well said man. =)
MS. you seem to think that SAF owes you a living. Yes you signed
on as a specialist and it did not work out for some reason. Don't
always be so quick to blame the organisation and system before you
do soul searching on yourself and other variables.
I personally feel that SAF is a very merciful and kind employer.
Why? Simple. Having been an NSF and having many regular friends and
having been in the private sector for eons, I have seen SAF
condone and retain so many people, that I dare say cannot last and
hack it in the private sector. Throw these people in the private
sector for one day and they'll combust within the first
hour.
The SAF pays its personnel very very well, far above
what these people can command in the private sector. That
is a renowned fact, and has always been the case. Go around and ask
anyone out there. And this has been the case even before SAF
recently increased the pay for its personnels. Now it's even more
pronounced.
Take officers for eg. Let's not talk about high flying SAFOS who
have US$200K per annum offers from consultancies and investment
banks upon graduation from Harvard and MIT, and PhD offers aplenty
that they can't take up, for obvious reason- their bond. (wanna
bet? I have many close SAFOS friends who have such offers, from
Merril Lynch and Mckinsey)
The typical farmer diploma holder who signs on as officer or
even specialist gets way more than what he can get with his diploma
in the private sector, good and bad times. Most dip holders in the
private sector take on support job functions. Eng dip holders are
Engin Assistants. Accounts dip holders are Acct assistants and get
less than 1.8 to 2K or they do sales jobs with low base salary of
around $1.4K. Even for graduates. Do you know how much SAF pays its
farmer graduates?!?! The typical farmer graduate can NEVER command that kind of salary that SAF
pays its farmer officers, even young CPTs. If you're talking abt
MAJ and LTC, which a lot of farmers do end up, the difference
between their pay in SAF and what they can get once they leave is
even more phenomenal!
Wanna talk about BS politics and rank pulling? From your stories
you write it as though you were so aggrieved, like you never
encountered anything so heinous but honestly it sounds very
amateurish. Why? The encounters are very normal of any company in
the workforce, it's the way you portray it and your reaction that
makes it really amateurish sounding man!
Wanna talk bout backstabbing, bitching, politics, bullying? YOU
aint seen nothing yet.
I have friend who are junior lawyers, who are bullied and
verbally abused by their superiors. I have journalist friends in
big listed company (no need to say which one) who get yelled at by
their superiors and colleagues in the middle of the newsroom. My
good friend, a young graduate journalist then was called by her
editor to the latter's cubicle, the latter had her work pinned up
on the wall, she made my friend stand in front of the piece, and
yelled at my friend and went through each line at the top of her
voice and she told her that she's a useless fuck and the whole work
floor heard everything.
A friend in the advertising industry, whose direct superior was
trying to get close in a more than professional way with the male
HOD. When the male HOD was interested in my friend and got very
close to her, the direct superior rallied everyone in the team and
form an alliance against my friend and bullied her and ousted her
out.
Another friend in a public listed GLC whose superior, a bitchy
woman didn't like her for no reason (just not shiok lah) even
though her work was good (can be proven because she's always had a
good ranking and good performance and joined the company way
earlier before the superior joined), and during ranking exercise
verbally abused her and told she'll never cut it in this industry
and told her to wake up and get lost.
Politicking and backstabbing are even more prevalent in
the private sector because people are not on contracts and people
can be fired. Cocksucking, alliances for survival
and backstabbing are the order of the day man.
In the armed forces, the male dominated environment makes it
very egostically charged and that's the cause of a lot of the
competitiveness but in the private sector it's worse, if not equal
because women are harder to deal with, and it's a matter of
survival because it's not an iron rice bowl. Not only rubbing
people off the wrong way in ONE company is bad, if you garner a bad
rep in one company, it spreads to the whole industry.
Seriously when i read what you write - your self righteous and
self centred whinings about the SAF, it concludes to me clearly
that you simply 1) did not make it in the SAF 2) you took it upon
the SAF and never questioned whether it was due to any OTHER factor
than the organisation wronging you 3) you expected SAF to spoonfeed
its personnels and act like a charity.
What? Do you think just because SAF funded by the government,
it's obliged to act like a charity and retain people in spite of
its own organisational and operational needs and betterment? How do
you think that makes taxpayers, who are in effect funding the SAF
feel? Now that you're in the private sector and are one of them,
can't you feel that? Of cos you can't. Because you see yourself as
a maligned, aggrived and hard done by victim of SAF when it did
nothing to you.
The SAF is a company like any other. Too bad it didn't work out
there FOR YOU (But i can assure you that I have high flying friends
whose careers not only work out but are well treasured by the SAF
and they're very dedicated to the organisation).
Your skills did not fit the organisation's needs and what the
organisation wanted to offer you best to what it deems to be YOUR
abilities was not sufficient for you.
Move on and let go. SAF is NOT a charity.
