r/singaporespeaks

Hi, might be changing jobs soon, want a break before starting new job. Looking for travel recommendations here because I’ve never travelled before and have no interests or preferences in that area. But everyone keeps saying travel this travel that so maybe I can give it a try.

Duration: up to 1 month
Budget: as long as the experience is worth it, not a problem

Non negotiable Requirements:
English or Chinese speaking country
Weather similar to SG or better
As safe as Singapore (no need to keep watching over my things)
Good internet connection
No driving required
No natural disasters like earthquake, typhoon, volcano etc
Food somewhat similar to SG food
No life threatening activity

Hope to hear some good suggestions, if not I’ll just end up playing 1 month of video games

The company that my team does contract work for has suddenly started enforcing a policy banning personal belongings from our desks. I might get fired for naming them so I'll just say they're one of the largest social media companies in the world run by a lizard man.

We're removing pictures of our families from our desks as well as any kinds of desk decor like mugs or small figurines- basically anything that hints at any kind of personality whatsoever even though this has no impact on our work or the people around us at all.

Genuinely asking myself why companies do this? Like- despise even the suggestion that we might have lives outside of work?

I’m sick of this place and there is no way out except death.

saw this on tiktok/ig reel few days back and got really curious whether many other singaporeans feel the same way hahaha. What are your thoughts!

Reaching my big 4 soon and been thinking about life, you know you're getting really old when you nag and give unsolicited advice 😅

Financial stability is really important, having a definition for what that means to future you is so important to have early on - but I also think we should always have as much as fun possible, regardless of age/society values. And building your own community with trusted, mature people. Routine exercise is also so important.

My elder parents were never interested in travelling the world, and as a child I feel a bit bad for not pushing them to see the world, but it is a difference in mindset I don't understand lah. Don't feed into capitalism also lah.

I also learnt that you can start any time regardless of age, and just put yourself out there.

Coming from the no-kids "liberal" aunt

I just spoke to someone who recently volunteered/worked at a major arts festival and walked away completely disheartened by the culture. Similar to my past experiences working & volunteering in past festivals / events - the pretentious people need to stop.

There have been so many of us entering the space/project with genuine passion, wanting to support and grow our local scene. Instead, facing intense pretentiousness, elitism, and dismissive gatekeeping from the high-ranking personnel and senior team members we report to. It’s especially worse for volunteers since we are doing it for free.

It felt like the very people paid to promote the arts are the barriers keeping the general public, students, and enthusiastic newcomers out. Rather than making the space accommodating, they treated entry-level teams and volunteers as invisible or an annoyance (or worse second-rate)

I am trying to understand if this is an isolated incident or a systemic issue across Singapore's cultural institutions. I graduated from an undergrad in 2020 and had to leave pursuing arts as a career in Singapore because of this barrier and prefer to be a consumer instead.

If you are a student, volunteer, or fellow enthusiast who tried to break into the local arts scene:

Did you experience this same brand of toxic gatekeeping from leadership?

How did it impact your desire to continue supporting or working in the local arts?

Do you feel this hierarchy is actively suffocating the growth of our arts community?

Please share your experiences below (keep names anonymous to protect yourself). I want to see how deep this issue goes.

I don’t think my life can get much worse.

Over fifty and out of work, nobody gonna hire me.

Of course, nobody really likes me. I don’t have many friends left, and the few who are still around, I can’t confide in them. what can they do? They can’t fix it.

Trading was the one thing that gave me some hope. For a while, I was doing well almost 100 days of zero loss. I thought maybe I had found a way back. Maybe I could live normally again. Then one huge loss wiped me out.

I tried again. I managed to recover a little, even did well for a while. Then it happened again. Another huge loss.

The worst part is that trading made me believe there was still a way out. It gave me hope, and I was stupid enough to believe that it could be a way out for me..

Now I don’t trust myself anymore.

Every few years, I will come to the edge of dying, but it passes. But this time I'm sick of this. Sick of being sick.

Again I'm on the edge of death, really feel like ending it all. They say the last words of most dying patients is MAMA. Yes strangely this is the world that keeps appearing in my head now.

On top of all these I have OCD about cleaniness and the best I can do is work in the office, but there isn't any job as u know now.

I dunno why I'm writing this, but I don't know what to do either.

Edit : Actually I do know the best I can do is wait for my parents to pass on before I end it all. I think so