Letter from Farah Abdul Rahim Director, Corporate
Communications, Ministry Of Manpower

We thank Mr Melvin Toh and Ms Devi Maradan for their letters, “Are Interns being taken advantage of?” (May 26) and “Employers shouldn’t exploit ‘cheap’ labour”, (May 27).

The Employment Act covers every employee who is engaged under a contract of service. This includes interns. An employer should accord statutory benefits prescribed under the law to an intern if he is performing work and has work arrangements similar to that of a regular employee in the organisation.

Under the Employment Act, an employee should not be required to work for more than eight hours in one day or more than 44 hours in a week. However, he may be required to work overtime if he consents to do so, subject to the limit of 12 hours per day and totalling 72 hours per month.

Under the Act, the employer must pay the employee for the extra hours of work or for working on his rest days or public holidays. The rate for overtime work should be no less than one-and-a-half times his hourly basic rate of pay.

An employer must grant the employee one rest day (which is not paid) in a week, which may be on a Sunday, or any other day.

Prospective employers through education institutions should inform students clearly of their working arrangements such as their job scope, working hours, remuneration and benefits.

Interns who encounter employment issues should approach their employers or their education institutions for clarification to avoid misunderstanding.

Alternatively, they may approach the Ministry of Manpower for advice and assistance. More information on employment provisions in the law can be found at www.mom.gov.sg.

Source: TODAYonline

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This post goes out to all my working buddies out there (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE). If you OT too much, know your rights. Well, if you want a life and you’re not afraid of breaking your rice bowl, you can stand up for yourself :D

Job: Quantity Surveyor (I think it's something related to building/architecture)

Requirements:

• Preferably Malay Male
• Will be working on mosques

Fresh graduates are welcomed. If you are the least bit interested in this opening, do not hesitate to contact me using the contact form! 

KhazamPC out! 

JI Leader: Sergeant! Saya cannot tahan ah…my kencing want to come out already…I not lying. I telling truth. Sumpah!

Sergeant: Oei kaobei lah…I playing PSP…You cannot see ah. Because of you, my Man U now trailing by one goal against Arsenal.

JI Leader: But I really tak boleh tahan!!! Cepat lah sergeant. Later I got gall stone, I call my lawyer…WILL YOU ANSWER FOR IT? And pay my medical bills? I don't have Medisave tau!

Arsenal scores another goal…

Sergeant: DAMN IT. CCB. That's it man, okay you mangkok. You want to go toilet right? Go. But make sure you behave yourself!

JI Leader: *Aaaah! This is my chance to getawaay. I've been planning this for months!* 

JI Leader enters the toilet alone…no one to watch him. He rips the toilet bowl apart, exposing a secret route…and duh, you know the rest of the story…

Dry jokes aside…My god, how does one escape from an ISD lockup? ISD LEH. It's a freaking high security lockup for high-profile criminals ley. This news alone is shocking and embarassing! To add to that, he escaped in BROAD daylight. Goodness.

And I heard he managed his getaway with a limped leg? This guy's fucking awesome man. I'm telling you there's no way this can be accomplished if not for an inside job. There is another possible way actually, probably he JUMPED himself through a portal!

Or did he flush himself down the toilet bowl?

Or maybe he knows some spiritual/mystical stuffs. Hurhur…

Or maybe he's a mutant X and can walk through walls.  

Cmon Singapore! He looks like he's got a few tricks up his sleeve. Don't underestimate him. 

Pictures courtesy of Channel NewsAsia

It was reported that a Sony PlayStation Portable had caught fire while in the pocket of a middle-school student in Michigan.

Apparently, the battery overheated and exploded, thereby causing a lithium fire! 

Oh my god, I hope this won't happen to me, cos I am using a 3rd party 2400mAH Li-ion battery!!! It really scares me, because I usually carry my laptop, PSP, notes/books with me when I'm in school (DON'T ROB ME PLEASE). I certainly wouldn't want to lose them all, including my Crumpler bag! 

A burnt PSP shell shows the damage from the
exploding battery.  (Source: ClickOnDetroit.com)

The fire burned a hole in the student's pants and caused minor burns to his leg. It is unknown if the PSP was switched on during the explosion.

To all PSP owners who got their sets the past Christmas, and to those who intend to get theirs with their 'Angpao' collection, better get your parents' permission first. I bet they'll be abit reluctant to authorise your purchase if they hear of this news! :D

But I think there's no reason to panic. Maybe the chances are very slim (PSP Slim mah…so got slimmer chances). And if it does happen, claim from Sony? Oh my…I really hope this won't happen to me! *cross fingers*

Source: Dailytech.com

See those brown lines? Yes those are non-slip rubber (like DUH!) strips. The best solution (IMO) to salvage the situation and not put to waste those structures.

Why I think these benches are problematic? 

The bench's too tall man, and for short people, it's super troublesome for them to get on it. Even I have trouble sitting on it! 

And that SLIPPERY surface, blardy hell. Is it lubricated?! I think when they tested out the design, the human subject wasn't wearing anything on. 

Bad Testing == Bad Product 

Kids should not even be on that thing. It's slipperingly (YES!) dangerous. Oh and old people, if say you need cash, just sit on that thing, fall down, break a bone or something. Then make your insurance claim or proceed with your lawsuit or whatever.

Okay so it's slippery and you can't do anything about it. But if the bench wasn't THAT high, we could've utilised FRICTION on our shoe soles to PREVENT ourselves from slipping. 

Anyways, come on LTA. Those rubber strips won't cost much, considering the recent hike in transport fares.  

I went online to view the article, but apparently the sound clip is missing. So I've uploaded it for you to hear it.

Advisory: 

The clip is composed of two topics. The one we're featured in starts at the point 0:03:40. If you really want to criticize my bad Malay, by all means look forward to 0:08:35. That's where I started babbling my nonsense. It was very very short lah, I guess I had nothing much to say with my poor language.

Hear it NOW!

I got featured on the radio with 2 of my friends. It's a talk regarding the current state of Broadband technology and the various offers available to consumers in the market like Starhub's Maxonline or Singnet's Mio and how different people make their choices in selecting such services.

The online source can be found here. The clip is composed of two topic. The one we're featured in starts at the point 0:03:40. If you really want to criticize my bad Malay, by all means look forward to 0:08:35. That's where I started babbling my nonsense. It was very very short lah, I guess I had nothing much to say with my poor language.

I don't know if the audio streaming works, because when I tried it out, it didn't. Anyways, here's how you can listen to it on the radio:

Warna @ 7.53am & 9.40pm on Monday, 14th Jan 2008.

Ria 89.7FM @ 2.30pm on Tuesday and Thursday (15th and 17th Jan 2008 respectively)

If you miss it, don't worry. I'll post the audio clip here once it has been aired the first time. It's also airing on Radio Singapore International (RSI) which means neighbouring countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand will get to hear my bad Malay. 

What a way to gain exposure. Bleahs.