I will vote for you reason #4 - IF you tell my boss I need a $575 designer chair

Oh yes Mr MP-wannabe, I will use luminous green highlighter on the big fat tick that I draw on your box...

• If you call up my boss to tell him that economy has improved so much and I've worked so hard that I deserve a $575 designer chair.


• If you have lunch with my boss and tell him that I had accepted a wage reduction during the difficult economic times and worked hard to help turn the economy around quickly, and I so deserve a 2.5 months bonus.


• If you give one free maid for each family in your constituency so that somebody will carry my bag for me when I go to work.


• If you also plan for a free half day city tour for your constituency to the National Museum of Singapore, the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s City Gallery and Parliament House. Especially the National Museum, because the admission fee there very expensive leh!


• If you change our address to something more posh like "Frankfurt Village" or "Bordeaux Town" and forbid people from other heartlands to wear singlets, shorts and slippers and anyhow come here. Maybe like that our HDB flat resale price can go higher.

So Mr MP-wannabe, you don't have to grow up from a low-income family, but before you ask whether I can tick for you, think of what you can do to help me get enough income to support my family.

I will vote for you reason #3 - IF you gimme back my Merlion

Oh yes Mr MP-wannabe, I will go to the very ATAS ION to buy a very expensive Mont Blanc pen specially to put a tick on your box...

• If you free Merlion from its misery. The Merlion belongs to the people of Singapore, regardless of race, language and religion, or the number of fifty dollar notes in our wallets, and it should be free to stand by the sea while we take pictures and picnic next to it, not locked up for some expensive one-night stands with rich tourists.


• If upon becoming a Minister, you will spare a small portion of your pay to buy back the Raffles Hotel from that Qatar businessman, so that we can have part of our heritage back.


• If you fire the smart alec in STB who anyhow gave Singapore away to the tourists and while you are there, change the tag line to "Our Singapore".


• If you tell the Primary schools to give their vacancies to Singaporeans and let the new immigrants take the left overs. If not, even if I were to queue for 3 days 3 nights outside the school, I still can't beat the rich guy from India who donated a computer lab to the school, or the pei-du-ma-ma from China who volunteered to be the school's slave for 24/7.


• If you make it compulsory for fast food chains to employ only people who speak proper English or Singlish. I can understand the aunty asking "You want upsize?" but not the China gal asking "doyouwanttoupsizeyourmeal?".


• If you ask immigration to go catch all the loose foreign talented prostitutes and beggars all over the island. Geylang used to be the only red light district in Singapore, not Joo Chiat, Marine Parade, Bedok, Kovan or People's Park.


• If you chase away those countless Chinese steamboat restaurants and give us back our Chinatown. Despite the name, "Chinatown" does not belong to China.


• If you can give us back our Sentosa. We used to go to the cheap chalets in Sentosa and hang around and de-stress. Now rich new immigrants stay at the expensive bungalows and Singaporeans go to the casino to get poorer and more stressed. Yah I know, already got one MP who said he got debated things like gambling passionately and he got bite. But the casino still goes on right? If we vote you in to talk on our behalf, but when you talk nobody listens, then we vote you in for what?

So Mr MP-wannabe, before you ask whether I can tick for you, think of what you can do for me first.

I will vote for you reason #2 - IF you ask SPH to stop playing cheat

Oh yes Mr MP-wannabe, I will vote for you, draw a very nice and straight tick on your box with a long metal ruler...

• If you can ask SPH to stop calling some party newbies as Young talent or New faces, and other parties' new faces as Newbies. Must be consistent in the naming mah.


• If you can advise SPH that if they want more sales for their newspapers, it helps to have more coverage of the other parties, like 50-50 vs the one party, instead of 10-90 now.


• If you can be nicer to me after I've voted for you, like lending me your ears instead of asking "Yes, what now?" during the meet-the-people session.


• If you stop treating me like a brainless retard that only knows how to eat, that's why you always have to explain politics to me using analogy of local food like mee siam or D24 durian or chili crab. After all the kopi talks in kopitiams over all the stupid decisions some people made, the average Singaporean does know a bit about politics after all.


• If you can do your walk-arounds and visiting not only during election period but also after you are elected. It is not easy to queue up to meet you during your meet-the-people session, so if you really want real feedback from real people living in your constituency, I'll suggest having at least a yearly walk-around in the neighbourhood. Don't worry, we won't bite one.


• If you can ask SPH to print all the rally timings and locations on the newspapers so that I can plan where to go and what to watch. While one party has all the air time on TV, the other parties' live rallies are more interesting, and are always full house. If I can know the schedule earlier, I can go there earlier to chop place.

So Mr MP-wannabe, before you ask whether I can tick for you, think of what you can do for me first.

I will vote for you reason #1 - IF you take away ERP

Oh yes Mr MP-wannabe, I will vote for you with all my hands my legs and my little pink heart...

• If the moment you become a Minister, you volunteer to donate out all your salary to LTA so that they can remove the ERP system and still make profit.


• If you strap off motor insurance and put all those motor insurance companies to bankruptcy. Don't worry, if we lang-ga, we can settle ourselves at our Ah Beng workshops one.


• If you tell gahmen to subsidise the ever-rising petrol price. If Truly Asia can subsidise petrol for so many cars in their country so big, I'm sure subsidising the little cars in our little red dot should cost even less.


• If you tell LTA to summon those buggers who illegal park right outside the shopping malls and block my way to the carparks.


• If you put more traffic police on the expressways during peak hours to stop those buggers from misbehaving and banging onto each other, then create super long massive jam and make me late for work.


• If you put some Fatimahs at the washing bay every weekend to stop people from illegal parking there so that I can wash my car.


• If you can ask those Fatimahs to also take note of people opening their doors in the car park, and if these buggers or their retarded kids are caught banging their doors on the car parked next to them, summon them $500 per bang.


• If you can ask that since-when-become-so-ATAS National Library at Bugis to lower their parking fees because that is not really the way to encourage more people to read.


• If you strap off all the bus lanes so that people who did pay road tax get to use the roads. After all, the way these buses are driven, if they air-air drive into our lanes, any car will give way to them one, so we don't need these bus lanes and give LTA some more reasons to earn our hard earned money.


• If you change the whole COE balloting system such that the poor pays less and the rich pays more. The last that I heard, some MP-wannabe said that if you stay in a four-room flat, you are poor, so I should pay a poor man's COE as compared to the guy staying in Sentosa Cove.

So Mr MP-wannabe, before you ask whether I can tick for you, think of what you can do for me first.

The Diary of a Useless Manager - Planning a Department Outing

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT my diary. This is just a fictional story of an useless little manager working in a large local organisation. If you work in a large local organisation and find this figure looking suspiciously like your manager, it is only because these useless managers breed freely in large local organisations and the only way to stop them is to remove their stable diet - their subordinates.

Boss has just told me that we have still got some bucks left in the recreation fund for the year and suggested that we should plan for a department outing to award the staff and nurture bonding at the same time. Enthusiastically, he called for a meeting involving me and a couple of my assistant managers.

A couple of ideas were brought onto the table...

Assistant Manager A: How about a weekend trip to the Universal Studios?
Welfare Manager: But I don't think our left over fund is enough to pay for all.
Assistant Manager A: Hmm... how about we subsidise with whatever amount we can and ask the staff to pay for the other part of the fee then?
Boss: That's a good idea!

No! That was definitely not a good idea! I know my gals! Going to the Universal Studios will mean that they have the freedom to do whatever they want during the whole outing! Which means that they'll be having fun with the rides and snacking together, and leaving me alone with the other grandpas and grandmas on the benches! I don't want to go to Universal Studios alone!

And so I objected,"No, I think going to the Universal Studios is not a good idea. Everyone will be all over the place, there won't be proper bonding! We should sit down and just have a meal instead! Then people can chit chat and bond at the table!"

Boss: Oh, that's a good idea!

We continued to brainstorm on dining ideas, though I swear I could feel the heat coming from some of my assistant managers after I rejected the Universal Studios suggestion.

Assistant Manager B: I know of this buffet lunch at this hotel which is quite value for money. They have quite a well spread as well.
Welfare Manager: As long as it's within our budget, there shouldn't be any problem.
Boss: Hmm... buffet lunch, that's a good idea!

It looked like almost everybody knows a good buffet at some posh hotel, but I wanted to participate in the discussion as well. And I happen to know of a venue that is cheap and good!

And so I happily suggested,"I know of this seafood place at Geylang that is cheap and good!", and then everybody stopped and stared at me.

Assistant Manager B: Did you just say Geylang?

Ha! I just know that I'm the only one who knows of this treasure! This seafood place serves great seafood and is so much cheaper than those usual seafood restaurants like Long Beach and No Signboard! And because it is in a kopitiam, you don't even have to pay service charge!

Assistant Manager B: So it's a seafood store in a kopitiam in Geylang?
Welfare Manager: Erm... we do actually have more budget than that, you know?
Assistant Manager C: Eeeeee... department lunch in Geylang?
Assistant Manager B: It's even worst if it's a dinner...
Assistant Manager A: Wait... is that kopitiam seafood store halal? We've got Muslims you know?

Oops... I forgot about the Muslims! But almost immediately, I've got a great idea again! We can have two lunches! Geylang seafood for the non-halal and some Malay restaurant somewhere for halal!

Assistant Manager A: So the non-Muslims will bond with the non-Muslims and Muslims will bond with Muslims huh?

Walauz! She must have said that to malu me just because I rejected her Universal Studios idea lor!

Boss: No, this is definitely not a good idea! I don't want people to find our whole department in Geylang!

Damn it.

What a greedy green monster!

Long long time ago, I used to have a little black box that let me escape from the repeats of repeats on the free-to-air channels and get to watch what the rest of the world watches - fresh new TV programs.

Then one not-so-fine day, the cable operator announced a new digital box which was supposed to do exactly the same thing as the little black analog box, but in digital. Oh, and it didn't have a time display like the analog one. Gradually, the cable operator introduced more channels that were offered only on the digital box. Then gradually and sneakily more channels were removed from the analog box and placed on the digital box. In the end, I was paying full for only half of what I used to watch.

So the greedy green monster whispered to me,"Go change to the digital box lah, only a few dollars more every month mah!", and so I switched.

Then one not-getting-any-better day, the cable operator decided to split the main channels that I was watching into little sub channels. The Discovery channel was split into other sub channels to discover specific things, so you need to watch the Turbo channel to discover cars, Science channel to discover Science, while the National Geographic channel split out a Wild channel for wild animals and Adventure channel for adventures. The main Discovery and National Geographic channels still remained but all the interesting stuff seemed to have gone to the sub channels, which are charged separately.

So the greedy green monster whispered to me again,"Go subscribe to more channels lah, only a few dollars more every month mah!", and so I subscribed to the new Lifestyle group that contains stuff I used to be able to watch on the Education group.

Then one bad day, my video cassette recorder gave up on me. Since I couldn't find any video tape anywhere anymnore (not even Sungei Road), I decided to change my digital box to the hubstation to continue recording. But the customer service told me that they have stopped inventory for the hubstation, and I had to get the hubstation HD instead, which is 75% more expensive because of the word HD. It was not as if I had any other choice, so without the greedy green monster whispering to me, I paid more to subscribe to the hubstation HD.

Then one very very agonising day, March 1 2011 to be exact, I could not view any of the HD channels anymore. Apparently in order to watch a HD channel on my hubstation HD, I need to subscribe to HD Upsize. Else I'll have to watch normal non-HD channels on my hubstation HD.

When the greedy green monster whispered to me again,"Go subscribe to...", I smashed him onto the ground, stepped on him and switched on my TV to watch the AXN non-HD channel on my hubstation HD.

The Diary of a Useless Manager - Useless IT

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT my diary. This is just a fictional story of an useless little manager working in a large local organisation. If you work in a large local organisation and find this figure looking suspiciously like your manager, it is only because these useless managers breed freely in large local organisations and the only way to stop them is to remove their stable diet - their subordinates.

Today was the day that I went for long breakfast, followed by long lunch, and then even longer afternoon tea-break. Okay, I know I am already doing that everyday, but make it even longer today. Because I couldn't log on to the office network.

This morning when I didn't find the very important report in my inbox, the one that I was supposed to present to my boss and my assistant manager was supposed to do for me, I stomped out of the office to questioned her. She then placed her hands on her hips and answered with a voice louder than me,"I've already sent to you yesterday!". It was then that I realised that my Outlook was not updated because I was not on the office network.

Not being able to log onto Outlook is very serious. This means I can't receive and forward all the reports that I dedicated out, and if I don't send any email anytime soon, my boss will have the wrong impression that I'm not doing any work and I'm very free!

Immediately, I panicked and asked my PA,"I can't access to the office network! How?" and almost immediately, she snapped back at me,"How I know how?! I'm only your PA, I'm not IT! I'll log a ticket for you.". Well, at least she logged a ticket for me.

But after I returned from my long breakfast, my outlook still looked as outdated as I have left it. So I asked my PA whether she has logged my ticket as super urgent, and she answered with a long "Yes".

After my long lunch, I was still off the office network. Being impatient, I asked my even more impatient PA for the IT Manager's number and gave him a ring...

"Have you logged a ticket?"
"Yes, my PA has done it for me."
"Then you'll need to wait for help desk to respond."
"I've already waited the whole morning! Can't you send someone over to take a look?"
"Nope. We can't do anything until help desk has called you, understood your problem, done the first diagnosis and then forwarded us the ticket. Then I'll ask my guy to go over, okay?"
"But I heard that our help desk is in India and they are super slow!"
"Yah, they're slow, but I'm sorry, this is the process. My hands are tied till I receive the ticket."

And I found someone in the organisation who is even more idle than me.