MTGS

My contract is ending soon, so this Wednesday got a newcomer, I greeted him and shook his hand, felt that his hand kind of huge, then after a while I noticed that his hand is very swollen like a balloon, first time meeting him so I didn't want to be rude and ask about his hand. After getting to know more about him, he told me he has a gout flare-up, so his hand is swollen, leg also swollen, then I noticed that he has difficulty walking, like really limping quite badly. His hair is also messy and greasy, middle part like balding, only late 30s but look like late 60s, dress also like machiam homeless person, shoes also like kind of oversized or maybe his feet is huge, he's not that tall but he's got really big shoes, or maybe his feet is also swollen that's why wearing larger shoes, I don't know, overall give me that very unkempt impression. Technically I think he knows his stuff, I can easily pick out a bluffer so he's definitely not a bluffer. Problem is that I ...

Informed my boss that I will not be renewing my contract, he called me and tried to apply the usual gaslighting tactics like "it's very normal to do multiple roles" haha yeah right, the more you know the more you do at the same pay, if one person can do everything, which boss will hire more people? Come on la, I not first time in the workforce so this trick don't work on me. And funniest part is he told me he promise a 5% increment, I almost laugh out loud, I think he doesn't know that my baseline is 25% lol. But it's ok, I just told him I want to take a long break and see how later on, also told him I will do a proper handover, in the end there's nothing he can do also, contract end, match my expected salary or bye bye, as simple as 123. Anyway I'm working out my expenses, now that my housing settled, no more loan, parents also settled, way better off than me, wife and daughter operations also settled, I think I can just find any job, doesn't need...

Now that my contract is ending in Sep, I have been thinking if I should try other field to see if I can gain a new perspective and ignite a new passion. I have been in IT for 20+ years, it all started with a passion to learn more about hardware, software, network, programming, solve technical problems, every difficult problem I solved, I always felt that I leveled up, I mean I still feel a sense of achievement these days but it kind of feels different, or maybe I got older. I tried various roles, various industries, various projects, different companies, but it's always the same old shit, like people shitting in toilet and don't bother to flush for months and years, and I always have to go in to clean the whole toilet, that whole few years of shit, and I'm just getting a single person's salary. Not sure if people understand this, but for a car to run smoothly, every part has to work well, same goes for any system, any project, some people keep the whole car clean and ni...

So she wanted to find out how come I asked for 15-20% increment, so I shared with her the current situation, people leaving, expanded job scope and etc and she also surprised that I'm the one and only engineer left and she asked if there will be new people coming in I told her got interview one guy but not confirm also because that guy is a foreigner so need to clear another security level even if we want to hire him so it's like 50-50, then also not sure if there will be another guy coming in since 2 engineers tendered. Then she told me it's impossible to get 15-20% increment so I told her I will not renew the contract and I will work until Sep, then she said even though she said impossible but let her check with the company, I also told her that 15-20% was when one guy tendered, now that another guy tendered and there's no certainty of hiring people, I am asking for 25% increment instead. Then she said don't close the chapter yet, let her check, haha, I told her s...

The guy who got an offer submitted his resignation today with 1 month notice, so officially only left me the one and only engineer and two useless managers. Now if I renew my contract it means I have to tank everything and also do the jobs of the two useless managers, so essentially I will be doing 5 person job, asking for only 15-20% sounds absolutely stupid right now. Time to update my resume, even if they pay me 100% more I also can't do so many things and do 24x7x365 standby duty, crazy, now it's not a matter of increment anymore, ship sank, time to get the hell out, heng my contract ending in Sep so no need to tender or anything, just let it lapse lol.

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2025/10/almost-1-month-into-new-job.html My one year contract with this company ends in Sep 2026, recently the HR reached out to me regarding contract renewal and I told her my current job scope is quite huge so I want a pay raise, she asked me how much, I told her I want 15%-20% more, she say she will let her manager know. I think I should have asked for 25%-30% more, the job scope is seriously ridiculous and the managers are completely useless, non-existent and delegate everything out, machiam like paralysed patient lying on bed waiting to be spoon-fed, no wonder people call this company a retirement home, a lot of jiak liao bee here. One guy already tendered another guy already got an offer and should be tendering soon, so whole team only left me the only engineer and these two useless managers, the fact that there's 2 managers and 3 engineers tells a lot. If they offer 15%, I will take it and renew another year, if not just move on, I...

So far so good, was kind of hectic when I joined because they rushing some last minute stuff so I helped out too. Overall ok, bosses nice, pay is good, keyword pay is good so nothing much to complain. I also get to touch on a lot of infra stuff which I heard before but never touch before, so it's a good learning experience. 1 year contract by the way, after 1 year see how, if still happy will continue, if not maybe go do foodpanda or something haha.

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2025/07/time-to-change-job.html So the HR reached out to me last week, overall package seems pretty standard, nothing fantastic or terrible, 14 days annual leave, 14 days medical leave, outpatient and dental claim (with yearly cap), hospital leave (up to 60 days inclusive of the 14 days medical leave), group insurance (exclude dependants), only thing lacking is cannot claim outpatient or dental for dependants, but really it's not an issue, typically those that cover dependants will have a yearly cap anyway. There's a 1 month performance bonus, which is not bad. The one fantastic part is the pay jump, about ~34%, totally didn't expect that, I thought they would come back and try to negotiate down but they didn't even try, basically I just put in a higher amount as advised by my ex-colleague, and they simply accepted it. I initially thought at most it's a 5-10% jump, honestly didn't know this new role can draw this kind ...

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2024/02/6-weeks-at-new-job.html My last post about my current job was last year, from then till now I have been at this job for about 1.5 years, and I'm moving on soon. The job itself actually is alright and quite meaningful and I really enjoy the work because there is a lot of things I can learn, problem is the manager and lead, outright incompetent and unqualified, what a waste of the team of good people we have, already 3 throw letter and I'm the 4th, more will come, eventually even the useless manager and lead will throw letter too when the project turns into a complete shitshow, I have seen this before, it will happen here too. Always must have idiots to ruin everything right, sigh. So before the real shit hits the fan, I thought I better get the hell out first, so last Friday 11th Jul I officially tendered my resignation. Funny thing is actually I announced my resignation on 4th Jul with the day of notice to be on 11th Jul, at t...

For the 6 weeks, I just surf X, Reddit and check crypto like 90% of the time, the rest is some training, briefing, only today then they started officially assigning a case to me, like really just a single case, anyway I still haven't get my server access so have to share with others, a bit troublesome and also risk locking out other people's account if I'm not careful. Compared to my previous job, the workload here is much lower, simpler and organised, largely because they have the necessary processes in place and well-staffed teams so everybody plays a specific role, no such thing as wearing multiple hats. So far I'm liking this job, after working so many years in multi-hat environment, it's nice to find a job with specific scope, I think when young can chiong multi-hat to gain the experience, then older can work on something more specific and have more bandwidth to share the experience with younger people if they are willing and point them in the right direction s...

After starting work, there was some more onboarding stuff, took a while to go through, the major piece left should be server access, after that should be more or less there I guess. There are many systems talking to each other so need some time for my info and access to propagate but I guess that's just how MNCs have to operate, everything have to be digitalised, systemised and integrated so they can run global operations easily, beautiful thing is that everything is linked together and I can just login with single sign-on to access whatever I need anytime anywhere. There's also no such thing as physical signature, everything is digital signature, finally I don't have to print, sign and scan anymore. I also got my first pay and payslip, I wasn't aware that I needed to submit my bank details by myself until the payroll team alerted me, so I just sent them my bank details via email and they manually processed it, since the system doesn't allow editing bank details onc...

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2024/01/first-day-at-new-company.html Today went to the actual workplace, indeed it is not as posh, just an open office space with desk and seat arrangement similar to those that one typically see in a call centre but my job is not taking call, they will route cases via a ticketing system and my job is to find out what is the issue, very focused role, no more bao sua bao hai. Starting nothing much for me and I don't have the access to the ticketing system or server yet, so I'm supposed to learn from another guy on existing issues, overall the culture seems very chill, everybody very chill, no particular dress code but seems like business casual is the norm, some even just wear t-shirt. Only thing is need to change pass to enter the area, have to be careful not to lose the pass and remember to return it before going home or leaving the site and the pass is for entry to specific areas only, cannot anyhow roam around. Travel to the workp...

This is probably the coolest first day that I have ever experienced, maybe because it is an American MNC, their culture is more open I guess. Their office very nice sia, even got a Starbuck-ish cafe inside. I also noticed hardly anyone wear formal, guys are in t-shirt or polo then jeans or pants and sports shoes or covered shoes, gals in t-shirt then pants and covered shoes. But then that's only for collection of laptop, actual workplace is at somewhere else haha, probably not as posh. Reported at 10 AM to collect my laptop, it's just laptop and charger nothing else, no bag no mouse, the laptop setup process is pretty straightforward, I can see they are using a lot of modern tools. After that went home to do some security training, actually it's just a video of what not to do and sign a form that's it. Then they created a bunch of accounts for me, Gitlab, Jira and whatnot. Tomorrow will report to the actual workplace, about 1 hour+ trip from home, not too bad, have many...

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2024/01/10-more-days-to-new-job.html Today is my last day at current company, tomorrow moving on to new role, new environment, meet new people, looking forward to it! Haha, really damn glad to be able to get out, phew, like a huge stone off my chest.

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2023/12/18-more-days-to-f-off.html Getting closer and closer! Today received the onboarding form for new company, the way they onboard got standard and systematic, they using ServiceNow employee onboarding, so just need to submit all the documents online.

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2023/12/background-check.html The background check seems to be ok, no complain or anything so far, to be sure I also dropped the recruiter a message to ask where do I report to on my first day, he told me they will email me one week before for onboarding, means should be good la. Now I just left 18 working days, really can't wait to quickly serve finish and get the hell out of there, that place getting more and more jia lat, I'm not the only one feeling sibeh pek chek, those that I close to just waiting for bonus only, the turnover rate is pretty high already, next year after bonus, probably even higher. Looking back really regret rejoining, sigh, should have taken the offer from "Interview 1", it's a big firm after all, I used to work at big firm so I'm more used to standards, SOPs and documentations, problem with SME is severe lack of the mentioned, everything is "cowboy style" and use imagination and mos...

My new employer engaged a vendor to do background check, so far they asked for quite a number of things, like my last 5 years of employment history, my education certs, reference contacts, CPF statements, payslips, letters of appointment, I think the purpose is to check to see if what I wrote in my resume is true or not, I guess it is pretty common to fake resumes. They do have an option for me to disallow contacting my current employer, but then for the past 5 years, for me it's the same employer just that I left the company once, so the employment period for the first time becomes the previous employment. Then yesterday the new employer HR contacted me and told me the background check vendor was unable to complete verification for my previous employment lol, probably because I disallow them from contacting my current employer and it happens to be the same company as my previous employment. End up I just send them my 5 years of CPF statements and both letters of appointment. By th...

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2023/11/current-company-makan-salary.html Today the HR looked for me again, this time told me offset my 3 days using annual leave, lol wtf, should be miscommunication la, don't think they will really so lame to makan my 3 days. So all is good now, they will pay me up to my last day, no deduction of salary since I use 3 days of annual leave to offset the 3 days short of notice period.

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2023/11/finally-throw-letter.html Today the HR looked for me, sort of told me my annual leave will be forfeited and no using of annual leave to offset my notice period, basically I still left with 3 days of annual leave, I serving notice but short of 3 days so I thought can use the leave to offset, then HR asked me if I'm ok with it, I just say I starting work at new job the very next day after my last day so no choice, I said just go ahead to process my resignation. After I reached home, I took a closer look at my contract, can't find anything about forfeiture of leave, I then looked in employee guideline document it did mention cannot take leave or offset notice period with annual leave but nowhere did it mention forfeiture of leave for my case, it also mentioned they will pay back unconsumed leave in following month after staff left, now that's conflicting from what the HR told me, not sure if there is any miscommunication. Bas...

https://marrythaigirlsingapore.blogspot.com/2023/11/signed-letter-of-offer.html Today recruiter informed me that my G50 is cleared and I can proceed to tender my resignation. There was this background check that they initiated last week, I asked if it has been cleared as well, the recruiter told me it will move concurrently but most important is the G50 clearance. And since there is about a week's delay due to the G50 clearance, as per the letter of offer signed last week, if I tender today I would be short of 5 days for my notice period, I only left with 3 days leave, minus that I'm still short of 2 days, so I asked if I can move my start date 2 days later, recruiter managed to get approval and sent me a revised letter of offer, I read through seems to be the same except start date is 2 days later, so I e-signed and returned to the recruiter. After that looks like everything is in place, last day at current company and then the next day start at new company, no rest in between...