failed to tell me directly that he really wanted to get in on this very lucrative project in China that I am working on - is this simply a problem stemming from Singaporeans struggling with the English language when it comes to choosing the appropriate words to articulate themselves? Or is this more a fundamental issue of having awful social skills, in not being able to assert oneself during such a negotiation, in order to get what you want?
This is why I think the "home ground advantage" can actually be quite counter productive. Staying with the example of my nephew being inarticulate when asking for something he wants - he gets away with his bad habits because his mother allows him to, whereas if he was in a slightly harsher environment (such as when he is with his uncle Alex), I'll demand that he changes his ways and learns how to ask for what he wants in a more eloquent manner. My nephew is about to start university later this year, I would have loved to have seen him go to a university outside Singapore simply to force him to give up any of that "home ground advantage" as that would force him to adapt and grow a lot more quickly. But no, instead he is staying in Singapore and doing a degree locally. Ironically, the only kind of people who have any real kind of "home ground advantage" are those like Bryan, whilst other locals like Wendy and my nephew really don't and they are the ones who need it the most, not Bryan. Hence even if you took away all of this "home ground advantage" from Bryan, he will still be successful no matter where he goes because of his superior social skills. But what do you think - is Bryan really oblivious to just how privileged he is compared to other Singaporeans or was he just showing off his privilege to me? Would he risk such a social faux pas or if he was really showing off, was he simply trying to remind me that just how much higher up the food chain he is compared to me? But no, I don't think the latter is true. Bryan has been friendly, helpful and sincere in all our interactions so I wouldn't dare to accuse him of trying to remind me how he is socially superior to me. That would be such a malicious thing to do and no I really don't believe that Bryan would do something like that as he's genuinely a nice person. But is he really that oblivious to just how much more privileged he is compared to ordinary folks like me? Is this simply a case of a rich person being totally unaware that poor working class people lead totally different lives and face very different challenges? Perhaps, I don't think he would be the first rich person to have made that mistake - now this isn't out of malice but it is simply out of ignorance, which is often the case in life when people make incorrect assumptions like that. But what do you think? Do you recognize the "home ground advantage" that Bryan has talked about and is this theory true for ordinary working class folks like Wendy and myself? So would Wendy have any "home ground advantage" in Singapore even if that does not come in the same form as what Bryan has described? Let me know what you think please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
Nice to meet you! I am 18, from Singapore and gay too, and came across this post. I agree with your points stated above, with the fact that Singaporeans are simply not assertive enough in the country, with the school system and reserved culture here allowing us to be more passive, thus when certain needs or wants come up, we do not speak up.
ReplyDeleteInfact, I am currently planning my next steps for university, and you seem like a well-matured person, so I would love to connect to discuss! I do agree too, with the fact that Singapore is a little bubble in itself - it's a double-edged sword, where things work, and you always have usually a way of getting by here. However, it allows certain traits to breed and we are mostly exposed to this one singular view of life. Moving abroad, say for studying really makes you go out and learn not only more about yourself, but interaction with other people, and get a much larger view of life.
Hi Peter and thanks for your comment. I think the problems stems from the fact that in Asian/Singaporean culture, waaaaay too much emphasis is placed on education and academic success - that neglects one key problem in that equation: education is run by teachers and they're not the most successful adults in our society. In my cohort of students, the most successful ones went on to become super rich and successful, achieving a lot in their respective fields. Then the mediocre ones who can't find anything better settle for teaching, that's a familiar pattern - yet somehow, somehow! Singaporeans allow these mediocre, below average adults who have become teachers so much responsibility to determine the futures of the next generation. That's just plain wrong. Teachers are so cut off from the real world, they have absolutely no idea what working adults like me have to do and they are the worst people to try to help our next generation of students into the working world. Some lucky Singaporeans (like Bryan) have good parents who will help them out in this aspect, others like Wendy and I are left to fend for ourselves and hopefully, we are resourceful enough to figure a lot of things out on our own because we're getting zero help from our parents and teachers Thus this whole passive culture of not knowing how to speak up and be assertive, that's because Singaporean students are cultured to be quiet and pay attention in class, they're never encouraged to speak up and be heard. Anyway Peter, so what do you wanna know and how can I help you?
DeleteI agree! We do not know how to assert our needs, which leads to a dissonance of sorts, leading to further mental health issues down the road. As I am in a similar situation to you, I am intending to pursue business/technology for bachelors in Norway or Denmark where the working language is English there. So I will be placed in a similar situation to you, where I am will be left to grow and improve for myself. I think this is the best solution for me, as I cannot live anymore being closeted and gay in Singapore, and this is the best chance for me to really step out and grow into myself, rather than being stuck here for more years. After that, I will work a bit and secure permanent residency there so tuition fees for masters will be cheaper, then once I get enough experience, I could work in and around the EU much easier, and take advantage of higher pay outside Norway/Denmark. This is my thinking at the moment.
DeleteHi Peter, firstly, I'm turning 48 in April so I am nearing my retirement in case you haven't realized, I'm already semi-retired and work part time only these days. I'm not sure you realize how old I am, that's why I go on holiday every month whilst I
DeleteSorry I hit the publish button before I finished typing. I meant to say, whilst I look at my peers in Singapore clocking in at 70 - 80 working hours a week. Heck, I have two older siblings in Singapore working like that and I'm like, I'm the youngest amongst the three kids, yet I'm the first to retire? Don't you guys realize something is wrong here? As for your plans, allow me to offer some feedback. Firstly, a business/technology degree is fucking useless - like totally, utterly fucking useless. Why the fuck would you bother with such a fucking useless degree? The reason why I view business degrees with such disdain is because of the losers teaching it - if these university lecturers on the business courses are so fucking great, then why aren't they working in the real business world earning millions, why are they teaching a course at a university earning a modest salary as a teacher? Oh it is because they are fucking stupid losers who cannot make it in the real business world, so they retreat into teaching which doesn't pay as well but it is a far easier path for them. For fuck's sake, never do a degree in business. As for tech, again, same principle: if these teachers were so fucking great, then they'll be in silicon valley making insane amounts of money working for the next big tech success story, they won't be in some university teaching like some fucking loser. You may write well Peter, you clearly have a great command of the English language but for fuck's sake, you're still thinking like a Singaporean who places waaaaay too much trust in teachers, universities and paper qualifications. A degree in tech/business is not worth the fucking paper it is printed on and it's time to woke up and smelled the fucking coffee - you're 18, you're not in primary school anymore, so stop acting like a primary school student trying to impress mommy and daddy with your exam results. Real people in the business world don't give a fuck about your degree and an older guy like me would probably just mock and belittle you for being so fucking naïve about getting a fucking useless degree. Yeah by all means get the fuck out of Singapore but good grief, wake the fuck up about the degree you want.
DeleteI hate to be harsh and swear this much but for fuck's sake: nobody is going to give you a fucking job just because you have a degree in business or tech. I wouldn't, you're going to have to prove yourself worthy for the work place and convince an employer that you can do so much more than be the good Asian student who can study hard and pass exams. Newsflash buddy: you don't study and sit for exams in the real world, in the real world we actually get shit done in order to make a lot of money. And I also shook my head at your fucking lazy attitude of wanting to study in English in Norway and Denmark - what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you fucking retarded or fucking lazy or fucked up in some other ways? You wanna live/work in Norway and Denmark, you fucking make the effort to learn the local language and become fluent in it, you lazy good for nothing loser. It's just a language, work bloody hard at it and you'll become fluent in it in a few years. You wanna secure permanent residency in these places? Newsflash sunshine: there's a fucking LANGUAGE TEST so you'd better start studying Norwegian and Danish now. Like what the fuck is wrong with you, why are you so fucking lazy when it comes to languages? My biggest client is a company in Luxembourg, I just returned from visiting them and we operate in ten languages in that company alone. You wanna fucking live/work in the EU then you had better start becoming fluent in like 5 European languages like me. Another newsflash Peter: because of Brexit, the UK is no longer a part of the EU so Engilsh is no fucking good for you in the EU. Holy fuck, you're like Wendy I swear, you don't have an intelligent adult in your life to tell you when you're talking complete utter bullshit. I may fucking swear a lot but I feel like I'm the first adult to tell you the truth, like you're a smart kid but you are so fucking clueless about the real world out there. You sound like a very sheltered kid who has a lot to learn and you need to accept that you have so many misconceptions about how the real world actually fucking works.
DeleteIf you claim that a business/tech degree is useless, what do you think is ideal then? In terms of degrees or other alternative paths I have not considered? There would be no need for such a personal attack on the people teaching them - no point in painting the teachers with a broad brush.
DeleteOf course no one would be entitled to give me a job - those come in the form of networking and internships at the bachelor's level. The school i have chosen has strong ties to the companies in Norway, allowing me to network extensively to see if their roles would fit me. And I failed to mention that I would also be taking the language classes in Norway/Denmark too, so please, do not jump into assumptions too quickly.
False. I have looked into the job market in the countries and they are relatively strong in the business and technology sector, with the work language being not as relevant, but that does mean I will not learn the national language as I mentioned above. I also look at this from a financial lens - if I continue to keep suffering like that in Singapore, it will not be a conducive environment to thrive in work and life in general, leading to a decreased pay in the future.
All in all, you jump to conclusions far too often, and seem to be taking out a bad day of your life on me, with personal attacks all around. Let's keep it more facts-based.
It all depends on what kind of career you want - if you wanna become a doctor, then you need to go to medical school to become qualified. But if you wanna go into business or tech, then it really doesn't matter what degree you take or whether if you have a degree or not, take finance for example: most companies don't bother asking you what you have done at university or even care too much whether you have a degree or not. What they do want however, is proof that you are above average in intelligence, that you're a fast learner and that you will be a good fit for the team. This is when work experience in terms of getting an internship is vital and networking furiously - I have seen a lot of below average rich kids with influential parents land themselves the best internships around, the Bryans of this world, hence you need to be aware that the playing field is not level and you're going into Europe at a major disadvantage without a rich parents opening doors for you. The fact is most employers will teach you everything you need to know to do your job, they are not relying on you having learnt something at university and being able to apply it on the job - that's why degrees are far less useful than you think. The only ones that are worth anything is if you can get into somewhere extremely impressive like Oxford or Cambridge which are notoriously difficult to get into - you need to be the best of the best in the world, so if you can claim to be an Oxford graduate, then at least we know that Oxford has subjected you to a rigorous screening process to say that, "yes I can confirm that this candidate is amongst the best of the best." It's more the screening process we're interested in, not whatever you may learn at university. Heck, I've forgotten most of what I've learnt at university given how useless it all was. As for working in Norway, unless you're in some kind of high tech sector where you're such an expert that they're willing to accommodate using English to work with you, you're still at a major disadvantage when trying to do anything in a country where the main language of communication is still Norwegian. And this is the other thing I dislike about your approach: you wanna wait till you get to Norway and have a teacher bludgeon Norsk into your head? How lazy is that? I never took a class of Spanish in my life, it was entirely self-taught and I'm fluent enough in Spanish to have worked in two South American companies. When I was doing my NS, I taught myself French and then slotted myself into a degree-level programme at my university for students who have done A level French and I went on to spend time as an exchange student in France to bring it up to native standard. You still have a very passive Singaporean student approach to wait to be spoon-fed by a teacher when you already know how I feel about teachers, my point is you're an adult, you're not a kid in primary school - at university level as an adult, you are expected to teach yourself a lot of things and conduct a lot of independent research; you haven't seemed to shift gears at all and you still wanna sit back as if you're in primary one and wait for a teacher to teach you Norwegian? I'm just rolling my eyes here. That's so typically Singaporean. There are tons of resources online for you to teach yourself whatever you want or need to learn, you need to be proactive, get off your ass and start learning today without a teacher. That's what adults do in the real world.
DeleteYou keep coming to conclusions far too often, infact even after I mentioned in my first comment to keep it facts based and to keep the personal attacks out, you still continue with them.
DeleteBy doing thing plan and asserting myself to my dad to be clear of the paths, funding, and certain steps I am starting from now to improve my life and to prepare myself for life abroad like learning a new language, and certain future work-relating things like learning to speak more in a business sense with others, or to network well, this is all me being proactive for my future, maybe something that you cannot see, again due to the fact that you are being blinded by personal biases, and a probable bad day.
Treat others how you want to be treated.
Well, I wish you good luck as you seem pretty convinced that your plans are perfect and you have worked every last detail out. I hope things work out for you.
DeleteThank you. You too with your retirement plans. I hope you have many more joy-filled years to come.
DeleteHey Alex. Oh yeah Bryan is completely oblivious. Even in a foreign country where neither he nor his parents have connections, he still did his degree at a prestigious American university, so elite people everywhere would've recognized that name and attached a kind of positive "aura" to Bryan which gives him a reputation boost compared to the average local who did not attend an elite school. I've made the same mistake as Bryan where I assumed everyone's parents know someone who could help them get a job, because I just didn't grow up with much people who dared to tell me that wasn't the case. It's an uncomfortable conversation to tell someone you are less privileged than them because it can come off as an attack. I have a friend named Todd who spent some time in academia like myself, so we geek out over the topics we studied. But Todd, despite being a local born American, was rejected from all their prestigious or very good universities, and had to go abroad to Eastern Europe where it has a reasonable tuition and living cost for him to pursue postgraduate education. Meanwhile, I went to a top 20 American university on a full scholarship + living expenses stipend because the university was rich enough to fund me, and Todd said "Amanda there are things you can say that I can't because you went to rich-single-digit-rate-acceptance University. Because then people will say someone from an elite school said it." Todd, despite being American, clearly has no home field advantage, just like Wendy. He has no advantages that he's easily pushed out of his own country's top universities by foreigners like myself and Bryan. Todd could clearly use someone's help just to get his foot in the door of a higher paying job. Right now he's on a temporary contract teaching at a small college, and he wants to transition to full time status. The issue is, he has very little leverage, the university could still keep him as temporary and save 67% what they'd have to pay him if he was full time. And if he refuses to stay on, there's an oversupply of masters and PhD graduates in his field that can't find jobs who would gladly take a temporary teaching job. Also teaching is not terribly difficult, he is teaching things from books, not solving a math problem or business problem nobody else has solved. So I don't know what value he adds to justify the increased pay, especially in academia where the name of which university you went to matters a lot for the university hiring you to attract students. It's not like Todd is teaching a coding class which is in high demand because people want to get high paying jobs in the software industry, and it doesn't matter where the instructor went to as long as they can churn out good coders. Instead Todd teaches one of the humanities subjects which is very hard to translate to industry. I remember I once told Todd my father never even went to university but started a business and made good money, and Todd's reply was "you never had to fight as hard for opportunities as he did." To be fair, I like Todd's honesty and bluntness, friendships need that, unfortunately it doesn't help him much in the workplace.
ReplyDeleteThanks Amanda, it is late now so I will keep this short. Bryan missed so many points - he achieved a lot but he also received a lot of help and to assume that other Singaporeans can enjoy this kind of 'home ground advantage' is just plain wrong because people like Wendy and myself don't have rich parents, so we just have to figure out a lot of stuff for yourselves which Bryan would never encounter a problem he couldn't solve given how much help he had access to. My worry when dealing with Bryan is that he takes for granted that "oh yeah Alex is successful like me", but we're not the same, we're not equal. I achieved what I achieved without any of the help Bryan received. It's like if two people went skiing and they both went down a black run together at about the same speed, then you realize one of them is a legally blind with very limited vision and has a prosthetic leg whilst the other skier is preparing for the next winter Olympics. The result may be the same but the conditions they had to work with to deliver those results are so different, it makes the achievements of the disabled skier so much more outstanding. Therein lies the difference and I wonder if Bryan would ever notice those details?
DeleteHey Alex, in case it went unsaid in the last post, I wasn't trying to say you were a bad contract negotiator so I'm sorry if I said something that made you feel like you weren't good at your job.
DeleteAbout people like Bryan, the thing is if he grew up solely around other rich kids then he will assume everyone has the same type of connections as he does. I felt like I talked to some Bryan's when going to MIT for a dinner party, I met people who told me they got in because they knew someone who already worked there. And they expected me to use connections to get in rather than just submitting an application online. That's how elite spaces work. And these people have never lived amongst the average joes so they don't know how everyone else lives. The trouble is when they are in an area where their experience is the majority, then its very hard to convince them another reality exists. I remember I had an interview with Stanford for gradschool and I told them I wrote a paper that made the newspaper, and they said that's not special cuz Stanford research makes the news all the time. But Stanford has connections to major news publications, I didn't in my brand new university in Singapore. But people at Stanford just take it for granted they can call up the New York times or BBC whenever, so they'll never know what it's like to work at a no-name university and achieve the same feat. My question to you Alex is, you have worked with people from very wealthy backgrounds, how do you tell them what it's like to grow up with limited opportunities?
Hi Amanda, listen I think you totally got the wrong end of the stick and allow me to use an analogy to explain why you were barking up the wrong tree. Remember last year I experienced a crazy delay like 7 hours to my flight back from Croatia and not only did I get a full refund, I got enough compensation to cover the full cost of my holidays? Did I successfully negotiate a good compensation arrangement at the airport when I learnt that the flight was severely delayed? No, I was covered by standard terms & conditions that came with the purchase of my flight, those were pretty standard conditions for airlines operating in Europe. Every single passenger on that delayed flight was covered by the same compensation scheme because someone else has set a precedent to create rules & regulations that covered such flight delays. By the same token, when you undertake employment that requires a contract, you will be offered a standard contract that will be what everyone else in the same situation would be offered for that kind of work - your contract would be no better or worse than what everyone else doing the same kind of work is getting, that would be the fairest way to deal with the contact in this kind of situation. Thus in both the cases of my delayed flight and my work contract in Singapore, I was merely offered what everyone else was offered: a fair contract. Thus when I receive any kind of work contract, I would merely do the sensible thing and run it by an expert to check if the contract is fair before signing it. This Amanda, is just common sense that I expect any adult to have - never sign a contract before checking if it is a fair contract, pay for a professional opinion by a lawyer to read it if you have to. It would be reckless, unwise and plain silly to sign a contract that is clearly unfair; most employers wouldn't try to offer an unfair contract because the employee would just say, "this is bullshit, I'm not signing it unless you make these changes to make it fair." That's why in most cases, employers will be reasonable enough to just offer a standard, fair contract. You offended me by postulating that I might have entered into an unfair agreement, ie. that I would be put my signature on an unfair contract with very unfavourable terms & conditions when I am simply too sensible to do that. Now what I do in terms of simply running a contract by a professional before signing it is just plain common sense, it is not rocket science, it's not some brilliant stroke of genius but simply something that I expect everyone to do. Yet in postulating that I may have entered into a very unfair contract that would screw me over - ie. do a lot of work, not get paid adequately for it - I'm like, seriously? Amanda? Would I be dumb enough to put myself in that kind of situation by not reading the contract properly, running it by a professional before agreeing to it? In short, you suggested that I could have been dumb, unwise and plain stupid when I shake my head and say to you, what I did was simply normal and standard - checking a contract is what ordinary people do all the time, it's just common sense. That's why I got offended when you suggested that I lacked even this basic common sense to do the bare minimum before signing a contract. I am not stupid, I do not make dumb mistakes like that - I am not even that clever but I avoid mistakes like that simply by applying a good dose of common sense.
DeleteAs for your question, it's all about weaving it into a narrative that works in my favour, it's all about strategy. I send the message that I lead a very comfortable lifestyle today because I have earned a lot of money as a working adult, but I achieved all that despite coming from a very poor working class background. I don't pretend for a moment that I came from a rich family, but I think most people would be intrigued how I managed to overcome all these barriers to achieve everything I achieved despite having all the odds set against me. In short, I am a good story teller and I know how to weave a narrative based on these questions: how did this working class boy attain social mobility? How did he manage to succeed when so many others like him are trapped in poverty? What did he do differently from everyone else? Why is he successful when others like him have failed miserably? So even if the rich person I'm talking to really doesn't care about me, I will make them curious enough to want to know the answer to those questions, as I have woven an interesting narrative about a wider subject: it's not just about me per se, it's about social mobility and within that context, I am just the case study.
DeleteTo continue with the narrative regarding the fair contract and the analogy of the airline ticket situation when I got a generous compensation for my delayed flight, let's imagine a situation whereby an airline suddenly cancels a flight, leaves a hundred tourists stranded with no way of getting home and offers no compensation, no help, nothing. It would be headline news and the airline would immediately get such a bad reputation - everyone on social media would be like, "never ever fly with this airline, they were the ones who left all those tourists stranded and did nothing to help them." That airline would be left with such a massive PR disaster that any kind of money they would've saved by abandoning those tourists after the cancelled flight would be tiny compared to the loss of business after that scandal. This is why businesses simply default to being fair by offering fair, standard contracts - this isn't because they have some kind of morals that compels them to act in a manner that is considered just and fair, but simply because acting fairly and treating people fairly is good for business - trying to screw your customers and employees may lead to a short term saving, but the long term damage to your reputation is often not worth it. That is the key reason why I believe I was offered a fair contract which was industry standard. Treating clients, customer and employees fairly is good for business. Treating them poorly is actually really bad for business. By that token, this made is easy for me to get a fair contract for the work that I did and that's just the way the business world works.
Delete@LIFT, I’m assuming Bryan is thinking sort of like a football coach where there is a home advantage and away disadvantage. Do I think there is some local advantage? Well speaking from someone who has working class roots I would say yes, but very slight. The advantages lie mainly in the familiarity with the locals norms and language. Also, the lack of a work pass requirement. And for influential people like Bryan, he can reach out to his local network to access opportunities.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I say only slight advantage? Because if you are highly adaptable then a different culture/language wouldn’t daunt you. And if you are so talented every employer around the world would be jumping to get a work permit for you. The world has been highly globalized since the 2000s so whether we like it or not, we are already competing on the global market for the best opportunities. And with the internet around, there is nothing stopping one from building a network that spans the globe as well.
Well, in terms of what constitutes as a home advantage in football, it's the assumption that the crowd watching, the audience is going to be on your side. So if we take a Liverpool vs Real Madrid match that's happening in Liverpool, there would be the assumption that the Real Madrid fans wouldn't all be able to travel to Liverpool to support their team but for the Liverpool fans, it's a local game - hence the audience would have more Liverpool fans than RM fans even if the organizers try to reserve seats for RM fans traveling to Liverpool to try to make it more even. So it's not a reflection on the ability of the football players, but more the psychological advantage knowing that the audience is overwhelmingly on your side and will cheer you on. I saw this at work in the 2016 Rio Olympics during the gymnastics men's floor exercise finals, when two Brazilian gymnasts sat in 2nd and 3rd respectively and the last gymnast to perform was an American who had a chance to push one of the Brazilians out of the medals. The audience at that moment was overwhelmingly Brazilian and it was like a mad house in there, the American simply couldn't concentrate and cracked under pressure. The moment he made a mistake, the audience roared with joy and you could tell, that entire stadium wanted the American to fall on his face and that was rather unfair on the American, but that's when you're operating without home ground advantage. It was the same when the Olympics were held in America in 1984 and 1996 when they did enjoy home ground advantage. But back to what you've said, some Singaporeans are less at a disadvantage outside Singapore if they are able to adapt and learn new languages etc (like me) but if they are not able to do so, I don't think they have a real sense of home ground advantage in Singapore. It's more the only option they have by default, if there's really nothing else available. The word that comes to mind in such a situation is "boh pien" (Hokkien: that sense of "no choice, no other option, nothing else is available, no plan B"). Boh pien is not the same as having a genuine home ground advantage the way Bryan has.
DeleteTo expand on the football analogy, if there is a home ground advantage like football teams, we would assume that the fans (local employers) would naturally hire the SG locals. This is not true. The corporations are cost sensitive and more often than not choose to support the away team (foreigners) since they cost less. Due to rampant globalization and uncontrolled hiring of PMETs in SG, more often than not the manager or HR hiring for Singaporean companies would likely be a foreigner anyway. So this home ground advantage analogy completely breaks down.
DeleteWell, you're describing local employers who are trying to maximize profits, whilst Bryan is benefiting from nepotism from his family's network - ordinary folks in Singapore like Wendy and yourself don't have access to Bryan's kind of family networks, hence there's no home ground advantage for you in light of all these local employers trying to maximize their profits.
DeleteWhich is why I said the home advantage for working class is so slight to be almost negligible. It is more an element of 人生地不熟 (not familiar with the locale) when working outside Singapore rather than any automatic fan or supporter advantage when working in Singapore.
DeleteI call a spade a spade and there's a difference between boh pien and having the kind of advantages that a rich person like Bryan would enjoy - working class Singaporeans do not enjoy any form of fan/supporter advantage at all in Singapore for the reasons that you have explained. I think working class people are very good at creating massive blind spots to shove all these things that ought to bother them, take my parents for example: I have an uncle, my father's older brother, who is crazy rich. He is a Datuk, he lives in a massive house in the Cairnhill area. What do my parents do? They pretend he doesn't exist. Like once in a while, like during Chinese new year, we would make a visit and thus I am aware of just how rich he is but my father never did go to his brother and asked, "da ge, you're so rich, I'm struggling, can you teach me how to be rich like you?" Like seriously? If I had a older brother who was that crazy rich, that'll be the first thing I did - wouldn't you at least be curious? But the disparity in their situations made my father feel so inferior that the only way he could deal with it was by pretending that everything was fine and his big brother didn't exist.
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