Hi guys, back in March, I encountered a few readers who tried to offer the 'Russian side of the story' when it came to the war in Ukraine and one went as far as to try to convince me that the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Beijing never happened. Now I know such people exist, I've encountered them online before and I tend to keep my distance to avoid getting into a fight online. But allow me to share with you one incident recently when I actually met someone like that in person and how I dealt with the situation. My regular readers will know that I am a volunteer at my local gymnastics club, I still retain my staff status as a coach but because I now need to travel a lot for work, I no longer can commit coaching regular hours. So I'll come in and coach for free whenever I can but you don't need to pay me, I'll do it for the love of gymnastics. As a volunteer, I'm still obliged to adhere to a certain code of conduct which means treating everyone with respect whether I like them or not and behaving professionally. In most cases, this is never a problem as I do get along well with everyone at the gymnastics club but there was this one person whom we shall call Tina (not her real name) who tested me in this aspect recently. Out of the blue, she asked me, "can I ask you a political question?" Since I didn't know what she was going to say, I said, "okay, sure go on." But no she didn't ask me a question - instead she gave me a long rant about how the West was 100% wrong about the war in Ukraine and she was spewing out all of these ridiculous conspiracy theories. At which point I thought, I knew Tina was weird but not this weird. Yet at the same time, I was conscious that as a volunteer at the gymnastics club, I had to remain professional and not tell her what I thought about her and her conspiracy theories. I thought, "Tina, are you totally oblivious to the fact that I think you're just totally crazy?"
So firstly, Tina didn't try to ascertain or check what my stance was on the issue, if I agreed with her or if I thought her conspiracy theories were ridiculous. There was a child-like naivete about her approach of, "hey I read something on the internet and now I wanna tell you all about it!" Even when I tried to give her an indication that I wasn't receptive to what she had to share, she simply didn't have the social skills to deal with the situation. It is one thing to simply repeat something you have read on a website, but to make someone listen to you and consider what you have to say seriously takes quite a lot of skill - you have to be persuasive and engaging to begin with and Tina was neither. In fact she looked confused when I ended the conversation abruptly - I said, "excuse me, I really need to help Philip with his front somersaults." Tina is free to believe whatever crap she wants to read on the internet, I don't know her well enough to care what she believes in and thus I have no desire to try to change her mind or convince her that she is wrong. I'm not looking for a confrontation or an argument in any case, I'm quite happy to ignore Tina at the gym. I can see why Tina fall preys to these conspiracy theories though: when she tries to speak to a normal person like me, I simply think, "you are insane, I'm ending this conversation and keeping the hell away from you." But when she engages someone online who also buys into all these conspiracy theories, then the other person is only too happy to find someone who is on the exact same wavelength and thus they would quite happily spend hours talking to each other. This has probably been going on for years and that's why Tina is totally brainwashed by all these crazy conspiracy theories she has been reading online.
Maybe I am being charitable here, but I don't think Tina is a bad person per se. I'm saying this because one would naturally assume that someone who believes in these conspiracy theories would be a bad person - after all, we have all seen harrowing images of war over the last three months. You would have to be a real heartless monster to not be moved to tears by the suffering of the Ukrainian people, so when someone like Tina tries to tell me that it is all a conspiracy by the West to destroy Russia; well my first instinct was to put her down. I wanted to tell her that not only had I traveled widely across the former Soviet Union, I also speak Russian, I have worked with Russian people for many years, I have made money from Russian companies in places like Novosibirsk and I was even employed by an Estonian company for a while. And in sharp contrast, what the hell did Tina know about Russia? Oh she once read something on the internet - I wanted to tell her that she was oblivious to the fact that if the subject matter was Russia, Russian politics and Russian culture, then I knew a lot more about the topic than she did and I would only be happy to continue that conversation in Russian, otherwise I rest my case. You don't try to take on an expert when you know so little about the subject, the only way the conversation would continue is if Tina admitted, "I am an idiot who knows nothing about Russia but Alex, you're the expert on this topic - please teach me about Russia." But no, calling Tina an idiot wouldn't cure her of her stupidity and ignorance - it would simply be bullying her. I know I am much smarter than her and can walk away in the knowledge that I chose to be kind; that was the right response and so I kept my thoughts to myself and walked away.
Tina probably goes through life with people treating her like she is an idiot because quite frankly, she is stupid. I don't want to beat around the bush - it is not just a case of her having poor social skills, she is genuinely quite stupid. She doesn't hate the Ukrainian people per se, it is just that she is so desperate to find validation and approval that she has run straight into the arms of conspiracy theorists - it is almost like joining a cult. I almost feel sorry for her - like Tina has such poor social skills and most people find her so weird and repulsive that she has to resort to speaking to conspiracy theorists online just to get some attention from another human being? Oh boy, that's a pretty sad state of affairs. But then again, if you asked me, okay Alex, in that case, why don't you become Tina's friend at the gym then if you really feel sorry for her and since you are a volunteer there, aren't you obliged to make everyone at the gym feel welcomed there as a volunteer coach? And I'll say sorry, no thanks, I work hard at my job in the office and going to gymnastics is meant to be fun for me - I really enjoy teaching others gymnastics but trying to befriend a seriously messed up individual like Tina is a whole other level of social work that I am simply not prepared to undertake. Why didn't Tina just become a Christian and join a church if she was looking for this kind of acceptance and friendship? I've seen the way my mother was welcomed unconditionally at her church despite the fact that she sits through the service, not really understanding anything in the sermon because she is too uneducated, autistic and senile. But she keeps going because the people at the church are so nice to her in the name of fellowship, so we're like hey it makes her happy so we are not going to split hairs about that.
Thus Tina is going to remain in her echo chamber, I can imagine her going back online and telling her friends that she tried to share the 'truth' with Alex at the gym but Alex didn't want to listen. I can only imagine what they must be telling her about me but the net result is that she will be further drawn to them and alienated from me. My point is simple though: Tina is a good example of a conspiracy theorist who doesn't fit the bill of an extreme right-wing neo-Nazi who backs Putin in this war - rather, her story is a lot more sad. She's a loser and a loner with no friends, no social skills, yet she is so desperate for some form of human contact that she ends up talking to other conspiracy theorists online and it is a slippery slope which she has fallen down a long time ago. In a sense, having other conspiracy theorists as her social network has fulfilled a need for her - she now has people she can speak to on a regular basis and they support each other. They also feel that sense of belonging which each other in their community because they share the experience of being social outcasts and ignored by people like me. If Tina takes on more radical and extreme ideology as a result of being in this community after a while, then yes she can become a 'bad person' of course but my point is that she didn't start out being evil and hateful. She was merely a lonely person desperate for human contact but totally lacked any kind of social skills to make friends the normal way. However, with no one willing to try to pull her out of that slippery slope slope she has fallen down, I'm afraid her views are just going to get more radical and extreme over time to the point where she could become really evil person. How many loners out there have fallen down this dangerous slippery slope?
It is one thing to stumble upon a crazy person online peddling conspiracy theories - if and when that happens, it is pretty easy to ignore them online. But Tina is a good example of how someone like that can exist in real life and whilst I think her head is poisoned with all these ridiculous theories, I can see how she ended up this way It worries me that a lot of parents these days are quite happy to leave their children to their own devices - quite literally, pun intended. We have a generation of young people who have grown up glued to their electronic devices and thus have very poor social skills. But the example of Tina shows that loners can get lonely, they're not loners by choice, they still do crave some form of human contact and thus if they don't have the social skills to find that human contact through more conventional friendships then they will turn to anyone who will give them that attention and they could fall prey to people such as conspiracy theorists and other shady elements who are looking to prey on the vulnerable. Of course, it is easy for me to analyze a situation like that and talk about it but sigh, I saw Tina at the gym again tonight. I said hi as I passed her in the corridor but went out of my way to avoid her as I really didn't want to give her a chance to share her conspiracy theories with me again. I had a long, hard day at work and escaping to gymnastics after work was something I had looked forward to all day so I simply wasn't in any state of mind to deal with Tina. I was both physically and mentally exhausted. I suppose you can call me selfish and let me be the first to admit: 100% guilty as charged. I realized Tina needed some normal human contact and I'm just too selfish to even grant her that. I saw her and thought, "no, I can't do this tonight."
So there you go, that's my short post on this topic. I'm off traveling to Panama tomorrow so I'll be back at the very end of the month on the 31st May. In the meantime, please let me know your thoughts: have you ever met someone like Tina before? Why do people buy into these conspiracy theories? Given that we live in the era of fake news, how can some people like Tina fail to differentiate the truth from the lies when browsing online? Would you be charitable enough to befriend someone like Tina, knowing that the first thing she would want to do is share her conspiracy theories with you? How would you react if someone at the gym tried to share her conspiracy theories with you? Would you get into an argument or walk away? What is the right response then? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
I will just politely give an excuse and walk away. If she is my friend and keep wanting to share conspiracy theories with me, I will try to tell her I am not comfortable to discuss. If she insists, then I will try to keep a distance as far as possible.
ReplyDeleteWell thankfully Tina is not a friend so I am not obliged to be friendly.
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ReplyDeleteHi there, I'm sorry I don't believe in corresponding directly with my readers like that for 3 simple reasons. Firstly, you're talking about an issue that could affect others as well when discussing your career path and if we make our discussion public (not that you have anything shameful to hide, it sounds like you're doing really well). Others who are looking for information on the topic may come across our conversation online and this could be useful to others as well - so if we chat about it, why not make it public and then others can partake in the knowledge we shall we sharing? Secondly, if I told you something that's plain wrong or misleading, then in a public forum, others can hold me to account and say, "hang on Alex, that's clearly not the case, you can't say that." But if we have a private conversation, how is anyone going to hold me to account if I made a mistake by giving you a misleading piece of advice? Thirdly, I have other wonderful readers here who are also insightful, intelligent and helpful - they could also join in the conversation and you could also benefit from their insight as well. Thus, I hope you understand why those are 3 great reasons why we should make our conversation public rather than private via email. Many thanks.
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DeleteHi there mate, thanks for your message. Allow me to talk more generally about the purpose of education from the perspective of an employer: the key reason why we want to look at your educational record is to prove that you're not stupid, that you're intelligent enough to learn stuff - sorry if that sounds really obvious, but yeah it does boil down to that really. I don't want to employ someone stupid, I want to employ someone resourceful, intelligent and good at coping with everything from stressful situations to solving problems that wayside you midway through a Thursday afternoon. So it's not like I expect you to have scored As in all of those exams you failed because the information is useful - newsflash: I have forgotten practically everything I learnt at school and university as my brain simply doesn't hold onto information that I no longer find useful. The problem that many Singaporeans have with education is that they put education on a pedestal rather than see it as something we access when we need it. When my sister asked me if I could tutor my nephew for his A level economics exam, she actually asked a really dumb ass question: "can you remember what you learnt for A levels?" Of course not, I am in my mid 40s, it's like asking me, "can you remember what you had for lunch on the 21st September 1993?" But I simply spent a few days reading up on everything I needed to know to teach my nephew, obtained the information that I needed and then I was able to teach my nephew with ease. So whether or not I studied A level economics back in the day, whether I did well in the exams for it or if I remember anything is totally irrelevant - all that mattered was that as an adult, I was able to identify the information I needed, I knew how to get hold of that information and I knew how to learn everything I needed to learn. By that token, someone like me would be a lot more forgiving in terms of your poor academic record - you don't have to prove to me that you're a good boy, that you can sit down and study hard in order to pass an exam: if I genuinely believe that you have what it takes to work for me, then I would test you myself. So during the job interview, I would workshop something with you - I'd identify an engineering design problem and ask you, "so how would you go about solving this problem? Talk it through with me how would you analyze the problem and come up with a solution." I'd be looking for someone intelligent enough to process all that brand new information on the spot and think out of the box rather than just vomit out everything he has memorized from the textbook like a typical good Singaporean student. Part 2 coming up, see below.
DeletePart 2: So you need to put yourself in my shoes, as someone who is looking to hire a good candidate to join my team: I'm not your parent, I'm not necessarily looking for a straight A student. Okay, sure I'm looking for someone who is intelligent and not stupid but you need to ask me, "what are the qualities of your ideal candidate?" Rather than assume I must be looking for a good student with good results - that's looking at it from the point of view of a school teacher who would have brainwashed you into thinking, "if you don't do well for your exams, you have no future, now pay attention to my class." Nah, exams don't really matter that much as long as a) you're genuinely intelligent, b) you are capable of learning useful skills quickly to solve problems. Thus an intelligent student could hypothetically learn a lot during a course but fail to study for the exam and still do badly for it - however, in this case, I would NEVER say to the student, "go back and resit that exam and prove to me that you can score an A for it." Hell no, I would simply say, "I will conduct an in-depth interview with you on the subject matter and give you a few problems to solve along the way - by the end of the interview, I will be able to ascertain if you're a clever student who didn't study or genuinely stupid." I consider myself quite intelligent but I have also flunked a few exams along the way of course, so I know what it is like to have struggled with exams because you didn't study hard enough. Then again, I'm a nice person with a lot of empathy, I can't guarantee you that every employer out there is as nice as me - you'll be lucky to meet someone as nice as me for your future employer if I may be honest.
DeleteIf I may make a point please: if you're clearly not the kind of person to do well in exams, then you should have plain given up on them a long time ago rather than waste so much time and effort resitting and going to SIM of all bloody places. You foolishly wasted a lot of time and money flogging a dead horse, trying to find an easy route when it came to exams rather than just say, "fuck it, I hate exams, I don't ever wanna take a fucking exam again. I'm going to learn something I'm really interested in, become a real expert in it to the point where I command a lot of respect in that field where nobody would ever question that I'm one of the world's best experts in this field, fuck teachers and fuck exams, I don't need any of that shit. I'll do it myself without exams."
As you would have seen from my latest post, I have just returned from Panama where I delivered a workshop at a banking conference in Spanish - I was invited there as a fucking VIP because I'm such an expert in the field. But did you know that I don't have a single qualification in banking/investments/finance? Nor have I taken a single lesson in Spanish in my life? Everything I presented in Panama was all self-taught and I am more respected than the so-called experts in the Spanish speaking world who did degrees in banking and finance in the top universities in the Spanish-speaking world. Oh and my Spanish is totally fluent, all self-taught, fuck teachers. Sorry but my parents were teachers (really awful teachers) and that has totally made me biased against teachers - like if you want something done properly, you do it yourself, you certainly don't depend on a teacher who may turn out to be as awful as my parents to teach you what they know. Part 3 coming up below.
The reason why I went down the self-taught "fuck teachers fuck exams" route is not because I had any kind of anxiety about exams, no quite simply because I was so fucking poor! I came from a poor family in Singapore and my parents would have never had the money to pay for me to resit my exams or even pay for my degree - I had to ace my exams in order to get my first degree on a scholarship. Taking a further degree wasn't an option because I was already so far behind my peers because of NS and given my huge cynicism about allowing a teacher to teach me anything prompted me to go down the self-taught path.
DeleteAnd if I may be blunt, if you're thinking that doing a 4-year program at NTU would somehow wipe the slate clean and you are then as worthy as the other candidates who apply for a job, you're totally wrong. Sorry, but any gatekeeper who looks at your CV and asks you a few questions during an interview can see that you've seriously fucked up along the way in pursuing 'easier options' rather than wake up and change course, steering the hell away from school/exams and learning some really useful skills that will lead to gainful employment.
Oh and as for social anxiety, as a friend who is concerned about your mental health, yeah of course I'm nice, empathetic and kind when I hear about your issues. But as an employer, that's my excuse to say, "he's a mess, I would rather not have to deal with his bullshit if he has a lot of anxiety issues, we'll hire someone else instead." No employer would ever give you a job if you dare to mention your anxiety issues at a job interview, I'm terribly sorry but the world is that harsh out there. They don't want to hire you, pay you for a few months to try to adapt to your new role only for you to crack under pressure and give up, then you would have wasted their time and money. You already have a tainted record of fuck ups, I'm sorry but that's true. I look at your record and I have seen clearly that you've fucked up big time already. Forgive me for being harsh but if you've freaked out over exams in the past, what makes you think you will survive the stressful regime of NTU and ace those exams? Nothing is gonna change, you're better off proving yourself in a field in the complete absence of any exams.
I don't wanna sound like a total bitch but you have to understand the difference between a friend and an employer. As a friend, if you tell me all of those problems with your family and your mental health issues, of course I'm going to be understanding, empathetic and kind. But as an employer, I wouldn't ever want to manage someone with all of those issues - you come with way too much baggage. In any case, you could also meet someone like me who could react by saying, "oh you think your problems were bad? Wait till you see how fucked up my family was, I faced far more problems than you did yet I managed to overcome my problems, so your excuses only make you sound like a pathetic loser who has given up trying, you're appealing for my sympathy rather than proving to me that you're tough enough to have overcome your problems, fuck off loser." OK that sounded really harsh but that's a genuine possibility so I would never use that approach with an employer, just warning you.
DeleteThus if you have an offer of employment, then take it. It's a no brainer, it's so clear that you don't like exams, you suck at them and if there's a quicker route to gainful employment where you can develop your skills in an environment without any more exams, then what are you waiting for? Take that offer and say thank you very much when can I start? It's so obvious that between the two options you have on the table, one is completely unsuitable and wrong for you whilst the other one whilst not perfect, is a far superior option. Let me know if you have anything else on your mind that I can talk you through, cheers.
PS. Hope you don't mind the swearing, I've got such a potty mouth sorry.
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DeleteHi there, thanks for your reply. I am glad to hear back from you. Allow me to take a step back and ask you once again two very fundamental questions: what is the purpose of education and why are Singaporeans unable to think of of a plan B? The answer: if you can be the ideal straight-A Singaporean student who aces every exam, then as a gatekeeper I would say, great you're clearly a fast and efficient learner, I can put you in charge of this project and you'll pick up all the skills and information you need to manage this project, I can trust that you'll deliver good results based on your track record. But if you have already messed up along the way, then you can't expect to ace one exam and expect a gate keeper to ignore the rest of your rather poor track record - a parent who forces you to get a degree under such circumstances is guilty of being unable to come up with a plan B to suit your circumstances and failing to understand my point of view as a gatekeeper. This kind of ignorance and stubbornness is unfortunately only too common in Singapore, especially amongst the older generation.
DeleteI'd rather you enter the work force ASAP and forget trying to prove yourself with paper qualifications - dude, I've not taken an exam in a very long time (well I am an old man) but I am proving myself everyday at work by solving my clients' problems and coming up with innovative solutions. It is a public holiday in the UK today but I managed to solve one of my Malaysian client's problems and I messaged my boss to let him know that I had solved that really big headache for that client in KL. Needless to say, my boss was pleased not just that I solved that big problem but I took the initiative to work on a public holiday rather than wait till Monday. Dude, working adults like me don't need a piece of paper marked by an examiner to prove ourselves to our employers to get a good job. People know me by my reputation as a guy who is great at solving problems - I don't need a degree or certificate to prove that, I've proven myself in the work place as I'm a working adult, not a student anymore. You have got to start seeing yourself as an adult already, you're no longer a student so you have got to stop thinking, "I need a piece of paper qualification to tell the world what I'm worth", no fuck that, you need to prove yourself in the work place: that's called work experience and your reputation - I've been doing that for years as a 46 year old man who has been working hard all these years, too busy solving my clients' problems and earning a great reputation as a problem solver to even bother with more paper qualifications because fuck exams, I hate exams too. Part 2 coming up.
In any case, there are many different kinds of jobs out there. If you're just looking to do a simple working class job, whereby you turn off your brain and follow instructions (like a MRT train driver) then guess what? You don't need a degree. You join SMRT, they give you all the training, you are told exactly what to do in every situation, you're given a work schedule, you get instructions, something unexpected happens you're told not to make a decision, radio the station control at the HQ command center and await further instructions. You don't even get to choose what to wear for work - you must wear a uniform. If you really want a simpler life where you get to just turn off your brain and do as you're told like an obedient kid not trusted to make even the simplest decision, then by all means, go become an MRT driver lah and it's not a bad way to lead your life if you're happy to turn off your brain at work. You don't need a degree to do a job like that. I'm just pointing out to you that there are jobs like that where you have a appearance of making a valuable contribution to society whilst you're really not that challenged mentally.
DeleteThe downside of a job like that though is the boredom factor, it is repetitive, you do the same routine day after day after day and there's never anything new or exciting. Some people end up in jobs like that because they're not intelligent enough to do more difficult jobs that involve using your brains to solve complex problems and that's fair enough - but this is what you have to consider: tell me honestly, let's put aside your academic record for now. Are you intelligent enough to do a job like mine where people throw you complex problems you've never ever seen before and say, "solve this"? Or do you just wanna be that MRT driver who turns his brain off and just follows instructions? It sounds to me like your younger self would have been very happy to go down the MRT driver route as it is perceived to be easier but something tells me that you also probably think you're too smart for that. Anyway, if the latter is the case, then you had better get on with proving yourself worthy in the work place to prove to people like me that you are indeed a resourceful, intelligent and innovative problem solver in the workplace and you're the kinda person I'd want in my team.
So I think you need to work backwards from the final result: what kind of job do you want? If you want to be an innovator, a problem solver, a leader and be the kind of big boss that has big ideas to change the world, then you need to prove yourself in the work place rather than through exams. If you're happy to be the kind of MRT driver type person who just follows instructions, then forget about a degree - you don't need a degree for that kind of job. I want to finish by telling you about my army buddy who had a very messed up childhood - long story, but his family situation was so bad that he flunked all his exams, he simply wasn't in the right place to do well in his exams and his academic track record was as bad as yours. But when he went to university, he had to work part time to make ends meet and that was when he really proved himself to his employers as a brilliant problem solver who was super intelligent and had a real talent - he didn't even graduate before he was given a job offer. The key thing was that he understood that he was already an adult and he had to stop thinking like a student, he was no longer a kid who had to earn the approval of the adults by acing his exams but he was an adult who had to earn his seat at the table in the work place by proving that he is brilliant at his job. Today he is far more successful than a lot of his peers who had brilliant academic results because he was smart enough to say, "I'm NOT going to prove myself worthy to employers through my paper qualifications, I hate exams anyway, I'm just going to show them how I can function brilliantly in the workplace." The sooner you start realizing you're an adult and no longer a kid, the better then you can start acting like an adult rather than have this childish mindset about wishing to use exams to prove yourself.
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DeleteHi there, thanks for your reply. I'm glad that we're on the same wavelength because the words ROI came to mind as I was reading the words "4 years another debt of 32k" and I was like nooooo think about your ROI!! And sure enough, you said the words before I did. So I am glad you understand - we should do a degree if only we expect a decent ROI on it. But look, my army buddy and I shared one thing in common: we both have had messy, unstable family backgrounds growing up thus I'm in the UK now and he's in America, both very far away from Singapore as we both needed to get away from our families. If you feel a sense of responsibility towards your younger siblings, then yes I understand of course. And criminology doesn't pay, I've seen people study that in the UK and they either end up in some low-paid civil service role in the police or they go do something else totally unrelated. Academically it may be fascinating but the ROI on it is very poor actually.
DeleteGood luck for your new job as you do have a good opportunity here. All the best.
Hey Alex and Anonymous, I thought I'd just give my 2 cents because I did an engineering degree in Singapore and briefly worked in the semiconductor industry there afterwards. My general opinion about an engineering degree at a local university is that no, it won't get you job offers on its own. In fact how I secured a job after graduation was in fact the summer internship at another semiconductor company, and undergraduate research. No employer cared about my GPA or the classes I took at university, it wasn't even in the interview, however they did give me a written test which asked for ideas for how I'd solve problems rather than "calculate me the right number" like an A level exam. But if Anonymous already has a job offer, then the degree doesn't really add much value unless Anonymous is really really interested in how circuits works and wants to design new chips. There is some value to the knowledge, but its soo niche I didn't even use 90% of calculus, maxwell's equations, and semiconductor physics while working in industry. That kind of knowledge is only relevant for research jobs, and pretty much nowhere else. Otherwise, 90% of my job at that semiconductor factory were things the older engineers had to specifically train me on, like how to use machines, or what to do when something happens to the manufacturing process, etc. None of that stuff is taught at university, it is just gained from on the job experience. Like Alex said no employer is looking for what you had to know to get an A on an exam, instead they just want proof you can learn/be trained in what they need you to know.
DeleteAlso Alex, I just got my driver's license and bought a car so I will be going to gymnastics much more often now (3x a week). Man how I wish I started gymnastics in Sg rather than America where there's good public transport. Also I'm sorry to hear you got chased on the street in Panama.
Hi Amanda, glad you chimed in. Yes the bottom line is that employers out there in the real world are NOT counting on you to remember stuff that you've learnt at school or university. We acknowledge and accept that you're going to forget most of the stuff you've learnt back as a student, but you know how to get your hands on information that is important. So if I said to you, "Amanda, we have that meeting on Monday afternoon with the client regarding the solar energy project in Thailand, make sure you're well prepared for it." I'm most certainly NOT counting on the fact that somewhere along the way, some teacher somewhere has taught you something about solar energy in Thailand. Hell no, I would expect you to get onto Google at once and start researching the solar energy market in Thailand and read up on the topic until you can waltz into that meeting and speak intelligently on the topic. The purpose of education is to prove that you know how to find the knowledge you need quickly, it most certainly isn't about cramming your head with stuff you need for work. Heck, I'm going to have a meeting next week about Ugandan Pension funds next week and do I know anything about it? Hell no. Do I need to be as passive as a Singaporean student and say, "I need to attend a course for a teacher to teach me everything I need to know?" Hell no. Fuck no. Life is too short, there's no time and I've spent my weekend learning about the Ugandan Pension system. Welcome to the working world where we adults just get on with solving our own problems instead of passively waiting for a teacher to tell us what to do.
DeleteOh and I'm just glad I met an incompetent robber who gave me enough time to run away from him by shouting abuse at me from a distance. That was lucky.
DeleteHey Alex! Some part of me thinks that only jobs like being a cashier at a supermarket or driving a bus require some level of "one-time" memorization of knowledge that is then used over and over, with no need to react and innovate to different problems everyday. Like for example I just passed my driving test despite failing it the first time round, and that was because I forgot to use turn signals. But after learning that once, I likely don't have to think very much when driving because most actions on the road that I need to do in response to certain events are the same and I've seen them before. Yet one has to memorize knowledge in university in order to get a degree to even access the high paying white collar jobs that require on-the-spot thinking. Even in academia when we are working on cutting edge math/physics I have to tell new researchers "stop looking at the textbook for an equation you can just plug numbers into. It's likely the solution doesn't exist yet and you have to come up with it. Else why are we working on this problem if a solution has already been found?" But the way we teach students in school is to simply "plug and chug", rather than look at the problem and invent a new formula for others to use later. It's similar to the Ugandan pension problem, if the solution already exists then why are they paying you the big bucks to think of a solution to fix the problem? Unfortunately the education system does not value students for originality, only for what they can memorize...
DeleteHaha yeah if that robber really wanted to get your money ASAP, they would just try to pickpocket you and stab you if you notice. Jeezus the only case where I've heard someone be threatened at knifepoint was a friend of mine who was working at a convenience store as a cashier late and night and a man came in with a knife asking him to put all the money in a bag. But that's only because a cashier can't easily run from a robber, while a tourist on the street like yourself can.
Well yes, I did talk about much simpler alternatives for our friend, like becoming a train driver if that's really what he wants but he might end up regretting it when he becomes very bored. The Ugandan pension problem is not top secret so I will present it to you: there is a national pension scheme in Uganda (similar to the CPF in Singapore) and many Ugandans pay into it, creating a massive pot of money for the government to manage. Uganda faces a few problems: soaring inflation (mostly because of the war in Ukraine) means that food and energy prices are through the roof this year. On top of that, the local currency the Ugandan schilling is weak. In 2011, US$1 = 2303 Ush, but in 2020, US$1 = 3723 Ush - that means that if Ugandans want to import anything from food to medicine to machinery to fuel, when they pay in USD (as most international trade defaults to USD which is considered a very stable currency). So if the Ugandan government just sat on this pot of national pension money and did nothing, then the circumstances of their weak currency + inflation would erode a massive chunk of that pot of pension money and remember, this is the life savings of hardworking honest people who are also voters. So the government needs to invest that money in manage it properly to make sure they don't lose the life savings of the people in their pensions - what can the Ugandan government do in this case to battle inflation and a weak currency to safeguard the value of their people's savings in the pension?
DeleteAs for the attacker, the lady at my hotel dismissed him as 'loco' (crazy), like there will always be crazy people out there. At first I thought, your city is unsafe you can't just dismiss the guy who tried to attack me as loco! But then again, I told the story to an English friend of mine who was about your age, she told me how she had a harrowing experience once when she was returning home late at night. She went into a train station and there was one guy on the platform with a knife who came up to her and asked her for her number, she saw he had a knife and she just ran. He chased her through the station, yelling nasty abuse at her and eventually she was able to get help from station staff after a few minutes but I did think, if he wanted to stab, rob or assault her, he could have done it but somehow he allowed her to escape despite being armed and having the upper hand in that kind of situation? At best, he didn't plan the attack - it was spontaneous, he didn't know he was going to spot a young lady in the train station and he didn't know what he was doing. At worst, yeah he was kinda loco and loco people are not great at planning anything methodically to get the best result. Thus maybe the loco theory is more valid than I had originally thought.
DeleteOh my that sounds like a terrible double whammy of problems to deal with. Usually the wealthier people in such countries try to put their money in foreign cash reserves like the US dollar or Euros, but that makes the weak currency even weaker. It's good the Ugandan government is trying hard to invest the money wisely though. I mean sure their sovereign wealth fund may not be as large as Norway's or Singapore's, but better than letting the money sit there. Do these governments engage private investment firms to manage their pension funds? Is that why you're involved. Here in the US we don't have a nationalized pension fund like CPF, everything is private and through employers. So we get a situation where for example New York firefighters and teachers have their own pension funds which do engage big wallstreet firms to manage their investments.
DeleteHaha there are loco people around even in developed countries like the UK and the US. I suppose people on the street aren't super smart and efficient assassins like the one from "killing eve."
You're right, the rich elite in such countries will keep most of their wealth in hard currency, usually USD and thus that's what these pension funds have to do. They take pension money in from the locals participating in the scheme, convert it to USD and then find a private investment firm to help manage some of those funds. Please do not confuse pension funds with sovereign wealth funds - they're quite different things. Pension funds can be run by any big company like Amazon, Starbucks, Nestle, Apple or British Airways just for their employees only - but with a company as big as Amazon or Apple, that's still a lot of employees. But when countries do it on a national level (like Singapore and Uganda) and create a national pension pot (in Singapore, that's the CPF) - well that's pension money, that most certainly isn't their sovereign wealth fund! The sovereign wealth fund is something else altogether and has nothing to do with the pensions of ordinary folks. But yes, they ask the investment experts for help and there's where I come in - hence I've been doing a lot of reading up on Uganda. Did you know that both the vice president and prime minister of Uganda are both women? Pretty good on the gender equality front.
DeleteYes, but when loco people in the US get hold of a machine gun and shoot up an elementary school in Texas, a lot of kids die - therein lies the difference. Whereas a loco person with a knife in Panama can only cause that much damage and I can always run very fast away from him.
Oh okay so the sovereign wealth fund includes money that isn't only from pensions, but whatever money the government sets aside specifically for investing. Luckily Singapore's currency is very strong so I doubt they need to use foreign reserves. By the way I did watch a youtube video about how UK banks have lots of US dollars in reserve in case anyone wants to borrow money in the form of US dollars. It's crazy how "international" the US dollar is because of how stable it is. Wow that must be a huge opportunity for a private firm to get the contract to help manage a pension fund of an entire country. I didn't hear about Uganda's prime minister and vice president being women. I did hear about when Sweden elected its first female prime minister, but I suppose news from Africa doesn't usually make the New York Times, which is where I get most of my news from. What does surprise me about developing countries is how progressive they can be next to Western countries sometimes. It shows that "progress" is not just a fixed number, but countries can be equally "progressive" but in subtly different ways. Or maybe the West isn't as progressive as they think they are. Recently I was dumped by an American man who said he couldn't be with me because I'm not a Christian, but my American friends told me that from the things he said, he was probably subtly hinting he wanted me to quit my job to be his housewife which I clearly wouldn't since I love science and I'm an even more successful scientist than he is. My friends told me that anyone who says they believe in "traditional Christian values" is some crazy conservative person I should stay away from, even if they are highly educated and from a rich country like America.
DeleteOh gosh what has been happening in the US is just terrible lately. It's not even just the elementary school, there's been hate crime shootings happening within weeks of the school shooting happening lately too. I suppose I'd take my chances with UK/Panamian knife crime over US gun crimes any day. The thing is many Americans, particularly rural or Southern Americans are very attached to gun ownership. My brother owns a gun and his rationale is "what if a robber breaks into my house?" Jeez, that's what we have police for! But even that has issues in the US.... The people who are most for gun ownership tend to believe in small government, hence the feeling of "we must protect ourselves or no-one will."
Oh let's not count our chickens before they hatch, we're negotiating at this stage and hopefully they will give us a small percentage to manage - even if it is 2%, it's 2% of a massive pot of money. They won't give us all of it to begin with. I'm setting up the negotiations so it's my pet project for this year.
DeleteAs for America, well I remember when I was in Panama, I watched CNN all day long as it was the only English language channel I could get in the hotel and it was just non-stop coverage of Uvalde. So akan datang, there may be a post on it at some point.
And yes, you know the difference between a sovereign wealth fund and a pension fund. If I get to help assist a country like Singapore or Norway with their sovereign wealth fund, it'll be unreal but they tend to deal with much bigger players in the investment banking world rather than niche, smaller independent players like the company that I work for.
DeleteAhh okay so negotiating to see if the Ugandan pensions will let you manage a small percentage of their funds is part of your expansion into getting African and Latin American money. Cool. Hmm I used to think that wealth management was only for very high net worth individuals, but apparently it helps the average person save for retirement too. By the way, your job is pretty interesting as a salesman. Trying to catch a client by meeting with them, asking them what their needs are, pitching a good solution, etc. It amazes me how in high end business people are required to learn new things within a week for a very specific client or problem, that actually sounds pretty exciting!
DeleteBy the way I just googled how big the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is, and holy cow that's 1.3 trillion dollars! Even if they split that pot amongst 100 companies, that's still 13 billion per company! Singapore is not far off with 700 billion in total assets between Temasek and GIC holdings. I'm surprised that the UK being a finance center does not have its own sovereign wealth fund, but then again neither does the US.
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DeleteSome countries have sovereign wealth funds, others don't. It's the same way some people have a lot of savings and others have surprisingly little. Let me tell you about my friend Ang in Singapore - you would think he is rich: when he goes on holiday, Ang would stay at nice hotels and he would fly business class only. He spends a lot of money and to be fair, has a decent job. But he revealed to me that he spends more than he earns, he rents his apartment rather than owns it and he is actually in debt. So Ang's situation is similar to that of the UK and US, we have the appearance of being rich but there's no savings to back it all up. I have more savings than Ang by a long way, but I don't consume as much as Ang when it comes to spending money - so on paper I am richer but Ang can claim to have a higher standard of living based on his consumption patterns. Go figure. But I think all these things are meaningless at a personal level, do Singaporeans get a share of the Sovereign Wealth Fund? Hell no. That money is not shared with ordinary citizens. So it's a bit like saying, "my father has a really big car, but I'm not allowed to touch it."
DeleteHmm... I do wonder where does that money go then? Doing some Googling, Norway's sovereign wealth fund does pay out a dividend to the Norwegian government which amounts to 20% of their yearly spending. I'm not so sure about Singapore's sovereign wealth fund. With my university, they do have an investment fund which was worth about $6 billion before the pandemic, and $10 billion after the pandemic because they invested about $2 billion when the stock market crashed due to corona(very risky move). I know they did use it to go shopping for 10 new professors and 3 new buildings. So I suppose in that case the money does somewhat flow back to the students but indirectly.
DeleteHaha that's so true, the US may be a rich country but they do frequently spend more than they earn, and apparently we have a situation where our pension reserves may run out by the time Gen X reaches retirement age. LOL so basically the US and UK are living paycheck to paycheck while Norway and Singapore have huge bank accounts.
Well in principle, the money in a sovereign wealth fund is meant to be invested to safeguard the country's future - so there ought to be guiding principles about what the money can be used for. So if you have a proposal for investing in improving the country's energy infrastructure to make it more green and less reliant on fossil fuels, then definitely yes. But if it is to build a giant statue of the president made entirely in gold, then it should be a no. In Norway's case, they are so rich because of their oil which will run out one day, so the principle of it has always been "let's keep some of this excess for a time after the oil runs out". So that's why the money is not spent but carefully invested for their future. As for Singapore's SWF, it's clouded in a lot more secrecy because it's not clear how ordinary Singaporeans benefit from it.
DeleteAnyway, it goes back to my comparison between my friend Ang in Singapore and myself - he spends more, consumes more, has a higher standard of living if consumption = quality of life whilst I have more cash and assets but I consume less than him. So who is richer?
I heard recently that Saudi Arabia is trying hard to pull a Norway by starting up their own investment fund to wean themselves off oil someday. Which is why they bought Newcastle United the football club, but football clubs are money-losing so that looks more like a public relations exercise more than anything else. Hmm in the case of SG I do know that the government does use investment interest to cover the cost of certain medicines as part of their healthcare system, which is quite smart rather than spending the principle. It could be used on infrastructure like building new MRT lines. One thing that surprised me when I moved to America after living in Sg for so long was how run-down and not well maintained public buildings/parks were compared to anything private. In Singapore any government owned place/building is at the highest standard. NUS/NTU's buildings look far better than SIM for example. But in the US a public university simply can't compete with Harvard on looks. So I suppose that's where the Singaporean money goes, even if not directly into the pockets of Singaporeans via a welfare state. Also sometimes I do wonder how is the SG government so rich if Singapore has low taxes, it's probably investments.
DeleteHow old is Ang if I may ask? I dunno how his lifestyle is even sustainable. Where I grew up someone like Ang is not called "rich" but just "indebted" because they don't have any assets, investments, or savings which generate income without him doing anything.
The thing about the SWF in Singapore is that the government can spend some of the interests earned from the investments on local infrastructure projects that does benefit the locals and that's when they shout about it. But when they make massive losses as in 2009 and now in 2022, fingers start pointing at mismanagement and nepotism, at a lack of transparency. They lost $39 billion in 8 months in 2009 because of some very poor decisions and their response? Look the other way, this doesn't concern you, we lost some money but that's just business. They just topped that up by taking more money out of Singapore and got away with it because Singaporeans don't ask questions when it comes to their government or holding them accountable.
DeleteAs for Ang, he's in his mid-50s. He's living a really comfortable lifestyle, he has recently traveled to Europe for a holiday and you should have seen the pics he has posted on Facebook - he certainly spent a LOT of money on that holiday so most people who saw those pictures would think, "he is rich, look at his lifestyle, look at the way he lives." But then again, I know his financial situation. His philosophy is, "I can't take the money with me to the grave, so why should I keep it in the bank? I may as well enjoy myself whilst I am alive." So he is spending way beyond his means to have a good time.
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ReplyDeleteHi there, no worries - just a quick point though, if you were to look at the job market out there, most jobs are for people who simply do as they are told and follow instructions. Not many are at the level of Amanda and myself - we're expected to find answers that cannot be found in any textbook, we're expected to find solutions to problems that have yet to be solved.If you put someone in our role and they're not ready to do this kind of job, then they will flounder and struggle if they are way out of their depth. But if you put someone like me in a "follow instructions" role (like during my NS stint), then oh I was bored out of my brain. You have to decide what kind of role would be right for you.
DeleteYeah I'd just like to mention a lot of engineering jobs are also being told what to do and following instructions with the exception of 10% of the time when new problems arise at work. 90% of the time the problem is known and the other engineers will know exactly what to do, and will only ask you to collect data from the machines. The difference is this knowledge is company specific and not taught in schools. However, one still has to have some basic understanding of technical things like coding, electronics, etc. for small issues that would take too long to ask another engineer how to fix, but sometimes I feel a university degree is not really that necessary aside from gatekeeping the job. There are plenty of people who were self-taught programmers that managed to get a job in the software industry without going to university. But regardless of qualifications/working style, there is still high demand for engineers and engineering services so the pay is still very high compared to other types of jobs. I'm in a PhD program right now, and our pay is crap even though I have to make up new solutions not found in most physics/engineering textbooks, only because I'm making up these problems for my solutions rather than the problem already existing and people willing to pay for it.
DeleteMoral of the story, nobody pays anyone to be "smart", they pay you to be useful. Even if that usefulness is just following instructions, as long as there is high demand for that kind of work and not many other people who can do the job. A friend of mine in computer science who has a math degree jokes "industry will value a coder from India over someone who developed a new math theorem simply because the former can code websites/iphone apps while the latter cannot."
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DeleteHi Amanda, on the topic of the Ugandan pension fund, there are a lot of investment specialists out there - so why would they choose to work with us and not one of our many rivals? The answer is simple: I am presenting myself as an African specialist who knows a lot about Uganda and that I would understand their needs better than my rivals. Think about it this way: imagine you're the prettiest, most attractive girl in school and I'm just an average Joe. I would ask you to be my girlfriend with this pitch: I may not be the smartest, richest or most good looking guy in this school, but I am the most attentive, most patient and if you agree to be my girlfriend, I will make you feel like you're the most important person in the world to me. No one else is going to pay as much attention to your needs, your interests, your dreams - I will listen to you in a way that no man has ever done so before and you are going to love being with me. So my usefulness in this negotiation is tied up with my social skills to woo the other party, even if it is an old civil servant in Kampala, Uganda. It's not necessarily about having the best investment strategy, it is about winning the trust of the other party to convince them to wanna work with us as their investment partner.
DeleteOh gosh trust is so important... Going back to what you said in another reply, I think the Singapore government covered up their losses because they would lose trust in their population, even if losing money in 2009 was nothing special because the world was in a recession. Pension funds are interesting because they have to both grow for future generations, but also generate a dividend for the people retiring right now. I suppose you can't put too much focus on risky high growth stocks compared to low risk bonds because you have to serve two different age brackets. Unless Uganda divides the money for different uses, like this 2% must be high growth, but this other 2% must be high yield. Btw how often do investors check on their money? My guess was that they just gave their money and only check in once a year, unless some major life event happens to them (e.g war in Ukraine disrupting global economy). I suppose they would send you to speak with them when that happens?
DeleteHi Amanda, allow me to explain. A rich person with a pension would speak to a financial advisor, the financial advisor is someone you pay to help manage your finances and s/he usually takes a small percentage of your pension pot in exchange for that service. So if it's 1% of a big pot of money, then yeah that's a huge commission. The financial adviser (sometimes the word 'broker' is used in Singapore) is then the one who tells the rich person, "I think we should put all your money in ABC-123's pension programme because it is the best in the industry based on risk vs reward etc etc etc". So the company that manages the pot of pension money is ABC-123, not the financial adviser. However, if the rich person wants to have any questions about "what the hell are you doing with my money", the firm ABC-123 would then say, "please speak to your financial adviser who served you." Thus firms like ABC-123 wouldn't spend hours serving customers, they would simply say, "speak to your financial adviser." And if in a worst case scenario, the pension fund performs badly, then the rich person would say to the financial adviser, "you gave me bad advice, I won't use you anymore, I'm going to use my cousin Linda's financial adviser, she speaks very highly of him." If you can imagine, speaking to cousin Linda to keep her happy is a time consuming task that most people in finance don't wanna do, but that's what financial advisers do to earn their cut.
DeleteDifferent roles, different jobs. So someone like me, I would never speak to 'cousin Linda'; I would at best end up speaking to 'cousin Linda's financial adviser' - that's the chain of command.
To use an analogy to illustrate my point: imagine if you went for a haircut Amanda and you looked at what they did for you - it's too short, it looks wrong, it's not what you ask for. You're fuming, you're angry, you want to know what went wrong. So do you complain to: a) the hairdresser who cut your hair or b) the manufacturer of the scissors he used to cut your hair? Big difference in the role they played in the process that led to you being very unhappy with your haircut.
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DeleteHi there, allow me to offer some responses to what you've written: firstly, there's nothing wrong with asking too many questions, rather it is more a matter of asking intelligent questions. If you asked good questions, then they would have no issue with that I assure you. But if they were merely looking for a foot soldier who followed commands and took orders, then anyone asking questions isn't right for the job. Then again, what kind of job do you want?
DeleteAs for the professional relationship, I go back to the haircut analogy. Say you're getting a haircut and the guy accidentally wounds you by cutting your ear, you're bleeding and screaming in pain. Do you sue the guy who cut your ear, or do you sue the manufacturer of the scissors? Can we prove that the scissors malfunctioned and it was no fault of the guy cutting your hair? Where do you pin the blame? I have no simple answer for that, it will depend on where you can think the bulk of the blame should lie.
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ReplyDeleteNo worries, I wish you all the best my friend.
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