Category Archives: Singapore

Renewal of Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW) Work Permit

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Warning, long and possibly irrelevant post ahead!!

This post is going to be of no relevance to anyone except for someone from Singapore and who employs a foreign domestic worker. I am writing this one so that it serves as a guide for me for the future and if, in the process, it helps anyone else, it’s even better!

Backstory

In November, I got a letter from the Ministry of Manpower letting me know that her two year contract with me was coming to an end around the end of the year. I had to renew her contract or send her back home. Both my V and me were keen to renew the contract, but I did not want to involve the agent who had initially placed her with me as I was not happy with the after sales service that was given to me when V and me had differences over the last two years. Ironically at this same time the agent did get in touch with me to check if I was going to renew the contract. Then she went behind my back and spoke to V directly asking her to renew the contract using her services. When V checked with me, I was ambivalent about it but let V know that if she did use the agent, she will have to bear any extra costs herself as I was not interested in paying her any commission. Later V also realized that using the agent would probably mean that she may have to hand over one or more months salary as commission. So we decided to do it on our own.

I checked an online forum I visit and found out the process. It’s fairly simple actually.

Insurance

You need to get the insurance and bond first before you do anything else. I used NTUC Income, package MI3E which cost me S$ 256.80 for a 26 months insurance. The insurance cannot be done online, so give them a call with the MOM letter in hand. They take your credit card number and process the payment immediately. You can then do the renewal the next day at the MOM website.

Actual Renewal Process

At the MOM website, the renewal process is very simple. Using your SingPass, you log in and do the renewal. A form letter is generated which you have to print to bring with you to the Work Pass Services Office to process the new work permit. This letter will give you the date when you need to be there. Along with the form letter, you also need to print out and fill up a kind of guarantee letter, which basically tells MOM that you, as the employer are guaranteeing the cost of the stay of the FDW.

Work Pass Services Centre

On the date mentioned in your form letter, make your way to the Work Pass Service Centre at Tajong Pagar. This was very close to my office and so took me less than 10 minutes to reach by taxi. The WPSC is located very close to the Keppel Shipyard. There, make your way to the room indicated in the letter and take a queue number. When I went there, it was very quiet, maybe because it was around 3 on a Friday afternoon, but the queue number that I got was called within five minutes. They check the FDW’s passport, old work permit, documents and your identity card. Then you can asked to take the form and go to another room where you can pick up the new work permit. There, the wait was around 10 minutes and I got the new work permit for my helper and that was it! I was in and out of the place in less than 20 minutes.

Wonder why I was so scared of the process. But this bodes well for any future renewals.

You know you are Singaporean when….

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I am not a local. S was born in Singapore and due to this fact; BB & GG also are locals. I am the only non-local. Sometimes it’s quite tiring straddling two countries, but the fact is that over the last decade plus, I consider Singapore to be home. I feel a huge relief when I land at Changi airport after a trip and understanding local lingo is a piece of cake for me. Contrast this to the first time I landed here, I desperately wanted to go back home to Mumbai!

I love Mumbai, but each time I go back, it’s changed a little bit more and a time will come, in the not too distant future, when I will be unable to recognize it at all.

So in recognition of the fact that I am half Singaporean, I came across this old entry from Talking Cock. Below are my favourites, so please click the link above to see the whole list. I also have taken some more from this list and some are my own!

You know you are a Singaporean when:

  1. When speaking to foreigners, you somehow feel a need to adopt an accent. (If you’re a DJ, this happens even when you’re not speaking to foreigners.)
  2. You won’t raise your voice to protest policies, but you’ll raise your fists to whack someone over Hello Kitty.
  3. You’re forever talking about businesses you want to set up but will probably never get around to starting.
  4. You’re never completely sure how many times you’ve sung the second verse of the National Anthem.
  5. You’ve sung the Majulah Singapura every single day since the day you’ve been in Primary 1, but you still don’t know the meanings of the lyrics.
  6. You move to where you want your child to go to school.
  7. You feel you can’t walk around naked in your own flat.
  8. You force your children to take Speech & Drama classes, but pray they won’t wind up in Arts later on.
  9. If you’re a guy, whenever you get together with your guy friends, you invariably trade army stories.
  10. If you’re a girl, whenever you get together with your girl friends, you invariably trade stories about how your stupid guy friends are forever trading army stories.
  11. You think the most important sporting event in Singapore this year was David Beckham switching from Manchester United to Real Madrid.
  12. It actually makes a difference to you being called an ‘NSMan’ rather than a ‘Reservist’.
  13. You’ve eaten more times at the Esplanade than you’ve actually seen shows there.
  14. You need campaigns to tell you how to be courteous, to flush toilets, have sex, etc.
  15. You feel the urge to add the suffix ‘-polis’ to everything, viz. Biopolis, Airtropolis, Fusionopolis, Entrepolis, etc.
  16. You’ll gladly spend $50,000 on a car, but will go to great lengths to save a few bucks on ERP charges or even a few cents on a parking coupon.
  17. If you’re pregnant, you have the strange ability to make people on the MRT fall asleep instantly.
  18. You copy down licence plate numbers of cars involved in accidents.
  19. No matter how old you are, you keep associating people with their secondary schools. (alternative: No matter how old you are, you secretly need to know what other people got for their PSLE, O levels and A levels.)
  20. You ‘chope’ a seat by placing a packet of tissues on the chair.
  21. You’re very forthright with your criticisms of the Gahmen, unless there’s a chance they might actually hear you.
  22. You think we’re living in a modern, sophisticated country even when our leaders still insist on wearing their school uniforms.
  23. You can never quite remember what “the core values” of Singaporeans are.
  24. You know all these acronyms and have no issues using them altogether in a sentence –NUS; NTU; ERP; SDU; PAP; MRT; LKY; GCT; PRC; TIBS; SBS; SMS; JB; JBJ; AMK; AYE; PIE; ECP; ISD; ISA; 5 C’s; CPF; CHIJMES; SPG; CWO.
  25. You think there’s nothing wrong with putting chili sauce on everything you eat.
  26. “Crossing the country” means taking the MRT tothe end of the line.
  27. You join queues without knowing or caring what the queue is for.
  28. You see nothing unusual about an organization of trade unions spending more time owning and operating supermarkets, parks, drugstores, amusement nightclubs, and financial services than planning the next strike.
  29. You get irritated if you don’t see a sign telling you how long your wait’s going to be for a bus, a train, or the expressway to take you where you want to go
  30. When you cross the border into Malaysia, you automatically and deeply fear for your life and your wallet. Especially your wallet!!
  31. You buy loads of chewing gum when you go overseas and try to smuggle it in.
So does this apply to me? Some of them does, but I’ll leave it to you to figure out which ones….

Shall I??

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On Tuesday evening after dinner, we went to visit my in-laws who live a 10-15 minute walk/5 minute drive. My Father In Law (FIL) has just been diagnosed with Lung Cancer and so we wanted to go meet him.

While coming back home, somehow, the topic of discussion went to the question of citizenship. S and the kids are all Singaporeans while I still retain my Indian passport. I really don’t know why I still have not taken the final step to get my red passport (A Singapore passport is red in colour, hence the line). BB & GG had a lot of questions as to why I did not change allegiances. Actually there is no great reason except for the fact when I could first do it, I was not ready mentally, maybe for sentimental reasons and so put it off. Now my re-entry permit expires in 2017 and so have time till then to swing either way. Actually, these days, I identify myself more Singaporean than Indian as the India I grew up in is not really in existence now. I just need to get a few things clarified the next time I go to Mumbai (legal stuff) and then I can take the final step towards renouncing my citizenship.

Like I told BB & GG, I am Singaporean in my heart – I stand up when Majulah Singapura is played (the Singapore national anthem) and recite the pledge with my right hand over my heart like the millions of Singaporeans and so it’s just formalities now.

In fact, here’s a short anecdote to illustrate this. Earlier this week, I was at an international school for an event. The chief guest was an Member of Parliament and while we were waiting, the school’s PA system asked the school to stand for the national anthem. I looked around and found everyone still sitting, so I got up and asked “Shouldn’t we stand” and then everyone stood up!

GG very categorically told me that I should become a Singaporean very soon just like her, BB and Daddy as we’re one family and everyone should be the same! So yeah, in the next two years, that’s a goal to reach!

One benefit of having a Singapore passport is leaving behind all the visa hassles I’ve had to undergo since coming here. Singapore citizens can travel visa free to many countries in the world, while Indians need a visa for practically every country. So this means impromptu trips will be more of a norm, rather than what we are doing now – which is planning and getting my visas everywhere we need to go!

Do you know what they are saying?

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Don’t you hate it when people around you, knowing that you do not know the language they are speaking in, continue to talk in that said language, thus excluding you from the conversation and leaving you to wonder what they were talking about and whether they were talking about you?

Singapore, where we live, is a multi-racial and multi-lingual society. In fact, although English is the most used and working language of the country, there are a total of four official languages – English, Chinese (or Mandarin to be exact), Malay and Tamil. But given that the Chinese make up the largest percentage of the population (about 80%), it is inevitable that you get to hear a whole lot of Chinese spoken in the island.

But what gets my goat is this – when almost every citizen below  the age of 50 has been educated completely in English, you still have people who go around talking in one language when there are people of other races around you, who you know can’t speak or understand the language! How rude and insensitive is this? This happens all over the country and the biggest culprits are the Chinese (since they are the majority population). But I find this happening with Indians (speaking the language of their specific community), Malays and others too.

My master plan for GG & BB to avoid this is to have them take Chinese in school. Given that they will be spending their lives in this country (or not), it’s always better for them to know the language. Even if they do not learn it thoroughly, they should still learn enough to be able to carry on a conversation and in a sneaky way know what others are talking about them! What do you think?

Have you ever been in a situation where people around you are talking in a language you know zilch about and you go nuts trying to figure out what they are saying?

P.S: This is my 99th post and so the post tomorrow is special ‘coz it’s my 100th post! Now wait for something special to be written!

Traffic Travails and the need for a set of wheels

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This post was supposed to be posted on Tuesday, but for some reason, I didn’t do it then. The traffic that day was was the worst I have seen in my 2.5 months of commute. In about 30 mins, the bus that I was on moved the distance which would not have taken 5-7 minutes to cover on a normal day! The best part, there is no reason for this heavy traffic. If there was a major accident somewhere on the route, it would seem understandable but this is ridiculous. Maybe there was an accident, but I didn’t see anything that seemed to indicate any accident on the way. I think something should be done and soon. The BKE which in normal traffic conditions take around 10 minutes and during the morning peak hours take around 15-20 minutes to cover took about 40 minutes to cover on Tuesday! Yesterday S dropped me to work since he had some work in his Head Office which is not very far from my office. It took us around 35 minutes to reach my office! It is times like this I really want to have a car. But the costs really deter me. Add to the cost of the car and the COE (Certificate of Entitlement) which is ‘Uniquely Singapore’, I also will have to pay roughly around S$3 in ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) every day. This in addition to the S$100 for carpark charges per month. I don’t think I earn that much to justify this spending. Now I am dreading the office moving to the other end of Singapore and my commute will be from one end of Singapore to the other end (the longer end as I keep reminding my colleagues).

On the work front, another of my colleagues has decided to quit. He told us in confidence yesterday that he feels the organisation is going nowhere and so he wants out before it is too late. I am really concerned about the turnover of staff in this organisation. I am not sure what to do. Maybe I should work on my CV this weekend and see if I get some interview calls in the next month or so. If I get something by early December, then it would be ideal. Since I am in my probation period right now, I need to give them only two weeks notice. So if I get a new position soon, then I quit in the first week of December and give notice before I go on my holiday and then come back and join the new company. Will this work for me? God, if you are up there, listening and reading this, please do something, willya?