To help yinyum find her Mr Perfect, I found this interesting website: Singapore Administrative Service dedicated to the recruitment of elite civil servants.

How elite is elite? The AO's (Administrative Officer) entry salary level is SR9. The average entry age is 32 years old (mid career). The salary scale is based on the 15th highest salaried tax payer from the group of 48 individuals comprised of the top 8 tax payers in a selected 6 professions. Google and you'll see that in recent years, the total annual package is between $330K to $400K per annum.

How many of these elite AOs are there? Apparently recently (ie. last few years), it was published that 15 AOs had left the civil service, and that they comprised 5.5% of the total AO population. That puts the AO population at roughly around 300.

So, is $330-400K a fair wage for them?

Singapore's GDP is around US$250B. Govt revenue is around US$55B (ref). "Sales" (to make it comparable to corporates) would be somewhere in between, as GDP is not strictly due to direct govt effort, but measuring only govt revenue (mainly taxation) is more like measuring "profit". No hard and fast rule here.

The Singapore civil service employs 127,000 people (ref).

Compared to the largest companies in the world (ref)... I think we can more or less say that the Singapore govt's "size" would be generally be amongst the Top 100 MNC companies in the world.

In such companies, the top 300 2nd tier employees (ie. direct reports to the CEO/CFO/CTO/C-level execs, because remember, the C-suite execs in the govt is the PM and his cabinet) would be approximately be equivalent to the Global VPs, Global Directors and Business Unit GMs.

If that's the comparison, I think $330-400K is not an unreasonable starting salary.

By the way, if you want to apply, the application form is in the first link. Apply for Administrative Service, I mean. But I think yinyum can also use the same form for her suitors.

This post has been edited by seantang: Sep 24 2011, 07:22 PM

Is cigar a metaphor for penis? Maloa likes cigar, lester got long one?

So... what options do you think you have? Complaining and reporting them (to whom I wonder)... will that make them suddenly want you to come to work everyday, be nicer to you and give you paid leave instead?

Why don't you just resign and work somewhere else?

Thoughts on what? Not so good at tackling wide open questions.

Ooooo... that's some Lese Majeste right there. The punishment for which is an insane old man coming to beat the crap out of you with a golf club.

I think they save the guns for really serious crimes, like overtaking his car or not letting him pinch your girlfriend's ass.

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Added on October 2, 2011, 9:24 pmYou will get no answers until you change that utterly disgusting avatar photo.


This post has been edited by seantang: Oct 2 2011, 09:24 PM

0.02 * 2 trips * 7 days * 52 weeks = $14.56 per year. If you add a +/-30% variability factor, it's within a range of $10-20 per person per year. Quite a lot?

This post has been edited by seantang: Oct 4 2011, 03:12 PM

Yes, sure. But what that little phrase doesn't say is that a penny doesn't make a difference in anybody's life. Concentrate less on pennies and more on real dollars. Buy 1 pack of cigarettes or 1 beer or 1 app less each month, you'll be doing some much more for your savings than trying to micromanage or stress over your bus rides. Spend your energy on what makes a difference.

That's small boy stuff lah. Big boys still have wine, fast cars and fast women.

They deplete your money (amongst other things) very quickly.

More in terms of those to whom you give a condo and open a little flower shop for her to be 'low pan liang', or someone who gets together with you after school or after office.

This post has been edited by seantang: Oct 4 2011, 10:04 PM

Not a big deal this time. It's just a facelifted iPhone 4.

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Added on October 5, 2011, 8:11 amOn the contrary, it tanked on a night when the DJI bounced back due to bargain hunting.

This post has been edited by seantang: Oct 5 2011, 08:11 AM

There's no time requirement. You can apply for PR anytime. Even if you don't have a permit of any kind nor ever set foot in Singapore. There is nothing that disqualifies anybody from applying. Each application is assessed and approved on a case by case basis... even though there's all sorts of guidelines on education, employment, age etc. This allows the SG govt to approve people who don't meet any of the guidelines but whom they like. And to decline people who meet all the guidelines but whom they don't like.

This post has been edited by seantang: Oct 5 2011, 01:01 PM

My contract ends in December. So yeah, I'm also thinking of which phone to get.

Alternatives are the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE (4.5" WVGA screen), Galaxy S II HD LTE (4.65" HD ready) or Galaxy Note (5.3" HD ready). Announced but not launched yet in Singapore. Hopefully by year end.

As for iCloud, my impression is that it's Apple's version of Google Docs, Freedrive or Dropbox. Sounds good, but I struggle to see how anyone would want to spend hours to upload movies and songs so that they can spend even more time downloading it again to view/listen. Much easier to get a phone with a micro-SD card slot. You'll live longer too without all that frustration dealing with your stuff being hostaged online. More so if your stuff is not exactly ori.

That's true. Apple's cornered the market for one-armed amputees.

Anyway, it depends on how big your hands are, no? And how you hold the phone?

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Added on October 5, 2011, 6:30 pmI'm using Google Docs. Works on any OS anywhere as long as there's a browser.


This post has been edited by seantang: Oct 5 2011, 06:30 PM

That's due to the fact that your SGS2 would have been utilising flash, multi tasking, accessing apps installed on and media saved to the slower microsd card instead of onboard memory, playing all common media formats using many native codecs, accessing a much greater range of OS customisation without rooting etc etc.

This post has been edited by seantang: Oct 6 2011, 08:45 AM

I might pay tribute by buying my first Apple product. Might get the 4GS if it can be jailbroken.

Must be conman? If it's a nice, honest guy, cannot?

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Added on October 12, 2011, 4:55 pmOh... it's Singlish. Working is actually Singlish for something else. Just replace the "or" with "an".


This post has been edited by seantang: Oct 12 2011, 04:55 PM

The China job doesn't sound like a good deal. The 30% pay differential all goes toward income tax. The relo allowance will set you up... (how much is it? My company pays around a one-off allowance of 13 months SG salary tax free to move from KL to SG). But you have no ongoing financial benefit (ie. there's no net after tax salary increase, no allowances, no housing and other benefits etc. You can argue that if you stay in SG, you're paying all your own expenses anyway, which is true. But the thing is... what's the point of uprooting and going to China if you practically have no financial benefit to do so?

You try going to China without a fat expat package, and see how many "beautiful china mei-mei" will give you the time of the day. You can probably get one very kampung one who sees you as her meal ticket out of the rural slum and you'll have to support her whole kampung with your salary .