Been test-driving for the past two weeks, tried avante, city, vios and latio sport and I've finally made my choice - LATIO SPORT!
Avante - handling is too light
Vios - has a cheapo feel
City - good mix of sportiness and family, but the pricing is not competitive.
Latio Sport - best value for money! Go test it!
It must be a god-given present that the cat A COE prices halved today to $8118. It is a signal that I shld go in now to get whatever I want!
A round of bargaining tmrw and I hope to emerge with more goodies! Haha!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Wakeboarding
Went to Marina Country Club at Punggol to try out wakeboarding with mostly my AEO colleagues and soon-to-be coursemates.
Actually I've wanted to try out wakeboarding for awhile, since the time when I was canoeing at Kallang. Water sports always appeal to me and wakeboarding is one of those look cool and great bods activity. Finally had my taste of it thanks to Jimmy who intro this lobang almost one month ago.
There were 9 of us and we booked 2 boats at $330 per boat for 4 hours, which worked out to about $73 per head. Not cheap considering that I row for free Haha but it was definitely enjoyable. And also a few guys flew us aeroplanes last minute and added to the per head cost.
Anyway about the wakeboarding proper, a few of the guys can already do it effortlessly after their first try last month. Weiquan and Tommy were pretty steady and had good postures. As it was my first time, I took quite a few attempts to even get on my feet, but I would give myself a passable grade lah.
The trick is really to be patient and not attempt to overpower the force of the water. I thought I have an advantage because of my canoeing experience and know the waves and have better balance, but still drank quite a lot of water. But it was real good fun, to hire a boat, sun tan while not wakeboarding, and guess what? We all took leave and played on a Friday morning.
Will definitely be back for the next time!
Actually I've wanted to try out wakeboarding for awhile, since the time when I was canoeing at Kallang. Water sports always appeal to me and wakeboarding is one of those look cool and great bods activity. Finally had my taste of it thanks to Jimmy who intro this lobang almost one month ago.
There were 9 of us and we booked 2 boats at $330 per boat for 4 hours, which worked out to about $73 per head. Not cheap considering that I row for free Haha but it was definitely enjoyable. And also a few guys flew us aeroplanes last minute and added to the per head cost.
Anyway about the wakeboarding proper, a few of the guys can already do it effortlessly after their first try last month. Weiquan and Tommy were pretty steady and had good postures. As it was my first time, I took quite a few attempts to even get on my feet, but I would give myself a passable grade lah.
The trick is really to be patient and not attempt to overpower the force of the water. I thought I have an advantage because of my canoeing experience and know the waves and have better balance, but still drank quite a lot of water. But it was real good fun, to hire a boat, sun tan while not wakeboarding, and guess what? We all took leave and played on a Friday morning.
Will definitely be back for the next time!
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Renumeration Woes
Renumeration is the fair value that an employer pays to the employee for the perceived capacity to contribute positively to the growth of the company (Beng, 2007).
It is a common practice for companies to adopt a renumeration scheme that compensates employees on a senority basis, rewarding them for the loyalty and the years of service rendered.
Increasingly, however, companies are moving away from rewarding seniority to rewarding work performance.
In perhaps the biggest industry in Singapore, a hybrid is created that seeks to rewards both seniority and performance. The consequent problem is that many a times the yardstick used is not consistent and lacks logical sense.
Allow me to illustrate a myopic view of the flaws in the system.
The cycle of economic boom and boon repeats itself, and the ability of an organization to retain its talents becomes crucial in good times when other competitors and industries present mouth-watering opportunities. While many insist that cultivating intrinsic motivation is key to retaining existing talents, few would disagree that an equivalent extrinsic reward forwards this cause and attracts more to join the organization.
To maintain and boost employee morale in the midst of rising workplace volatility, the carrots dangled to new recruits should rightfully be extended to existing members as well. This is important to maintain organizational equity for all, without which an unimaginable crisis await the management.
Firstly, unequal renumeration for performing the exact duties in itself is unjustified. Barring any performance-related indicators (or the lack of such measures), the employer seemingly implied that the work done by the new recruit is of greater value than existing employees. Is this performance-rated pay? I would think not. This inequity leads to employee discontent and resentment. Any normally motivated employee will find this difficult to swallow.
In a more severe case, the lack of levelling in payscale poses a potentially more serious problem for more senior employees who are performing work of clearly more importance and bearing more responsibility. This group of people witnesses a blatant disregard for their contributions to the organization and suffer the indignity of being similarly rewarded as fresh recruits. A logical deduction about their inferior payscale may be due to the wrong timing when they entered the organization. While year-on-year this group of people enjoys a slow but steady increase in renumeration, they are in fact far off the present market rate.
Our case study reveals that the management is fully cognizant of the situation, and they have implemented a market adjustment component, which is a one-time lump sum payment. Contrast this to a permanent adjustment to the top brass and the mistreatment is even more obvious. This is the middle-class crisis facing the sandwiched classes. This is, and will be a problem for the organization to cope with unless they take heed of the warning signs and arrest the slide at this early stage. Every delay at this juncture poses an exponential increase in rectification cost at a later stage.
A further peek into the problem shows that even among the new recruits, renumeration varies depending on the time of entry - The earlier you put pen to paper, the worse off you are. This is pretty silly and ironic that employees who committed earlier aren't rewarded for their loyalty, but instead have to make do with a lower renumeration with all else equal.
In the long course of tea break discussions, numerous counter arguements have been made in attempts to downplay the issue, and I would like to tackle these Greek myths one by one.
They are 2 years older, we will get it 2 years later. Age seems to be the overarching agreement on why we deserve less. As discussed earlier, a seniority-based renumeration scheme may be justifiable, but it is an individual's corporate seniority for his time served at the organization in a similar capacity. People argue that they did served 2.5 years for NS. But lest we forget, NS is a nation-wide obligation for all Singaporean males and they have only fulfilled their duty to the nation, and whatever experience they accumulated is most probably non-transferable as we embark in a new vocation.
They have study loans to repay. At first glance, it is a perfectly valid reason because our tertiary educations were funded differently. But the study awards are not given to us unconditionally. It was a mutual agreement by the organization to sponsor and the recipient to fulfill his degree and return for a bond period. No party owe each other anything at all to start with, since every awardee carries a quantified $X of liquidated damages in an unlikely case of bond breaking.
Kaputt!
Even more exasperating is the inflexibility of organizational policies and inefficiency of the administration to uphold equity for graduates of different university. It is not funny when you are financially penalized for an external system's doings. Little things add up to become really irking.
Why WHy WHY? What kind of deal is this?
It is a common practice for companies to adopt a renumeration scheme that compensates employees on a senority basis, rewarding them for the loyalty and the years of service rendered.
Increasingly, however, companies are moving away from rewarding seniority to rewarding work performance.
In perhaps the biggest industry in Singapore, a hybrid is created that seeks to rewards both seniority and performance. The consequent problem is that many a times the yardstick used is not consistent and lacks logical sense.
Allow me to illustrate a myopic view of the flaws in the system.
The cycle of economic boom and boon repeats itself, and the ability of an organization to retain its talents becomes crucial in good times when other competitors and industries present mouth-watering opportunities. While many insist that cultivating intrinsic motivation is key to retaining existing talents, few would disagree that an equivalent extrinsic reward forwards this cause and attracts more to join the organization.
To maintain and boost employee morale in the midst of rising workplace volatility, the carrots dangled to new recruits should rightfully be extended to existing members as well. This is important to maintain organizational equity for all, without which an unimaginable crisis await the management.
Firstly, unequal renumeration for performing the exact duties in itself is unjustified. Barring any performance-related indicators (or the lack of such measures), the employer seemingly implied that the work done by the new recruit is of greater value than existing employees. Is this performance-rated pay? I would think not. This inequity leads to employee discontent and resentment. Any normally motivated employee will find this difficult to swallow.
In a more severe case, the lack of levelling in payscale poses a potentially more serious problem for more senior employees who are performing work of clearly more importance and bearing more responsibility. This group of people witnesses a blatant disregard for their contributions to the organization and suffer the indignity of being similarly rewarded as fresh recruits. A logical deduction about their inferior payscale may be due to the wrong timing when they entered the organization. While year-on-year this group of people enjoys a slow but steady increase in renumeration, they are in fact far off the present market rate.
Our case study reveals that the management is fully cognizant of the situation, and they have implemented a market adjustment component, which is a one-time lump sum payment. Contrast this to a permanent adjustment to the top brass and the mistreatment is even more obvious. This is the middle-class crisis facing the sandwiched classes. This is, and will be a problem for the organization to cope with unless they take heed of the warning signs and arrest the slide at this early stage. Every delay at this juncture poses an exponential increase in rectification cost at a later stage.
A further peek into the problem shows that even among the new recruits, renumeration varies depending on the time of entry - The earlier you put pen to paper, the worse off you are. This is pretty silly and ironic that employees who committed earlier aren't rewarded for their loyalty, but instead have to make do with a lower renumeration with all else equal.
In the long course of tea break discussions, numerous counter arguements have been made in attempts to downplay the issue, and I would like to tackle these Greek myths one by one.
They are 2 years older, we will get it 2 years later. Age seems to be the overarching agreement on why we deserve less. As discussed earlier, a seniority-based renumeration scheme may be justifiable, but it is an individual's corporate seniority for his time served at the organization in a similar capacity. People argue that they did served 2.5 years for NS. But lest we forget, NS is a nation-wide obligation for all Singaporean males and they have only fulfilled their duty to the nation, and whatever experience they accumulated is most probably non-transferable as we embark in a new vocation.
They have study loans to repay. At first glance, it is a perfectly valid reason because our tertiary educations were funded differently. But the study awards are not given to us unconditionally. It was a mutual agreement by the organization to sponsor and the recipient to fulfill his degree and return for a bond period. No party owe each other anything at all to start with, since every awardee carries a quantified $X of liquidated damages in an unlikely case of bond breaking.
Kaputt!
Even more exasperating is the inflexibility of organizational policies and inefficiency of the administration to uphold equity for graduates of different university. It is not funny when you are financially penalized for an external system's doings. Little things add up to become really irking.
Why WHy WHY? What kind of deal is this?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
