I have interviewed many PMETs and although how you look shouldn’t count for much, the reality that most organisations want their PMETs to project a certain image. Most PMETs tend to sell themselves on their technical skills, which is fine, but it is their bulging bellies, thunder thighs and unco-ordinated clothes that distract the interviewers from their skills and talents.

Many PMETs claim that they dislike their jobs because of long, meaningless meetings that they have to attend. The reality is that these meetings are where they can shine. They should try to take advantage of these meetings to connect with people in other parts of the organisation and contribute to the decision making process by articulating changes or diverting discussions that have gone off-track.

Finally, PMETs should hit the gym. There is nothing more exciting and inspiring to an organisation than a PMET with wisdom, youthful energy and a vision to see through a complex tangle of corporate policies to solve a problem..

Further more, we should not fear in acting correctly in our next GE for PAP to take us seriously because only our action can make a real change and improvement for our country.

FEAR is a bad word, it implies cowardice, which means “ behaviour that shows you are not brave enough to fight or do something difficult or dangerous that you should do”, by definition of the Macmillan Dictionary.
 
Being fearful means nothing will be achieved because you are not doing that something you should be doing.
 
Being fearful means you are destined to be a loser because you don’t even fight for things that are rightfully yours. And if you don’t fight for it, it will never be given to you because empathy is generally lacking in the Asian political scene..
 
Being fearful means you will never make true progress in life because real progress as a human being and as a country has to be made by doing something difficult and dangerous. The human race has made true progress from the painful lessons of the two world wars.
 
Being fearful means you choose not to be brave and that invites danger because in a world in which only the strong survive, the weak will be annihilated.
 
The American civil liberty is born of the spirit of freedom and democracy for which they bravely fight to protect constantly. The British parliamentarians debate tirelessly because they are not fearful to speak and to go through the difficult process called democracy because they know that democracy is the best way to move a country forward in which the interest of the common people (thus the House of Commons) can be adequately addressed.
 
So, my fellow Singaporean, go forth and be brave, do the right thing at the next general election for the true progress of our country and our people.

post #108 on December 26th, 2009 4.00 am

////It is nice to hear that the economy is on recovering phase and soon this blame of PMETs being hit hardest will become unnecessary – and with the benefit of hindsight, it may seem somewhat childish.////

1) economic recovery will not bring a uniform benefit to all,
2) they were hit hard, if you do not learn from the past, you will make the same mistakes again & again & again & again…. till you learn,
3) everyone has the benefit of hindsight, but its important for those who made mistakes to own up & make up for it in any way they can. taking responsibility for 1′s mistake is part of growing up.

//Your point has been answered. Period!

No you have not.

You have just proven my point.

Thank you!!!

//I must confess that I respect him. I believe no SIngapore minister can withhold his or her tears when facing this sensible and honest taxi driver (or ex-banker).

This must be a joke!

The pigs @ parliament were NEVER known to be compassionate.

We have a minister who told people off for asking 30++ dollars more for public assistance after the govt raised the GST all in the name of giving to the poor. Not to mention that he make 5 000 times more than that amount in a year.

We also have a minister who told us that it was a freak incident when a limping terrorist escaped from his prisons and he didn’t even consider the potential security issues to general populace that the escape meant.

We also have another minister who were not even bothered by the amount of damage a flooding incident that took place recently and he even banned a local commenter from supposedly making fun of him over this.

What a joke!

With the kind of insensitive and inane ministers we have in parliament, I am relieve that the ministers (if they bother to listen) are all laughing inside:

They will be asking : why can’t this guy teach?

Thank you for giving this great example. I have never heard of such a case overseas.

When this kind of thing happens overseas, the VP can at least get a teaching job in the local polys because he is so experienced. He needn’t drive a cab.

BTW, most professionals in foreign countries are appreciated because of their experience and practical knowledge more than youth and degrees, even in the US, UK or Europe, Japan.

Only in Singapore, because of Govt madness, we see this kind of absurd outcome.

For every one of this kind of stories you cook up, I can give you five other real life stories of Singaporeans being disadvantaged by the foreign policies of the Government:

About 3 years ago, I spoke to this local government who left the government service in search of greener pasture.

He was young and highly qualified but he could not find a simple position (professional one) in a bank or insurance company because all the junior managerial positions were taken up FT.

He wondered how this had happened when in other countries, those positions were reserved for locals. (There has to be a reason why; I let you find out)

Then there is this air pilot want to be who qualified overseas but when he applied for SIA, his application was not even considered because he was not 26.

When he asked why his PR friends from Malaysia who was 24 can make in it, he was not given an answer.

Let me tell you a story and you will know not every one thinks like you :

About 11 months ago, I had a chat with a 50 years old taxi driver. He was a VP with a bank and got retrenched. He could not get another job in the banking sector and he believed it was due to the presence of many highly qualified but younger foreign talents.

I asked him whether he was angry with the PAP Government? To my surprise, he said he got himself to blame for not able to compete with the younger foreign talents, and that he respected the PAP Government for having the courage to implement a policy that is painful but absolutely good for Singapore.

I must confess that I respect him. I believe no SIngapore minister can withhold his or her tears when facing this sensible and honest taxi driver (or ex-banker).

Your point has been answered. Period!

Of course, it is not childish when it hurts your pocket for a year.

As if whenever the economy recovers, all sectors will benefit immediately.

What a naive appreciation of economics!

“There’s no such thing as no choice, Kent.”

Not always true.

I can cite two examples in Singapore which contradict what you claim. 1) the CPF Board has no choice but to invest our savings only in Singapore govt securities and 2) a young male Singapore citizen has no choice but to do national service if he is physically fit and wishes to remain a citizen.

As for “We can’t keep looking back and say yesterday’s policy is the sole reason for our current low replacement rate ” I am not saying that it does. What I said was that it meant that we need to open the flood gates to FT.

But you are right to say “that there are many aspects of life here that isn’t entirely conducive to having kids.” Low wages in the working class combined with high medical & housing costs are a toxic mix, which is anathema to population growth.

I also agree that the “easy and cheap availability has stopped giving companies here the incentive towards innovation and long-term solutions to improve productivity. In the long run, the race to the bottom in terms of wages benefits no one.”

In that respect, Singapore’s fate is sealed if it does not move up the value chain and flood the world with high-tech and innovative products like what South Korea is doing. Low value-added entreport trade is a relic of our colonial past when Britannia ruled the waves with mercantilism.

Our projected GDP growth for 2010 is about 5.5% (estimated) which is very optimistic but strip away the 7% GST, the COE, the car taxes, maid’s and foreign workers’ levies, our GDP would plumb beneath the water line.

Is it any wonder then that regressive taxes will continue to drive our GDP growth in the future sans any emergence of product innovation?

We can’t keep looking back and say yesterday’s policy is the sole reason for our current low replacement rate. The govt thinks it has done all it could to increase our local population rate, but all the efforts can do jack shit if they refuse to acknowledge that there are many aspects of life here that isn’t entirely conducive to having kids.

No one is saying close the doors to FTs, but the stop-gap measure is now seen as a pancea, and their easy and cheap availability has stopped giving companies here the incentive towards innovation and long-term solutions to improve productivity.

In the long run, the race to the bottom in terms of wages benefits no one.

“We need two people to produce the same output that a person in a developed country does.”

But evidently not in Australian where the union is more militant. Guess what? there it takes 5 persons to change a light bulb in govt offices. To change the light bulb four people will carry a person and then turn him around. :)

Where Singapore is evidently not productive is in the bedroom. That, plus the lost generation due to the grotesquely flawed “stop at two” campaign meant that we have no choice but to open the flood gates for foreign talents to come in.

“….But was voted back in at a later time.. Your point?…”

Point = any party can’t rely forever on its past achievements, riding on previous reputation. Fat cats grow lazy.

“….They want to bump the population to 6 million for reasons still unknown to me. Why do we need 6 million?…”

Labor is a cheap, dirty, faster way to boost GDP now that FDI isn’t flowing in as before. Of course, capital could be injected locally but somehow our monies is tied up somewhere. A side effect of this is our productivity, as pointed out by #102) Zefly (aka Joshua Chiang) on December 23rd, 2009 4.11 pm. If wages is a measure of productivity, then our PM is like 5x more productive than Obama.

What’s your view?

But was voted back in at a later time.. Your point?

The govt has ran out of ideas how to improve the country obviously seen in the last 5 years. They want to bump the population to 6 million for reasons still unknown to me. Why do we need 6 million? While I agree we need to new ppl since we are not producing enough babies, why not just take the minimum number? why do we need to grow the population at all? Isn 4 million more than enough.. its already damn crowded.