Leaving home from Joo Chiat at 6am, arriving at work at 7am and working till 7pm in the evening will probably sound like hell to many Singaporeans. At least that's the reaction I get when when customers come by and had small talk with me. Their eyes widen in amazement as many stammered, "What? You work 12 hours a day!" And many readers will probably think that many of these customers who came by to "small talk" with me are mostly guys... and most probably, they are just showing some sympathy. Well not really true too... there are many nice office girls who enjoy the small talk as well.
"... so working 12 hours in Singapore is nothing ..."
Back in China, or at least where I came from, we work 8-9 hours a day and including transport time, it can work out to almost 12 hours just the same. What's more, there are no off days... it's seven days a week for us! And the pay is just 800RMB or about SGD170 per month. I recall my days working in a boutique (actually it's not that long ago, just a few months before I came to Singapore in May 2008) when I had to wake up at 5am every day and make my way to work at 6am. I get to work between 7.30am to 8am depending on traffic as my home in Benxi to Tieling is quite far. Working hours was from 8am to 4pm where I will have to wait till about 5pm to catch the bus home. By the time I get home, it will be close to 7pm... so working 12 hours in Singapore is nothing to me. I even get half of Saturday and the whole Sunday off in Singapore... how nice. This is luxury! No wonder, Chinese are flocking to Singapore to work!
I'm sure Singapore must have been the same many years ago when it was just starting out. Your forefathers would have worked 12 hour days or more without complain. Well, when times get better, lets not forget the days when our forefathers strive to give us a better life!
We don't work that many hours these days.
ReplyDeleteBut the value of S$ (real income) has gone down a lot.
Whereas the Yuan is quite the powderful.
You win some, you lose some.