Find out whether the S Pass was rejected because of the company or because of you.

If it's the company, eg. over quota, or bad record etc - then easy. Just look for another company.

If it's because of you... ask why. Find out what's the hiccup.

Did she find out from the authorities why she was rejected twice and what changed their mind in the 3rd attempt?

I've been to JB only once for shopping/makan/jalan-jalan. It was very early on after I came to Singapore... when someone told me it made sense to earn in SG and spend in JB.

Seriously, I felt in JB exactly what I feel in Jakarta or Manila. That it's not very safe to look & act like a foreigner, to have any money in your pocket and walking around without a local companion. Just feels like everyone's either going to rob me or stab me... or both.

I have never been back since, and never intend to go back. JB may be part of Malaysia, but it feels like a mix between a cowboy town and an overcrowded slum, sprinkled with some fancy new buildings.

Mind if I ask if you're in upstream or downstream? Commercial or operations? If you're in olefins, we're your biggest competitor.

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Added on December 6, 2009, 10:48 amI will be in Singapore as long as my job is here.

I like it here, but I wouldn't want to be an old person with no income in this place. So, I''m keeping my options open... if I'm married with kids, then obviously it'll be a much more complex choice with the wife's preferences and kids' education to think about. In that case, Singapore's probably a good option. But it'll also depend if I'm still here. If I'm posted elsewhere, I won't take the trouble to return to Singapore.

If I'm still alone when I retire, then I'm definitely going to retire home to Ipoh.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 6 2009, 10:48 AM

No lah, Malaysia doesn't have compulsory purchase refund laws. In fact no country does. Otherwise what's stopping you from buying something, using it for 7 days and then returning it? All sales is on a willing buyer, willing seller contractual basis. Unless you can prove they misled you and ie. sold you something that's actually different from what they told you you were buying, you have no recourse. And rightly so.

For tangible products, some retailers like Carrefour and Robinsons have a refund or exchange policy. But it's up to them to define their policy, and once established, that policy forms part of the offer and acceptance in the sales & purchase contract.

For services like telco services, you sign a very detailed contract that spells out exactly what you contracted for. I'll be willing to bet that M1's contract has a best effort, bandwidth shaping and no returns/refunds clauses. I doubt that they will be like the new banking rules, where contracts to invest have a cooling off period.

You're stuck, I'm afraid.

Should have just bought a prepaid M1 simcard and tried the 3G data. Uses the same bandwidth and backbone as mobile bb.

I find that Maybank isavvy has the best rates for a savings account which you can withdraw / deposit at will... ie. your money is not tied up. But the minimum balance is 5K, IIRC.

If you're going to Ipoh, only Firefly flies direct from SIN to IPH.

I've tried flying SIN-KUL LCCT and take the coach from LCCT to Ipoh... torture. I rather pay a bit more and fly direct.

These days, I take the 2.30pm flight from SIN Budget Terminal on Friday and touch down in IPH at 4pm. Back home, showered and ready for action at 4.30pm. It's great.

Firefly flies the European twin turboprop ATR 72-500. Only slightly slower than a jet (IPH-SIN is 1h:20m, while IPH-JHB on AirAsia 737 was 1h flat).

It's quite comfy. I like the fact that it's small (72 seater) because you never have to wait long to check in, to board, to disembark or for your luggage. The maximum number of people you have to queue up behind is 71.

Slightly OT, but since Starhub + M1 launched the iPhone 3GS today... what do you guys think?

iPhone 3GS or Nokia E72? Under Starhub recontract.

Yeah, my expired plan included the 30% corp discount.

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Added on December 10, 2009, 8:58 amI agree. I'm using an E63 now. I used to have the HTC Touch but the touch screen was rather hard to type quickly on. Not sensitive enough.

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Added on December 10, 2009, 9:01 amYou mean the downloadable apps, right? To me, there's nothing much to choose between the E72 and BB Bold. I can get a lot of Java apps for the Nokia (Symbian) to match BB. But the Apple apps are something else.

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Added on December 10, 2009, 9:04 amFirmware updates should be quite fast. I've had my E63 for about 9 months and I've already updated the firmware twice via Nokia PC Suite.

Ya, the S$38 (or $48 after the free Caller ID & Roaming finishes after 3 months). 12GB data is quite good, can tether to my laptop.

But my main concern for the iPhone is the crap battery life (not even a day long under medium-heavy use). Touch screen feels better than the HTC, but still nowhere the same as a proper qwerty keyboard.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 10 2009, 09:05 AM

Ya, I like the E72 because I already like the E63 and its keyboard. And since I will use both phones (Maxis & Starhub), syncing will be easier, can share chargers, data cables, accessories etc.

But the Apple apps and games are really good. And nobody can't touch the iPhone at surfing the net in a kopitiam.

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Added on December 10, 2009, 10:20 amNoticeably better reception & call quality. Less lag when multitasking and although the battery life was supposed to improve, I don't really notice it.


This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 10 2009, 10:20 AM

From hardwarezone, apparently the corp individual scheme (CIS) discounts are from 10%-30% depending on which company you're from and which smartsurf plan you take.

How's the 3GS battery life been for you? Nightly recharging necessary?

Live comfortably... ok.

Rental: 1500 for a 2 bedroom HDB, but with 2 kids, you'd probably want 3 bedrooms, so 1800-2000 depending location. If you want the facilities like a pool & gym, 2500 or so for private condo.

Utilities: 200 per month for electricity, water and gas. And 300 for 2 phone lines, 1 home broadband and cable tv.

Food: family of 4... let's say, 300 a week on groceries and 2 nice dinners on the weekend for 150 per dinner. So, around 1800... let's say 2000 including treats and special events etc.

Transport: with 2 kids and a comfy lifestyle, you need a car. Take a reliable Korean 1.6L with a 5 year loan, let's say 1500 per month, all inclusive ie. instalment, road tax, insurance, ERP, petrol, maintenance and parking.

Shopping.... entirely up to you lah. But let's say 500 per month for toiletries, cosmetics, health supplements, diapers whatever. And another 500-1000 for gadgets, laptops, clothes, shoes, handbags, toys, movies, theme parks etc.

Then add another 200-300 a month towards a sinking fund for any emergencies, large purchases, holidays, school excursions etc.

So, all in all... around 7K a month. Pretty realistic, I think. If your kids go to private schools, then another 1500-2500 per month each.

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Added on December 15, 2009, 11:35 pmJust recontracted yesterday with Starhub for a Nokia E72 with the iPhone smartsurf plan. No more corp discount for me though because my company has apparently dropped off Starhub's list of corp customers

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 15 2009, 11:37 PM

Not if you're residing in Singapore. There are certain rules and conditions depending on whether you're an employment permit holder or PR, but generally after a while, your car cannot remain in Sg overnight. So, only if you stay outside Sg (ie. in My) but work in Sg, you can drive a My car into Sg each day, but the car has to leave Sg for a certain minimum number of hours each day as well.

Do a search of this thread for my username and some keywords like "driving, PR, WP, EP, cars" etc. I remember summarising it somewhere.

One of the industrial estates on the edges of Singapore. I can't remember which one though. Generally 30-40 minutes by car to the CBD/Orchard.

This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 16 2009, 12:15 AM

Income tax and employee CPF need to be paid by the employee.

If your employer is giving you tax protection, then they will pay your tax payable of course, but in your name.

If you don't have tax protection, then you send a cheque each year to the tax dept after you get your tax return from them. Of course, the company may 'facilitate' this for you using monthly salary witholding or something but at the end of the day, you are personally liable to the tax dept.

CPF is applicable only if you're a PR. The employee portion is a monthly salary deduction by the employer and remitted directly to CPF.

Korek.

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Added on December 16, 2009, 8:47 amIt's pretty common. The employer either bears all your tax, as a perk, or equalises your net tax to a reference country. Makes it easier to move from Singapore or HK to a high tax country like China, or Australia or the West.


This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 16 2009, 08:47 AM

Good landlord... those are the keywords.

But then again, if your relatives are fussy and everyone's living together in a shoebox... might be better to stay outside.

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Added on December 16, 2009, 6:15 pmStaying in Bishan is great. I loved it. People less ah beng compared to Ang Mo Kio but less lansi than central district. Food also not bad. Opposite Junction8 is very convenient as the MRT and bus interchange is next to it. Gardens@Bishan is quite far from Junction8. 20-30m walk or feeder bus.

There are direct buses from Bishan interchange to Jurong East (No. 52 or 53, iirc. Probably 40-50 minute bus ride. But you can sleep as you board at the first stop (interchange) and can get a seat). When the city circle line opens in a year or two, you can take a train from Bishan to Buono Vista (6 stns) and from there, it's only 3 stns to Jurong East. And these are majority inner city stns (1-2 minutes between stns) rather than mainly outer city stns (3-6 minutes between stns) if you take the Nth-Sth line from Bishan to Jurong East.

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Added on December 16, 2009, 6:19 pmNo idea... never heard of it. But google turned up a Finnish stock listing... Finnish companies quite okay, I guess. Finns are supposed to be great humanitarians, egalitarians and very into universal welfare. Should translate into the same kind of company culture?


This post has been edited by seantang: Dec 16 2009, 06:19 PM

Norwegian, Finnish... still Scandinavian lah. Close enough

Shld be ok I guess, my friends at Nokia, Ericsson (before it became SonyEricsson) were quite happy with the company culture.

That's entirely dependent on what you're giving up in Malaysia, in your current job. Additional income is a given (only thing is whether the net increase meets your hurdle rate). Make sure you don't forget stuff like deferred stock, stock options, deferred bonuses, pension or health plans and other employee retention stuff like that which you'll give up if you leave prematurely. If you have this stuff coming to you, then you'd better ask for a sign on bonus.

But then there's also job security. Take a look at their financial statements as far back as you can find and see what's their profit, dividend & revenue growth trends, whether the number of employees is growing... that should give you a good idea whether it's traditionally a good paymaster and if their biz model is sustainable.

Then see what the future prospects are vs your current job. Since you're part of their Asian business, try to see what their strategy for Asia is. Growth engine, cash cow or token presence. For eg. are they investing, hiring, building etc. Your progression depends entirely on this... otherwise they'd better have a vibrant expat program for Asians to go West.

Also, if you're on the high potential or future leader program in your current company... then you'd have to consider whether it's worth giving that up. Makes a huge difference how fast you go up the ladder. And if a couple of accelerated promotions can catch you up with this current offer, then it might not be worth the risk to leave and have to establish your network and credibility all over again.

Sounds like it's just the exchange rate making the difference.

In that case, why don't you ask Shell for a transfer to Sg? They'll pay you the local Sg pay scale. You keep all your accumulated benefits and don't have to start all over again.

If you play your cards right and convince the Sg side to 'request' for your services, you could well con a promotion or a relo package or even expat package out of them.