I read with horror that our garment is contemplating raising our retirement age to 68. The news was in ChannelNewsAsia.com this morning, but somehow I can’t find it now when I was blogging.
I can imagine myself hunched back, walking slowly and with difficulty, popping pills everyday due to ailments accumulated from working too hard during my youth.
If by stroke of luck, I am not being replaced by cheaper, faster and younger foreign talents, I can also imagine my young bosses and colleagues giving me a buay tah han look whenever I am slow in responding or completing my work or taking MC to go to hospital for follow-ups.
If I am unlucky, I can imagine myself either becoming: -
1. a chambermaid cleaning up and tidying hotel rooms or
2. a cleaner cleaning the Ladies/Gents in shopping centres or
3. a dishwasher carrying dirty trays and wiping tables in foodcourts and coffeeshop
The pay for the above will be damn pitiful, nothing left after deducting the daily expenses, especially the transportation, and medical bills.
By the time I am 65 years old, our garment may change their mind and tell us we should continue to work until we died. I can imagine I will have a very sad life ahead … :(
Life is really tough in Singapore. It gets tougher when I grow older. Sometimes I wonder, since it is going to get tougher when I am old, why do I need to slog so hard now? I might as well enjoy my life now and take care of my health. I can’t retire in comfort when I need to work throughout my life??? Maybe we should follow the French, have strikes when this motion is being debated in the parliament, maybe it will make our garment think for us common folks. Maybe we should just boycott the coming elections or choose more oppositions and kick out those useless “elites” who don’t understand the real life.
Snide aside: In summary, the moral of raising the retirement age is “We the highly paid elites of the garment thinks that we should keep your CPF $$$ longer (hic) and you should continue to contribute to our garment coffers so that we can have (hic) 22% increment every year. Besides, we made some (hic) losses while betting with the world economy during the crisis and we need your (hic) CPF $ to buy more chips. So, we are now raising your retirement age (FULL STOP)
I can imagine myself hunched back, walking slowly and with difficulty, popping pills everyday due to ailments accumulated from working too hard during my youth.
If by stroke of luck, I am not being replaced by cheaper, faster and younger foreign talents, I can also imagine my young bosses and colleagues giving me a buay tah han look whenever I am slow in responding or completing my work or taking MC to go to hospital for follow-ups.
If I am unlucky, I can imagine myself either becoming: -
1. a chambermaid cleaning up and tidying hotel rooms or
2. a cleaner cleaning the Ladies/Gents in shopping centres or
3. a dishwasher carrying dirty trays and wiping tables in foodcourts and coffeeshop
The pay for the above will be damn pitiful, nothing left after deducting the daily expenses, especially the transportation, and medical bills.
By the time I am 65 years old, our garment may change their mind and tell us we should continue to work until we died. I can imagine I will have a very sad life ahead … :(
Life is really tough in Singapore. It gets tougher when I grow older. Sometimes I wonder, since it is going to get tougher when I am old, why do I need to slog so hard now? I might as well enjoy my life now and take care of my health. I can’t retire in comfort when I need to work throughout my life??? Maybe we should follow the French, have strikes when this motion is being debated in the parliament, maybe it will make our garment think for us common folks. Maybe we should just boycott the coming elections or choose more oppositions and kick out those useless “elites” who don’t understand the real life.
Snide aside: In summary, the moral of raising the retirement age is “We the highly paid elites of the garment thinks that we should keep your CPF $$$ longer (hic) and you should continue to contribute to our garment coffers so that we can have (hic) 22% increment every year. Besides, we made some (hic) losses while betting with the world economy during the crisis and we need your (hic) CPF $ to buy more chips. So, we are now raising your retirement age (FULL STOP)
