Wandering Fel

 

Being a natural born introvert, I have no issue eating by myself. But I admit sometimes I can get a bit bothered about my surrounding when I eat alone. I suppose introverts can be sensitive at times. But during normal days, I try to allocate a lunch-time-me-time where I can enjoy eating with myself. But so far, how’s the experience of eating alone going in Singapore?

 

1. Location matters

 

If you are eating alone in fast food restaurants/ food court/ hawker centre setting, you will not stand out so much because hey, other people do the same. However, in the food court/ hawker centre, you’ll bound to share table with stranger but no fret, strangers in Singapore don’t really initiate conversation. Unless you are unlucky and ended up sharing table with I dunno, friendly Australian or chatty American, maybe? But chances, you will sit together with random Asian aunty/uncle/girl/guy who is also a solo diner in food court/ hawker and they usually don’t talk. 

 

However, if you choose, let’s say Chinese restaurant like Putien or Crystal Jade to eat alone, you are bound to stand out and probably invite a bit of attention from the other tables. But stare can’t kill so if you have a kick-ass don’t care attitude, you’re good to go anywhere. However, it’s hard to eat in peace in a restaurant which is catered for family dining. The portion can be too big for one as well. This is also applicable to Korean BBQ place. 

 

2. Timing matters

 

I find Sunday to be the worst day of the week to date myself. This is because there are limited places for people in Singapore to spend their weekend so every shopping malls/ cafes in town are bound to be crowded on Sunday. I figure the best mall for Sunday escapade is gotta be Millenia Walk. Orchard? Vivo City? Jurong? Tampines? Oh boy, let’s stay clear from this place on Sunday, shall we?

 

Contract job, ah, I’ve never really thought of one until the time suddenly comes when I sign up as contractor in one of the MNCs in Singapore. Since contract jobs are usually advertised by recruitment agency, I kinda had my doubt during the hiring stage simply because I have never go through any recruitment process via recruitment agency before. Plus, I heard that some recruitment agencies can be all talks and empty promises so it’s better to read your contract twice or even thrice to make sure it covers all your risks and benefits. 

 

To cut story short, I signed up for a 6 months contract job and currently halfway throughout my contract. Although I don’t think doing contract jobs for 3 months qualify me to share my experience but I figure I’ll just share it anyway. Do bear in mind that everyone’s experience may differ from one to another depending on the nature of the job, the culture of the workplace and of course, the people you are working with. So these are a few “discoveries” that I found out during my three months at my contract job:

 

1. It has start and end date 

 

The end date kinda makes me feel that I should enjoy my working life day by day because you know it may end/ ends. I guess this is the feeling of someone who has been declared only have a few months of living by the doctor. Oh gosh, live your life like it’s your last day, people. Dark analogy aside, contract jobs generally last from 6 months to one year because the need of contractor usually arises due to a permanent staff going for long leave (such as maternity/ recovering from critical illness) or a one-off project which require more manpower. So yeah, although it’s not wrong to have hope and expectation, but I feel that I should always bear in mind that this contract may end...

 

 2. But that doesn’t mean you can just slack

 

...because words travel. Even though you probably only work at that company for a brief moment, your work ethic and the way you treat your colleague will linger with them for a while (especially if you are extremely good/ lousy). If the nature of your contract job is kinda niche, you may even be more careful in how you behave because well (1) Singapore is small and (2) people bound to know each other even without being in the same industry. Sometimes I wonder if I need to exile myself for a few years to start afresh in Singapore but then again, I don’t think I have criminal record or something which require me to go “into-the-wild”. Plus going into the wild costs $$$, and hence the need to work and voila, we are back to square 1. Ok, just behave. Really. 

 

3. Don’t over-behave though

 

The need to impress is definitely there especially when conversion/ extension is at stake but eventually, your skill is not the only factor the company will consider  upon converting/ extending. The utmost important holy grail of their decision is definitely pointing all the way to the dreadful word of “BUDGET”. Maybe I should start praying for the company to make a lot of money and allocate additional headcount to hire me. Amen. 

 

4. You are technically not the company’s staff

 

Although this may differ from case to case, but generally a contractor is contracted by the recruitment agency and then “seconded” to the company. So don’t be surprised if your annual leave is only 6 days for 6 months contract and 12 days for 1 year contract. And you won’t be entitled to staff benefit from that company as well. So yeah, prepare your heart not to be jealous, ok. 

 

5. People tend to be nice/ ignorant of you

 

The good news about being a contractor is at least you won’t get involved in some kind of Game-of-Thrones political story. After all, you have no power to be in some use/ threat to the permanent staff. In my previous workplace, there’s a permanent staff who is way way way less capable than the contract staff and guess what, the useless dude still there. So I suppose your colleagues would be more willing to teach you stuff (in which they need your help). However, some people may not want to teach you so much because after all you may not stay for good, so ignorance is bound to exist as well. 

 

6. Don’t forget to fill and submit your timesheet

 

Ah timesheet. Yes, you won’t be able to escape this additional admin task. But thankfully, mine’s only need to be completed on a monthly basis. And my salary does not really depend on whether my timesheet is approved or not. However, some contractors are only paid when their timesheets are approved by their boss. So I think it’s very important to check how the salary arrangement is with the recruitment agency. 

 Aigoo we are back to the dreadful Monday but I suppose today is not so bad. It’s just world cup has just ended the night before and it is kinda empty not to have a football match to watch after work. But human must be adaptable to life and when one entertainment is gone, one must find another source of entertainment. Since I had nothing else planned tonight, I went to Don Don Donki at 100AM after work to check what kind of food I could buy for takeaway. 

 

I was only looking at the small food items because my calorie counter app seemed to suggest that I only have 200 kcal left for today. Oh my gawd, what am I supposed to eat? Air? But anyway, I have a lot of determination to lose weight so I’m just gonna stick with onigiri. To my amazement, Don Don Donki have a quite interesting selection of onigiri and the price tag for these onigiris are somewhat friendly. Mostly are below 3SGD (which is the normal price for onigiri sold at Samurice). 

 

I have never seen takomeshi onigiri before so I quickly got my hand on one of this octopus rice ball. I suppose it will be something like the filling of takoyaki but it’s inside rice ball? Well, basically that’s how it looks like although interestingly the rice used for takomeshi is brown, not the usual white rice. I wonder how did they season the rice. Maybe with tea? Hahaha. Anyway, it tastes pretty good and I could find few bits of octopus meat inside the rice ball. 

 

Being easily lured by fried stuff, I nearly bought fried chicken to be honest with you. But I put myself under restraining order and opted for potato salad instead. The portion of the potato salad is not big but it costs SGD 1.90 so I guess I could not really complain. Obviously while my ideal plan of dinner consists of these two items only, I ended up entering starvation mode and devoured some guavas, grapes and nearly a bag of potato chips. What? Please don’t tell me they are not real potatoes. Lalala~