You just need a number of hours after the flight before you can dive, right? If the time period is less that the time you save flying vs bus, then kowtim lor.

I think that only applies to jets flying long haul at high altitudes.

If you're flying to these resort islands, most likely you're flying turbo props like the ATR-72 etc. Their service ceiling is much lower. They are not even designed to manage any decompression problems, for eg. no double plate glass or oxygen masks.

How many dollar?

That's HDB, right? Pricey, I'd have to say.

You and I must live in different parallel dimensions either in Malaysia or Singapore. Penang's definitely full of something, not trees though.

In Malaysia, a "contractor" is given a lucrative contract to chop down every tree in sight, and then he is paid extra to "clean up" the area afterwards. This contractor then sells the lumber and pockets the money. I've even seen contracts to "prune and upkeep" trees still being paid each month long after all the trees have already been chopped down.

The only time you don't have to pay COE, is when you buy a car and you DON'T drive it.

When you buy an off peak car, you pay 'off peak' COE lor. Still need to pay some COE, no... since you still drive the car.

Quite common for botched up wiring jobs to occur. Lots of flats have addition SCV points in multiple rooms. If the splitter, cabling and end points are not up to par, then the signal degrades as well.

I recently put a TV in a spare bedroom with no SCV point, so I used a 15m long thin-gauge flexible coaxial cable to connect that TV to the SCV splitter point in the living room (slipping the cable under the bedroom door). Nothing more than a simple screw male-female connection but the degradation in signal quality is noticeable. When I connect the TV using the short, very stiff coax cable from Starhub, the picture looks noticeably better.

Closest to the lift lobby actually. Personally, I think it's the extra thin cable I'm using the slip under the door. Coax cables are stiff and thick from all the insulation for a reason.

Besides COE, road tax for OPCs are cheaper as well. Insurance might be as well, but I'm not sure. But you're right... the incentive to go OPC shrinks as COE climbs and vice versa. Actually, if you want to get a car, you might also want to think about 2nd hand cars. Price dynamics follow COE movements of course (it's simple substitution after all), but the used car market is still a separate market, many a times with significantly divergent driving factors. Singaporeans also have a different car mentality than Malaysians... ie. cars are short term expenses which they think about entirely in terms of the monthly expense amount and residual value which becomes the "discount" when they upgrade (pretty much like handphones)... unlike Malaysians where we think about paying off the loan and value the car in terms of the total cost of the "asset".

Some people have to bring ringgit into SG. We have to bring S$ back to Malaysia.

Depends on what you mean by prospects and what you consider bright.

On the whole though... admin is admin. It's a lot of well... admin work. How complicated or valued can it be?

The highest paid admin person I know is our SG site manager. She manages the facilities, EH&S, security, admin services (eg. secretaries, despatch, cleaners, tea ladies, pantry etc) and has to know how to do everything from purchasing to public relations to negotiating rental with landlord and negotiating OHQ extension with EDB. Not an easy job, 14 hour days, Blackberry never stops beeping but her salary's around $12-13K including a car allowance.

Not really. She's only 1 person, but there's almost another 30 admin people working for her and earn nowhere near that salary. Plus most of the other people in the company earning $10K or more, endure much less stress than she does.

This post has been edited by seantang: Jun 14 2011, 11:57 PM

My company's CEO earned US$17 million last year :| But he's in the US of course. Closer to home, our Singapore country GM draws about S$30K a month. Including shares and bonuses, he should be around S$500-600K per annum. And yet, in terms of ranking in the SG office, we've got a business unit VP, 2 product directors, a finance director and a regional GM who have higher job levels than he does.

If you talk about the $10K threshold, about 20% of our staff earn that or more. 10K is basically the crossover point between the most senior exec level and the most junior manager level.

Fact is that Singapore has a lot of rich people. Not surprising as it has the highest density of millionaires (USD) in world, surpassing even Switzerland and Monaco.

This post has been edited by seantang: Jun 15 2011, 01:24 PM

There are people earning 10K everywhere. It's a norm that SOME people will earn 10K (or more) anywhere you go.

The real question is... are you part of those SOME people, or are you part of the other people.

Just because some people are earning 10K, it doesn't mean you and your Bangla friend should be earning 10K. It's not as if 10K is the mandatory minimum wage.

No problem, enlightening unenlightened people is part of my kungfu training.

Industry shouldn't matter. If you're only capable of earning say 2K in one industry, why would you suddenly earn 10K by switching to another industry? You're still the same 2K person, no?

10K in Singapore will get you a lot of iPhones, HDTVs, clothes, nice restaurants etc... but in terms of luxury condos and luxury cars... not really. You'll be able to afford a nice HDB but you won't qualify to buy one because your income is too high. But $1million+ condos are not really within your reach either, without taking out a huge loan and tying all your savings and future income in Singapore. A cheap little runabout like a Suzuki Swift or Vios is affordable, but not a real luxury car like a Beemer or Merc. The 10K earners are some of the 'sandwiched class' that politicians keep referring to. Technically they should be able to afford the good life and are taxed as such, but realistically they are neither here nor there.

10K is better than 2K. That's a no brainer. But it's not as good as some people think.

How would earning a lower salary in Singapore reap more benefit than earning a higher salary? I'm confused how your logic works.

Workload and stress aside... I struggle to find an example where earning less is better than earning more.

So don't work hard lor. Stay in the "sandwich also cannot afford" class.