Are You Settling In To Singapore Well? By Diane

On the eve of week three at Reader’s Digest Singapore….

I had hoped to write my impressions after the first week of work – good thing I didn’t!  Talk about having it slung at you fast.  NOTHING could have prepared me for the onslaught of my first week in the office.  Because the guy I replaced had been only physically there off and on for the last few months, I think they were saving up their we-need-a-manager ammunition for a warm body.  The word “orientation” was mentioned about six times the first day; I’ve come to understand that the very saying of the word WAS the only orientation I was going to get!  No one even showed me where the bathroom was.  It went kinda like this..

This section of our blog has been suppressed due to the potentially sensitive nature of the corporate information it contains.  It can be found following this link.  For the password, please email either Mike or Diane.  Watch for a new installment soon…red envelopes….chili crab…and the PRC!  

Yeah but where’s the bathroom?  And all those other 25 really useful things you need to know when you start working somewhere.  Yikes.  My head was spinning.  I had to keep laughing or I was going to cry.  The good news is that it all got MUCH better by week two.  Not having a secretary or an office or great Mac skills or any kind of orientation made the first week a lot rougher than it needed to be.  But I got through it and with a heady dose of optimism, I sorted myself out.   My team is great, I’ve taken all of them to lunch already so they could introduce me to the best local foods and I’ve had my first staff meeting to tell them I won’t be working till 7 every night and that I don’t understand Asian culture yet so if they have a problem they better tell me or suffer silently.  I suspect we’re going to have a lot of fun and that as the newness wears off, things will only get more interesting.   To keep this from approaching novel length, I will list a few of the more interesting things about my first two weeks:

*Commuting by bus is great.  They’re frequent, air-conditioned, cheap and boarding is almost insanely civilized.  Bus drivers actually wait for running people.  You do have to signal the approaching bus that you’re interested though.  I had my nose in my book and just assumed my bus would stop at the crowded bus stop but it zoomed by since no one else needed that bus but me! Taxis are affordable and abundant as well but the public transportation is the best I have experienced, world-wide. 

*Chinese New Year is a massive holiday here and red lanterns have started appearing everywhere.  It’s the Year of the Rat and there are Rat promotions everywhere.  Big plants with teeny-tiny oranges are for sale as are about 100 other CNY items.

*Maids are out washing and polishing cars every morning.  They use only buckets – no hoses available – and it looks hard work in this heat.  The executives seem to love their royal treatment.

*I’ve been bike riding in mornings, around 6:30 am and the park has large and small groups of mostly elderly people doing Tai Chi.  Looks like the official uniform is white pants and either blue, red or yellow shirts – maybe depending on your skill level?  They play Chinese music on boomboxes and they move like marionettes.  I’ve almost crashed my bike watching them. 

*A stranger at a Japanese food counter bought my lunch.  He talked to me a lot about his lazy kids, spending all his money, not taking care of the parents etc. He told me I should go to a Singapore hospital to get my “no kids problem” fixed.  They could do anything.   Then he paid for my lunch and left while I was eating it.  I remained, confused and amused.

*Speaking of food, it’s simply amazing.  And abundant and cheap.  I get cut up mango, papaya and pineapple slices every day for about $1.10, total.  Lunch costs about $4 and the variety is just too much to list here. 

*We’ve seen a lot of weird looking dogs here.  We’re guessing most breeds don’t mate well with Pomeranians and shiz tus.   And quite a few stray cats are missing most or all of their tails. Since this is shark-fin soup country, I’m keeping an eye out for the guy selling cat tail satay. 

*Michael’s pretty good at the house-husband stuff. He’s learning how many dishes we really use and how much laundry needs doing.  He’s actually done a great job setting up house, cooking, banking, shopping etc.  Not sure he loves it all but … at least he’s not unclogging one of 13 toilets!

Explore posts in the same categories: Reader's Digest, Singapore