Taking five weeks’ leave from work is not as difficult as one thinks. Most times, when you are at the top, you think you are indispensable. But if you are a good leader who has built up a good team, it is possible to go away for five weeks or even longer.
Tan Yong Soon, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, who took a 5-weeks course in cooking with his family at the famous Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. (Straits Times, Life, Jan 6).
HELP keep the voice of TOC alive!
If you like this article, please consider a small donation to help theonlinecitizen.com stay alive. Please note that we can only accept donations from Singaporeans. Thank you for your assistance.Do you have a flair for writing? Volunteer with us. Email us your full name and contact details to theonlinecitizen@gmail.com
He knows that PAP will be voted out and out of job soon.
Having attended such a cooking course with his wife and son, he may have wanted to introduce the course to all senior govt leaders to attend with their families. This will certainly help family bonding and improve the productivity of the nation! A happy family is a productive family. They will have more children and all the children will be brilliant. No need to import so many FTs.
Noo wonder Lee Hsien Loong is silent for at least two weeks when “things” happen. Taking two weeks’ “leave” from responsibility and leadership is easy. If you are not a good leader, it is possible to go away for five weeks or even longer. You will not be missed. LOL
I think as singaporean we should be proud that our Civil Servants
earn such high salaries that maybe someone in the West also envy.
hip hop hurray.
Their pay is benchmarked to the best in private sector. These best people work their @$$ off to justify the pay.
We heard story such as emailing our leaders at 3pm and they reply immediately to show how hardworking they are and hence the pay.
Should tell our PM that he had his job as good as Mr Tan.
what wrong with going for a holiday with family ? cooking, sight seeing, cruising, skiing, etc … just doing different thing but still vacation. why such a big fuss? its suprising if he cant afford.
however what he said is worth examing, I was thinking he is such a good leader, probably he had also train his team so well that they may do without him, unless what he say is not what he meant… or he is not that good yet..
We normal Singaporean cannot even accumulate annual leaves for more than one year. 5 weeks? I wonder what is the government employment terms?
He sure didn’t learn how to prepare humble pie in Paris!
The newspaper report is absolutely disgusting. What can cooking lessons for an outlandishly paid top brass civil servant do to help him implement national policies to help the ordinary people? It is a definite sign of underwork and overpay for such top brass people to lase around and getting humongous pay, while the poor people are suffering the worst recession in Singapore. It is surely a clear sign of the great divide between the elitists and the rest of us in our sad society.
Besides, are these cooking lessons so newsworthy as to make it to the headlines of our 154th papers? Have they run out of news of greater national importance to report?
This display of wealth and luxury of a civil servant trigger thoughts to the huge paychecks our ministers are getting.
Believed that everybody remembers the explanation/justification made for the need to increase the ministers’ pay was to retain talents, it was to pay (BIG $) these ministers (to run a TINY country) so that they will not be attracted to leave the government and join the private sectors.
Now that the private sectors is so gloomy, there should be no job available for these ministers to job-hop right? So cut their pay now ! This is the best time to cut their pay, they can’t go anywhere, market very bad you know, no job.
since he’s not indispensable and his good team can/has been handling the work well enough without him, maybe the government should retrench him and save taxpayers’ money. it’d be a great show of effort from the government that they’re trying to tighten their belts as well.
[i]pumpkin on January 7th, 2009 9.07 pm Having attended such a cooking course with his wife and son, he may have wanted to introduce the course to all senior govt leaders to attend with their families. This will certainly help family bonding [/i]
did by any chance any of you missed out
when the mental1 was tellin singaporeans
EVERY weekends
a BBQ lunches will be held in the istana
for any ministers and families to gather aroun….
the mental1 sighed simply because even the other ministers’ children also don’t 1 to attend a FREE sunday buffet
catered in the presidential palace
and here we are
havin the shortleggs minister to tell us
there is no FREE lunch…………..
so maybe
this permanent sec is bein sent to paris to be trained the best chef
in order to attract the ministers’ kids to bbq
and maybe intermarriages as well
afterall
the mental1 did booast its better for 1 ministers’ kids to marry another ministers’ kids
to ensure we have the best talents…………..
this kinda remind moi
of adolf hitler experiement with sperms mixtures
you know
the SS gestapo blonde hairs blue eyes kids…..
noelofarc of course. I thought it was you. Want to emulate the late IDF minister? HAha
So on topic, this minister’s reason is controversial, but I feel that theirs nothing wrong with her spending her own money. She just isn’t a good speaker, that’s all.
What’s the big issue?
Probably the dumbest ass-in-head move I’ve ever seen from a supposed smart ass SOB in the government service! I spent my vacation in KL and didn’t even try to take a taxi to save some money.
And why the hell did he have to go spend his money in Paris?! Can’t he just spend his money here and support the economy?
What a prick!
Cooking course fee @ $15500
Air ticket @ $14500
Accomodation & Shopping @ Undetermined amount
Rubbing it in in the face of a nation in recession: Priceless…
I would have no quarrel if he had attended a course that is useful for his job such as a management course. In fact what he sorely needs is a course on how to handle sensitive public relations.
He obviously has no substance and is merely seeking cheap publicity by flaunting the only thing he has, i.e. his wealth derived from his super astronomical salary. I fear for Singapore if all Perm Secs are like him. My inevitable conclusion from this episode is that the PAP policy of generating obscenely unequal salary between the elitists and the peasants in Singapore has created an extremely unhealthy and unstable state for our beloved country.
All these self made millionaires elites are alike, they behave alike, they talk alike and they only have 1 similar interest, make alot alot of easy money at the expense of the poor people out there.
[i]panter on January 8th, 2009 9.53 am noelofarc of course. I thought it was you. Want to emulate the late IDF minister? HAha[/i]
emulate what?
moshedyan in ypap forum was
ejaculated
ejected
and
bannished…….
have you tried doin a search engine in ypap?
still to bloomin lazy har?
look at PAP (people action party). are they using singapore high court to steal and attack buddhist temple land ? if so buddhist living in singapore must watch careful as the number of christians MP and indians MP grows!!! now they are taking away buddhist temple land , soon they will take away singapore buddhists rights and life. i pray for the safety of singapore buddhists under evil PAP rules, what a sad day… what buddhists dont watch carefully how they voted !!! soon buddhist singaporean will be slaves in their own country!!
disconnect…..out of touch…..ivory tower………..some people just dont know how to read the sign of the times. Others it seems milk it right to the hilt
http://dotseng.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/the-day-the-yellow-brick-road-turned-red
Two extreme cases, but which do you prefer? White or red with a red herring? Which one I wonder goes down better?
#71) sad buddhist on January 8th, 2009 12.53 pm
Our elites can do whatever they like without any regard because they have been in power for so long through their gerrymandering and the support of the 66.6%.
Buddhist or not, if you are a peasant here then you are already a slave to the elites in this country. They have taken away your right to withdraw your own CPF, forced your children to pay for expensive public housing and subjected you to means testing. And after that elites will rub salt into your wounds by subconciously telling you what a sucker you have been as their 5 weeks cooking vaction in Paris has been paid for indirectly by you.
The Thais threw out their PM Samak for hosting a cooking show on TV. We can only bitch here..
i will personally cook cuttlefish and serve to him, who happens to be a one-star general, piping hot the next time he goes back to camp for reservist.
surely you all missed out an impt point.
he upgrading himself you know!!
because he knows he’s gonna be retrenched soon!!
and then after that he can go french restaurant to work as chef!!
nxt time you go eat expensive french cuisine at some elite local restaurant, do think whether what you’re eating is prepared by him!!
What?
Actually its a plug for the admin service….the psc has noticed that the quality of the applicants for its previously highly coveted scholarships has been declining. This is to reinforce the “good life” that scholar elites can enjoy when they make it
5 weeks only !!! you can take 5 months off if you are filthy rich like the Pap ministers. For me, poor people, 5 days no work, can not tahan liao, remember PM Lee asked us to work as long as we could, if no work poor people eat what?? Spore not like Indonesia or Malaysia, where we can plant some vege and rear chicken, in Spore you no food is your biz.
Agencies overstaffed?
Try cutting down number of staffs by 30% to 50% and see if it can function as well?
Billions of dollars can be saved and channeled back to the population at large.
Some time ago, there was also some publicity about our MM and his family tucking in Japanese food, prepared by Japanese chef flown in for the occasion with ingredients specially imported from the land of the rising sun. The message I understood to be is that the rich and powerful have exquisite taste which distinguished them from the common folks and justifiably so.This is known as CLASS.
Our senior civil servants are also rich and powerful and have also acquired expensive taste.This particular perm sec has the foresight to acquire culinary skills which may stand him in good stead in future. What faster way to gain recognition than to cook french food for our leaders who may be tired of too much of sashmi and sushi!
confused that the article was even published from that angle.mind u, its written by whatshisname himself.. i really dont care what he does with his $$, what irks me is that he goes on abt how his wife is some banker and how his son is going to some ivy league univ…and the best part is that all that information is unsolicited..my point is if he’s being interviewed by a reporter and he’s fielding the journalist’s questions…sure, by all means, answer but here is some random guy talking abt his experience at cordon bleu (i take it its supposed to be a food/travel blog,but he capitalises on his brief moment of stardom and brags abt being at the top n not being indispensable(written with such humility), brags abt his family members….what that has got to do with the general food theme of the blog is beyond me. and of course to top it all , in true sporean style, he cldnt resist telling us abt the ranking..i came in #_ in my class, to everyone’s surprise. my son came in #_ in his class, my wife……..etc etc.
so, we may hv ppl writing abt their skiing experiences in aspen or how they wld fly to spain just to dine in a certain restaurant up in the mountains or how they may cocoon themselves in some remote ryokan in japan, just being in food heaven 24/7..but readers will read n enjoy the experience shared by the writer. in this case…repulsion is all i get.
Only one jarring omission – He didnt mention what position his daughter holds at her workplace. Probably not Ivy League alumni material nor Snr Investment Counsellor. Sorry, nothing personal but he’s really asking for it. What a low EQ braggart..WAKE UP YOUR IDEA, BRUDDER!!
If the bloke can earn his keep of $40-50K/month on his own entrepreneurship outside the civil service then he is entitled to such insensitivity and flagrant display of ostentatious weath telling all and sundry in the main stream media.
By the way the ST and the rest of the flock are rather quiet in not reporting the repercussions of this BG’s thoughtless travelogue. To them cyberspace does not exist. Living is such delusional states will not be tenable as the netizens vocie out reactions freely and uninhibitedly.
It makes me sick to read about his unsolicited boast. Honestly I was getting goose pimples at every one of his boasting sentences. He is what the Chinese would aptly describe as a cher ta pao (bull-cart big cannon). I wish the newspaper had not wasted so much valuable space to publish his boast.
I don’t know what is there in him that he should be chosen as Perm Sec? He is nothing but a braggard. Do you notice at his interview he kept volunteering his personal info with alarcrity about his achievements and also his wife and son’s achievements even without the reporter asking him.
I hope his minister in charge, the Minister of Environment, will review his appointment in the light of his huge inclination to boast. Boasting is surely a very negative quality for a Perm Sec.
He should learn from thousands of other more successful people whose family have achieved much more but have chosen to live in humility.
Perhaps the one dish that he needs to learn to cook is simple humble pie.
I was thinking; if I am young, intelligent and still in a phase where I am deciding what to do with my life; and I come across this article, what would it do with me?
I would reflect on it, think about the riches and the good life, and the ability to splash my cash, at will, and posibly consider a life in high office. I would surely make it in ten to fifteen years time.
So, the article could be a subtle recruitment drive by the PAP using the ST to pimp for suitable candidates.
gemami, buddy, I think you’re thinking too deep into this incident. They don’t have to do this stunt to get people. No siree, there ain’t no recruitment drive going on. They don’t have to because if they want you, they’ll get you. No protest, no buts, no nothing. Just look at those who are supposed to ‘serve’ but service is the least of their character attributes!
Actually, given is senior-enough official standing, I am waiting for someone (else) from the government to speak on the issue (to see if this gentleman’s stand and how he carries himself is being endorsed). Of course, my ‘expectations’ are really heightened right now, given the time that has passed between the comments and now, that a good response should be in order. Either that, or it’s clear the government has no issues accepting what has happened. Anyway, I thought the protocol (mentioned as early as during the time an opposition mp queried on accountability of civil servants vs private sector CEOs) was supposed to be : if I raise a challenge/ query to you and you can’t defend it, and give no counter-reply, >>>that settles it<<<.
Been checking the papers for at least some response from forum page,etc…zilch, nothing.. surely ST must hv received tons of comments .. if this is causing such a knee jerk reaction in cyber..dont see how it can be any diffferent, with ST. y the blackout? reality check please..
Singapore’s shame of disconnected elitists from the rest of society has now reached Malaysia, unfortunately. See Seah Chiang Ngee article entitled “Not the time to flaunt your riches” as appeared in the Malaysian Star newspaper and in his website at
http://www.littlespeck.com/
The perm sec who boasted so much about his wealth and his family’s achievement has backfired badly. In fact it makes me wonder why he has kept completely silent about his daughter when he boasted so much about every other member of his family. Is there nothing in her for him to also boast about?
Give me a five, minibombed. In ancient, this kind of people are call the” rooftop gentleman”. Come out from nowhere and shoot a arrow to your back. Just let him speak to himself and treat him totally invisible.
Who knows, he might be the main cast of this story or even his children. That why tax free mah. But forget his father pay loh. No pay then go CPIB loh. Even take taxi also need to pay GST what….. Tax free? Wait long long lah.
Tax_Free_Sporean (#89),
I agree with you that how the Perm Sec spends his money is his personal business. The issue here is that his personal life should not be newsworthy and even be published on the Straits Times. It only serves to remind Singaporeans about the growing social gap between the elites and the ordinary folks.
To all the Sad Singaporeans who commented against this man spending HIS OWN Money while on HIS OWN Vacation with HIS OWN Family:
Why don’t you complete the sentence?
Why mention “own money, own vacation, own family” without closing it by saying “own damn business”! ?
The moment you chose to share it with the world, at a time when everyone else are asking questions about their livelihoods; aren’t you worse than a swine?
Oink, oink to you and to him!
Go on and have your fun and pray hard that the fun don’t get to you or your family one of these days. We will only stand by the side and pity you, with fun too.
I have never written on an online forum before, but reading the postings on this forum had motivated me to do so. Singapore, a country without resource except people, tries and maintain its competitiveness from having the best management team, and a country of driven and competitive people. We need talent in this country, whether they were born here or chose to move here.
There will be rich and poor, and there will be those that succeed, and those that may not have been so lucky. However, to restrict how one should spend their money, or to ‘beat up’ the successful guy and dictating how he should give or spend his wealth away is not going the right path. Talent always have choices, and we won’t want an exodus of talent to other countries that will eventually lead to an erosion of competitiveness for our nation.
We need a balance in this story. PS Tan must have sacrificed much in his service to the nation. We just don’t read about it. After all, we’ve always heard the saying that we can’t take it with you when we leave. If he wants to leave a special memory for his son to remember throughout his lifetime, that’s priceless. It just happens that he can afford it.
to ‘beat up’ the successful guy .
There will be no beatings if he does not go to the city square to flaunt his wealth and boast about it, to people who are in despair and crying out for food and help.
Dear Mark
I agree with you that we need a balance in the story, indeed in any story.
But don’t you think that the perm sec’s uninhibited display of his outlandish wealth was the real cause of the off-balancing, especially as his wealth was presumably derived from his cushy overpaid and underworked job? Why did he rub salt into the wounds of the common folks in Singapore who are currently struggling to make ends meet? Why did he also add insult to injury by volunteering to announce to the whole world his son’s acceptance by Brown University? Did his son get a self-financing scholarship from the university like many truly high-achieving students, or is he just paying very high school fees to secure a place in the university? Why did he leave out similar boastful information about his daughter?
Mark,
Well done. Finally a Singaporean who understands the issue at hand and that rewards for one’s hard work & success should not have to be enjoyed behind closed doors.
For the less fortunate…..why can’t you use the PS as an example of where you should be??
Instead of lamenting in your state of affairs….DO SOMETHING!!
I’m tired of all the complaining I’ve been seeing all these years…..get up and do something for yourselves and stop expecting the government to keep bailing you out.
Sell your cars, your condos, live within your means and start focusing how to make that means grow!!
Incidently, I don’t pay taxes…..’cos I’m one of the SIngaporean talent that’s been whisked away to work in a foreign land which is tax free….for about 5 times what you guys would make in SIngapore :)
HAH!!
Tax free, so you are the legendary quiter that Gok is saying. What a eye opener! Btw who’s pay are you comparing to? Sweep floor aunty? LOL
The mature quitters don’t equate worth of an individual through how much he earns or how financially better off they are.
When you really quit being singaporean, you will understand.
I always feel small when compared to my quitter friends. They lived and is living a life more meaningful than my 8-10pm existence in an office cubicle, somewhere in Shenton Way.
I am too old to quit. Otherwise, I might try.
As a matter of fact I was given a few opportunity to work overseas with pretty good pay in US dollars. But in the end, it is the family I choose to stay with here in Singapore.
I mean there are many things people actually go for rather than money. And alot of people here I see want to stay but hope thing get better. That’s the reason why so many people here are angry with this so call Mr Tan. Yes, it might come from his pay for his trip. Question is who’s money his pay come from? The people. He would better off if he appear in the newspaper doing social work and not need to spend a single cent from his pocket and I believe people will call him noble.
Obviously, this Mr. Tan air is way beyond his head. What to do? It is what PAP regime promote in the first place. 上粱不正下粱歪
I don’t think any of us would have qualms with him if their pay weren’t so obscene and milking monies out of their citizens so freely.
I refer to Comment 29: “ST should not have published such an article, or at least moderated certain things.”
I am appalled that someone thinks that the press (ST) should actively censor information so as to avoid embarrassing a government official. I certainly hope that this attitude does not extend to other areas that the press reports on (e.g., government responsibilities and stewardship over public resources). The role of a well-functioning press is not to “save face” or “cover-up” for the government and its officials. It is to inform the public in a unbiased manner. This is part of a system of critical checks and balances.