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#86 (**permalink**) 04-05-2013, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Yea, spot on.

When I was leaving, i had to take a pay less than a fresh grad. I was lucky back then that i didn't have a family, or else leaving will be hard. Even though i left, i felt so lost in corporate world. Zero connections, a few friends from university is all i have if you think of them as connections.
Somemore the mindset is different. I finally learnt that leaving work at 5 is an ultimate luxury instead of given privilege. It takes me time to catch up on peers who have been in industry since graduation, but i am always 5 years behind them. Or maybe, the gap is widening, since i'm older now and can't fight with those eager-eyed fresh grads.

"not many places in pte sector that can pay them so high and demand so little output from them. ". Truth is, there is not a single sector that can pay high and demand SAF standard of work.

Moral of the story, think of SAF as a lifelong career before stepping in.

If you're thinking of getting some money in five years and then leaving to find a job, thinking that 'it's just a 50% pay cut, i will save money, it's alright', you are so damn wrong. You lost on the five years of experience, five years of connections. You are always five years behind your peers, and you will get mad seeing people five years younger than you climbing on top of you even though you started at the same position. And that SAF mindset is bound to set you back another one year of progression at least, no matter how fast you learn.
And furthermore, AFE may not be certified to fix civillian planes, if you are thinking of using afe as a shortcut to achieve your childhood dreams of being an aircraft engineer, don't.

Now on finance, I'm glad most people here have been working outside for a while and may not be victim to this.
However, most of the regular enter the force at 19 - 21. We are ignorant. When we go university, we do not worry about money at all. Our mindset is, "payday is in ____ days". We calculate loans to military precision, utilizing every single cent to get a better car. We go to pubs every day, knowing that the next day in camp will be slack like hell and we can probably sleep in some vacant room in camp. Temptation is too strong. You will become the SAF lifestyle that now you are telling yourself you wouldn't.
There's a saying "you are the average of five people you hang out with"
Honestly, I've only seen one really cash rich regular in my service and everyone else is heavily in debt. It's hard to get rich even though you receive a lot.

Haha I see you are a former regular yourself as well

Back in my days there was no ME concept yet, I was S4 in guards. Made the decision to leave army after 6 years inside, roughly went through the same challenges as you when I first came out.

For me luckier because one of my close uni friend was a high flier in an industrial engineering MNC and was able to secure a Project Assistant Manager job for me, still the transition was tougher than any army training (mentally, not physically).

The pay was seriously very good considering the qualifications and the kind of work we were required to do. By right most of the regulars should be able to retire like a king before 50 since pay is high, expenses very low as army covers a lot of them like meals, medical, insurance, and so many extra perks for the family as well.

But I also notice many seem to be spending beyond their means. Officers were wasting big bucks on nonsense like condos, cars, golf and clubbing. My CO owned 2 cars, one a Toyota which he drive to work and another BM convertible for private use. How I know? Because when I follow him to golf trips to Malaysia he always drive the BM. Speaking of golf, he buys the best equipment he can find, splurge like nobody business in the club and KTV session after that. So did my fellow officer who accompany him.

The men are even worse. Many are into zhengning cars, dead drunk at wee mornings, buying all sorts of consumer staff using CC and literally run out of money by the 5 - 7 every month. I will always remember this incident when after exercise one group of us officer & men R&R at Bangkok. The kind of money they just burn in 3 days on drinking, gogo bars, massage and of course the WGs was really power.