Singapore-My Future ?

Read about the latest online spat on the papers and decided to check it out myself.

Here's the original blog entry by Derek, which sparked off the "debate"...
http://derekwee.blogspot.com/

You can follow up the comments (cross-posted on various other blogs as well) to see the heated responses. Ranging from the pure vulgar to those that started to pick on certain "elite" schools.

I think we are rather missing the point here, by letting a young girl's innocuous reply draw the attention away from a well constructed and insightful posting.

I too am nearing the midpoint of 30s. And I too have the same fear as Derek. This despite me having had a good career so far, rising steadily through the engineering ranks. When I look at the pace of changes, and the fact that the newer generation appears much more adept at these changes, I shudder at the thought of hitting 40.

And no, I am not afraid of changes. Throughout my career, I have always embraced changes but the fact of life is that there are always younger and more agile "competitors" out there. And this age discrimination by employers, whether justified or not, completes the self-fulfilling prophecy.

I do not ask for assistance from the government, nor anyone else. What I do is to plan for my future. To put as much away as I can, living for the day when society decides that I am "too old". I do not want to be a burden to my little one, who won't be 21 until I am at the offical retirement age of 55.

And yes, I too have listened to "over-qualified" taxi drivers complaining of the same. 20 years ago, engineers were one of the 3 respectable profession. Now, you throw a stone into the crowd and more than 50% of the time, you hit an "engineer". The only "iron ricebowl" are the lawyers and doctors (and maybe civil servant) and that's only because of the closed nature of these labour market. It is true that globalisation is a great social leveller. But it is difficult for one to be fair when you are holding the short end of the stick.

So let's divert ourselves away from all this flaming and hatred towards a young teenager who was (un?)fortunate enough to be born with her particular status. As a parent, I would sympathise with anyone who has to defend his child and I do believe this has all been blown out of proportion.

I do not have any solution for this problem, nor do I think the solution is a straight-forward one. But it would be great if an official statement can at least acknowledge this problem so that we can all start looking for a solution. And hopefully, before I reach 40.