Local PSA worker still angry after being retrenched a decade ago

[makapaaa]

[h=2]Local PSA worker still angry after being retrenched a decade
ago[/h]

June 19th, 2013 |

Author: Contributions

Hi Gilbert,

Be honest with you – I am really very unhappy with our government for not
taking better care of the people.

I still feel very angry that the government allowed companies to retrench
true-blue Singaporeans when foreigners are allowed to continue working here.
Something is wrong here.

Let me recount my awful experience with PSA.

I was a technician working at PSA and was retrenched in 2003 because of right
resizing. I worked there since 1991 and like what I did, but apparently the
employers thought otherwise and retrenched me.

But do you know how I felt when I went out of the PSA gate – I felt very sad
and my heart cried because they are still many FTs working inside the PSA and I
felt that my country has abandoned me.

What’s wrong with our country? Why can’t they retrench the foreign workers
who are working in the same post as me?

My family needs me to support them and I still need to contribute CPF to pay
off my housing loan.

I appealed through my MP hoping to go back to PSA again, but they rejected me
without giving me a reason.

I even went to Teck Ghee GRC Meet-The-People session hoping that our PM Lee
would be able to help me.

They listened to me and I showed them all my PSA documents.

After a few weeks, I received a letter from Teck Ghee GRC informing me that I
should go back to my Marsiling ward to see my MP.

I was really disappointed and sad.

I just want to have a stable job so that I can support and give my family a
better standard of living – is it that difficult?

Am I worse than the FT working here?

This is my country – I was born here and my family also resides here.

What happened to me totally devastated me and I am at a loss for words…

Thanks for hearing me out.

Regards,



Edwin

*
Gilbert Goh is the founder of transitioning.org, a non-profit society specially
set up to cater to the emotional needs of the unemployed Singaporeans. This
letter first appeared in transitioning.org.

 

[halsey02]

Whom did he voted for? believe & trusted in?? no prize for this. He must be damn lousy at work...but FT are cheaper, better, faster, can work 25 hrs a day, no reservist, no family here to worry about...the best.

Whom did he vote for?

 

[spotter542]

Damn !
You beat me to it :p

 

[PornSTAR]

Whom did he voted for? believe & trusted in?? no prize for this. He must be damn lousy at work...but FT are cheaper, better, faster, can work 25 hrs a day, no reservist, no family here to worry about...the best.

Whom did he vote for?

Cheaper yes, faster and better is far far away from sinkie.

 

[halsey02]

Cheaper yes, faster and better is far far away from sinkie.

We ask for it...we get what we wished for..the 60% that is...

 

[Heisenberg]

This country treats foreigners better than own people. Very sad indeed.

 

[Narong Wongwan]

This chap got issues............still haven recover.......same same with QYF's 10 years of postnatal depression

 

[Scrooball (clone)]

What a true breed loser. The country is full of these whining pussies. It's been so long since he got retrenched. He can't find a better job since then?

 

[halsey02]

This chap got issues............still haven recover.......same same with QYF's 10 years of postnatal depression

How to recover when your rice bowl is smashed by the same people he admired, believed & trusted..this is called betrayal. :p

 

[Leongsam]

I've had to manage many retrenchment exercises in my lifetime. It was part and parcel of working in an American NMC.

The process is straightforward. Each manager is asked to submit a certain number of names for the chopping block.

Invariably, the process is used to get rid of the deadwood and the non performers. Nationality, race, religion are not part of the equation. As long as a manager considers a worker to be an asset, he'll do all he can to protect his job.

If Edwin has any brains, he should be able to work out why he was axed. If he can't, I rest my case.

 

[halsey02]

I've had to manage many retrenchment exercises in my lifetime. It was part and parcel of working in an American NMC.

The process is straightforward. Each manager is asked to submit a certain number of names for the chopping block.

Invariably, the process is used to get rid of the deadwood and the non performers. Nationality, race, religion are not part of the equation. As long as a manager considers a worker to be an asset, he'll do all he can to protect his job.

If Edwin has any brains, he should be able to work out why he was axed. If he can't, I rest my case.

Go trumpeting this again...many of us have seen cycles of retrenchment, I have, each wave, makes us smarter & prepared & the spur to come out of the cycle to be your own boss & the only retrenchment is sacking yourself..I did!

What Edwin condition is & was, believing & whoreshipping, opps! worshiping a system & people that it became a 'religion', & that 'god' that, Edwin trusted in, came down from 'sinai', not good news of salvation...but stone tablets that smashed his porcelain rice bowl.

I am sure, Edwin had moved on, but that Betrayal is still etched in his brain, the memory & act of betrayal is hard to erased..forgive, but how to forget?, where the walking evidence of that betrayal is seen everyday in his life...the deluge of 'foreign talents'...& people that stole,once, his jobs..he got the chops!

Don't go singing songs on mangement practice etc...the cleaner lady without a tertiary education can understand & explain that to you...we are talking about betrayal..& yes! Edwin, should have moved on to bigger things on life...but hurt, takes a long time to heal...

But, edwin doesn't know...There is no love in business...he should vote carefully.

 

[singham]

seriously, nowadays, it's not easy to find back a job that pays as well as your old job. once you lose it, it's gone for good. speaking from experience...:(

 

[halsey02]

seriously, nowadays, it's not easy to find back a job that pays as well as your old job. once you lose it, it's gone for good. speaking from experience...:(

I have experienced that too, but the goal is to be better paid the next job & better prepared too, without having to rely on you know who, who you know will not help but only to your wallet. The ultimate goal is to be your own boss, easy to say, but sadly, that should be the path, for we have to look after ourselves & the other sad thing is, we have people we pay good money to, sell us out.

 

[Troll]

Invariably, the process is used to get rid of the deadwood and the non performers. Nationality, race, religion are not part of the equation. As long as a manager considers a worker to be an asset, he'll do all he can to protect his job.

You must have been dealing with rather low levels in the corporate food chain. Never mind.....

I have seen funds managers, fresh off turning in another record year of revenue to the bank, only to be made redundant because of restructuring. These were clearly not deadwood and non performers. But of course they were quickly snapped up by head hunters after walking away with a generous severance package. Big figures you may never see in your lifetime.

A lot of times, it's about politics and survival. Managers put up names of people they don't like or who pose a thread to them up for retrenchments. It's hardly really about abilities and contribution. Its a balancing act of keeping useful stooges in your own team, without appearing too fat so that even the manager themselves may get targeted.

I have also seen clueless senior VPs who has been with the bank for decades getting retrenched, even though they were no thread to anybody in particular, but they were also of no use to the manager above them.

End of the day, it's a "who would you rather loose" proposition. So keeping ones job is about how what you do (or not do) may help the one above you keep his / hers.

 

[leetahbah]

Life must be miserable if angry for one whole decade

 

[Kuailan]

Foreign Trash = Cheaper Yes!
Faster work = Maybe but mistake occur
Accuracy = Not, Local more meticulous
Obedient = Yes, loyalty = No!
Foreign Trash = Spend more time on the phone due home sickness.
Even cycling with one hand crossing traffic, Zebra crossing one hand one phone!!
Never ending talking!!
Listen to instruction: Yes Yes! but make mistake!

 

[chootchiew]

Foreign Trash = Cheaper Yes!
Faster work = Maybe but mistake occur
Accuracy = Not, Local more meticulous
Obedient = Yes, loyalty = No!
Foreign Trash = Spend more time on the phone due home sickness.
Even cycling with one hand crossing traffic, Zebra crossing one hand one phone!!
Never ending talking!!
Listen to instruction: Yes Yes! but make mistake!

Would like to add 1 for FT = constantly planning for annual leave to return own country. Their leave are always of high priority aka Tai Sai..once they say need to return home, sinkie have to give in liao

 

[chootchiew]

He has not seen worst type of company where they don't retrench but find ways to make staff self resign..me kena before. I envy people, especially those older folks and have work decades in a company to be retrenched.

Side note...I have this thinking that many veteran thought that the company owes them a living after working for e.g. 20-30 yrs.

 

[winnipegjets]

Edwin should learn from the Taliban on dealing with foreign intrusion.

 

[Leongsam]

You must have been dealing with rather low levels in the corporate food chain. Never mind.....

That's because I was low level myself and while I was deciding who should get the chop, I was fully aware that the same thing might be happening to me once I had done my part of culling process.

You learn to take nothing for granted and the uncertainty spurred me on the get to a point in my life where my destiny was no longer in the hands of others.