r/south_africa

Voetsek, hai wena VOETSEK.

Some of these people need to get laid, smoke a gwaai, get a life, something idk. I only just started and I’ve been half an hour early to every day of work for the first 3 weeks and today I had car troubles, I’ve had to deal with this regte poes 3 times but I had a group meeting with her and I was a whole 🥁 3 minutes late. She wanted to email my supervisor about it. Is she okay? There were some things that were extremely unclear in the presentation and even my teammates were unsure about it but I’m the only one who decided to ask, when I did ask, she was firstly condescending, then she proceeded to talk in circles and not actually answer the question. We were also taken through some new software which me and some other new employees have never worked with, when we asked questions what happens? People are condescending and wanna talk down to us. And (no offence) it’s always people that are in their 50-60s.

I'm genuinely confused about who to vote for in Johannesburg. There are tons of small parties, but I struggle to see the point of voting for them when most will ultimately help keep the ANC/EFF/PA in power.

The ANC, EFF, MK and PA aren't options for me. To me, they are all essentially part of the same political establishment. If I wanted an ANC/EFF/PA government and the chaos that comes with it, I could vote for them directly rather than taking a detour through another party. So that leaves me looking seriously at only two parties: the DA and ActionSA.

I'm not a DA supporter. In 2016 I voted for Herman Mashaba because I was voting for the person, not the party. He wasn't a career politician so I thought I would give him a try. But, in my opinion, he didn't do a particularly good job as mayor and became effectively an EFF mayor. He was airlifted into the mayor position by the DA with no real local government experience and it showed. He also doesn't come across as someone with a great deal of political intuition.

My bigger problem with Mashaba now is his obsession with Helen Zille. His main political campaign seems to be built around his hatred of her and nothing much beyond that. The Tshwane situation also bothers me. Mashaba says the DA was trying to work with the ANC to push ActionSA out. But he has never, as far as I can tell, produced convincing evidence for this. I recently asked Zille about exactly what happened at a community meeting. The explanation I was given was that Mashaba was actually negotiating with the ANC for ActionSA to get the mayorship and push Brink and the DA out. The DA only approached the ANC after discovering what was happening, asking them to support Brink in exchange for supporting the ANC's budget and other matters in Johannesburg. The ANC ultimately decided to take Herman's offer.

I've also spoken to two ActionSA PR councillors in Tshwane and one in Johannesburg. All three gave me essentially the same explanation for ActionSA's poor 2024 performance: their voters didn't like the Multi-Party Charter and didn't want ActionSA working with the DA. They said ActionSA's voters wants and prefers the party to work with the ANC/EFF/PA instead. If that's true, then why should I vote ActionSA? I would personally prefer them to work with the DA instead of the ANC/EFF/PA. If I want an ANC/EFF/PA government, I can vote for those parties directly.

On the other hand, there is the DA. I don't agree with everything the DA stands for and I don't like them, but I find Zille honest for the most part, extremely hard-working, competent and intelligent. And unlike Mashaba, I don't get the impression that she is fighting this battle because she wants revenge or simply wants to spite him. She seems genuinely interested in trying to make Johannesburg work. But I have a major problem with the DA too: immigration. Johannesburg has a huge problem with illegal immigration and our suburbs are completely under siege by foreigners. In many suburbs every second to third house is now overcrowded accommodation for foreigners renting rooms etc and bringing in a lot of crime into our communities. Yet I don't see dealing with undocumented immigration as a major priority for the DA or Zille. That is a serious concern for me.

So I'm stuck. Do I vote for Helen because I think she is the more competent and credible governing option, even though I have serious disagreements with her about immigration? OR Do I vote for Herman despite worrying that my vote would ultimately produce another ANC/EFF/PA coalition similar to the one we have had in Johannesburg for the past 5 years and the one currently in Tshwane? I want to vote for the option most likely to give Johannesburg a competent, stable government for a full five years. What option will that be?

I’m not entirely sure if this is the right subreddit to ask this, but here goes.

I am (23M) currently double-majoring in CS and Pure Maths, and I am completely done pretending I like traditional SWE. Web dev, DevOps, cloud infrastructure... none of it is for me. I always had a passion for embedded systems, but I put it on hold to chase traditional SWE internships because everyone said that's where the 'safe jobs' and AI hype were. I haven't had any luck for almost 2 years now.

I’ve reached the point where if I’m gonna struggle to find work, I’d rather struggle doing what I actually enjoy. The thought of touching JavaScript makes me want to puke.

My main question is whether embedded systems programming is actually a viable career path for CS graduates here in South Africa. Do local companies even hire computer scientists for firmware roles, or do they strictly filter for Electrical/Mechatronic engineering degrees? If they do hire CS grads, which companies/industries should I look into, and how do I tailor my resume for them?

I have solid knowledge of electronics and embedded hardware, but because of my degree title, I don’t have an engineering transcript to prove it—just my own projects. I write a lot of low-level C and know modern C++ inside out.

If anyone in the local embedded or hardware space has advice on how to get a foot in the door (or is open to connecting), I’d really appreciate it.

Colleague is having a good giggle, at my expense.

Hello fellow golfers. This October, I’ll be visiting South Africa and doing a two week road trip from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town. I’d love to play two beautiful golf courses along the way. Do you have any recommendations for must play courses along this route?

Thanks in advance!

I took out a pension from the metal industries 18 months ago, it is 15% of my income. In 18 months after depositing R84,900 In contributions, the interest I earned from it was R14,500. It's now worth over R100,000. In little over a year.

I was quite happy with that, that's the highest return I have seen with my finances. I mean I was saving in a separate account about R9000 per month and that has saved R115,000 in the same amount of time, but the pension fund looks like it's gonna overtake my savings. I'm also 33 at the moment. And don't earn a huge amount, probably about R23,000 per month.

so in total I have saved R200k in 18 months from zero. but the pension earned so much of interest that in 5 years from now, I'll have over a million, and I'm not even close to retirement age. which means by the time I retire, I should be a multimillionaire.

What type of thing are you doing to grow your finances for your future? Is it working?