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those are 2nd class while we are 4th class.   special class (hidden) are the true eilte which is the 1%

SINGAPORE: When Tsuri Xie first began posting videos of her car-wrapping work on TikTok, she met with a stream of comments from drivers insisting that they would “never let a girl touch (their) car”. It is a familiar refrain in an industry that has long had a masculine image. Yet, this is where the 36-year-old is determined to stake her claim as a vinyl car wrapper. “How I manage a muscle ache (is to) just grind and work through it,” she said. “If we accidentally poke ourselves with the penknife or scald ourselves with the heat gun, it’s just another day. … Spray some alcohol on it and then just get back to work.”     This service is not intended for persons residing in the E.U. By clicking subscribe, I agree to receive news updates and promotional material from Mediacorp and Mediacorp’s partners. What was once the cause of scepticism has now become part of her appeal.     “After realising that she’s one of the only female wrappers … in Singapore, (I was) attracted (to that),” said a female client who had done some research on TikTok and Instagram to find out companies that did car-wrapping. “She’s very cool.” The craft itself is highly technical. Every car, Xie learnt, demands a different approach, such as “which way to stretch the material”, and precision. None of this was what she expected to end up doing after graduating with a degree in design communication. She spent four years in marketing, running campaigns and social accounts — a job she took out of convenience rather than passion. But corporate life soon wore her down. “When it comes to climbing the corporate ladder, there are a lot of factors that I can’t control, … (like) office politics,” she cited. “I started to (ask myself) why, every morning, I had to commute to work (and do) something that I didn’t want to do.”     Xie installing a vinyl sheet on a Ferrari sports car. (File photo: CNA TODAY/Nuria Ling) So she quit. Her decision to abandon a stable career path had even her entrepreneur husband worried about the loss of steady income and what would happen if his ventures faltered. One of those eventual ventures, however, was the business Xie also joined: Vos Automotive Styling. “Compared to a corporate job, I like (almost) everything about this job. It can be very tiring, but it’s a lot more fulfilling,” she beamed. On not doing a job related to her degree, she said: “It’s a very expensive piece of paper … (but) I wouldn’t say it’s useless.” She is among those degree holders who have stepped away from trajectories their qualifications often dictate. From business graduates who now fillet fish or wield barber tools to graduates in health science and linguistics who have embraced new professions, they are discovering that the road less travelled can sometimes lead to where they need to be.   WATCH: This female vinyl car wrapper quit corporate marketing to “stick stickers on cars” (9:49)       The programme, On The Red Dot — in its series Graduated, Now What? — explores how they have arrived at where they are today and how they grapple with the question of whether their education has been wasted. WHEN THE JOB HUNT GOES NOWHERE In contrast to Xie, Dave Peter Ho took an unlikely career path not because he was exiting the corporate sector but because he was unable to break into it. He spent nine months through his final semester at Nanyang Technological University — where he specialised in business analytics — sending out applications and hoping to “find a corporate job” with a stable income. The 27-year-old applied for more than 100 roles — in graduate programmes, corporate sales, procurement, business development, account management — and made it deep into interview rounds but never across the finish line.     Dave Peter Ho felt “ghosted” when his job interviews came to naught. Desperation pushed him to explore TikTok’s free training programme for aspiring livestreamers, a suggestion from his mother. His first stream earned him S$200 (US$155) in two hours; within two months, he was fully committed to livestreaming. “The decision to stop applying for full-time jobs stemmed from me wanting to try (livestreaming) out 110 per cent, even though I knew that there was a chance that it wouldn’t work out,” he said. He now streams nearly 70 times a month, working towards the income level of the most prestigious corporate jobs he had targeted. Achieving it, however, would mean seven-day weeks, up to four streams a day and “working like a dog”. His efforts have not gone unnoticed. TikTok’s Creator Partnership team considers him one of its more prominent live hosts and uses him as a benchmark for new streamers. WATCH: Unemployed graduate to top TikTok livestreamer — I was rejected from 100-plus jobs (11:42)       It is a similar story of redirection for Nicholas Fheng, who faced “rejection after rejection” when applying for 20 to 30 jobs following a break from his sales and business development role at a technology firm. He took it as a sign to pursue barbering — a side hustle he had started while studying business at the Singapore Management University (SMU) — as a career. His barber shop, Nbrhood, is a home business, with working days that stretch from 8am to 10.45pm. “At the end of the day, (I’m) very, very spent,” he said. “My legs are aching. My back is aching.” The 30-year-old did not, however, grow up wanting to be a barber. “I was always sold the idea that a successful career would mean being a doctor, a lawyer or even an architect,” he said. “And coming from a university like SMU, most of my peers would naturally follow such professions.”     Nicholas Fheng in his home barber shop, which is open seven days a week. Still, his earnings mirror his previous corporate salary, averaging about S$5,000 a month, though they can fluctuate between S$3,000 in a quiet month and up to S$6,000, for example during the Chinese New Year period. His mother, Magdeline Chin, who paid for his university education, often finds herself fielding comments about the “return on investment”. “There are lot of sacrifices on his part in terms of how people view him,” she said.    Because I think a lot of people at his age … could’ve already gone up — very high up — on the corporate ladder.” Fheng, too, has niggling doubts. He has browsed LinkedIn “a few times”, contemplating a return to a white-collar job. “Sometimes in the short term, it’s tough. But in the long term, I believe that one day it’ll pay off,” he said. “Sometimes there’s a value in just persevering.” WATCH: Business student to home barber — My DIY barber shop journey (10:33)     WHEN WORK STOPS FEELING MEANINGFUL The feeling of doubt is something Rae Zhang, 34, understood well when her work and her interests were no longer aligned. A nutrition and dietetics graduate and scholarship holder, she started to see the hollowness of her role in setting up nutrition services in the community when she rarely knew if her advice made any difference once patients returned home. Shortly after quitting her hospital job, she began tidying her room. “The whole space felt completely transformed. And I felt so much better. Then I thought, could this be turned into a job?” she recalled. She went on to co-found Orderly, a professional organising service for homes and workspaces, and later appeared on Channel 8’s home-transformation programme, House Everything?     Orderly’s co-founders, Rae Zhang (right, photo on the left) and Vanessa Yip (left, photo on the left), in action. (File photos: Orderly)   Her job may look serene during the final reveal of each decluttered space, but the work behind it is anything but. The strain has caught up with her more than once, leaving her with a back sprain, knotted muscles and even a bout of hives once. Yet the exhaustion is matched by fulfilment. “Whenever I receive positive feedback, … I feel I’ve helped the client improve their lives in one way or another. There’s also a very clear physical transformation that everybody can witness,” she said. “This is why I love my job.” Her parents were initially concerned about her family’s finances, especially as Zhang has two young children to support. But the career change has given her the flexibility to balance work with motherhood. Her parents have since come round to it. “I don’t think her degree in dietetics will go to waste,” her mother said. Her father added: “If it doesn’t work out, (she) can always return to healthcare”. WATCH: First-class honours to home organiser — Why I left my stable corporate job (12:28)     WHEN FAMILY NEEDS YOU Other degree holders may find themselves pulled from the careers they once imagined, drawn instead into their family businesses — whether out of duty or by circumstance. For Cordillia Tan, who was once convinced she would be a “corporate girly” for life, the switch was deliberate. She left her job at a blockchain accelerator to rescue Pitstop Tyres, the workshop her father had built over 12 years. What she walked into was grimmer than she expected. The business was in a “very bad financial situation”, weighed down by almost half a million dollars of debt. “Never in my wildest dreams (did) I think you could owe somebody so much money,” she said. To save the business, she emptied her savings account and took out personal and credit card loans just to pay for tyres. Only after turning to TikTok — the only marketing she could afford — did the business begin to revive.     Cordillia Tan removing a tyre from a car. Revenue grew, debts slowly shrank and her father eventually retired, leaving her to run the operations. Today, she manages the workshop like “an octopus”, switching from tyre mechanic to customer service to inventory checker, depending on the day’s demands. It is a departure from the norm for an English Language graduate. Some customers are stunned to learn that she is an NUS graduate — she was on the dean’s list too — and even question why she “wasted” her parents’ money. She understands the sentiment when a mechanic’s starting salary in Singapore is “only a thousand-plus (dollars)”. She said: “Can you tell any uni grad to … take S$1,000-plus (in salary)? There’s no way.” Still, she has no regrets. Besides, returning to corporate life is neither practical nor desirable when she has borrowed tens of thousands of dollars in her name. “I don’t think I have a choice but to move forward,” she said. WATCH: NUS graduate to tyre mechanic — “You wasted your parents’ money!” (11:48)     Fishmonger Baron Ang also knows the weight of public perception. The tourism management graduate has received comments about why a degree holder would end up in what some people describe as a “dirty job”. The 34-year-old had stints in the government sector and then as a regional manager in the Philippines. But when the pandemic struck, his overseas job in food and beverage vanished as the business was being sold. He returned home just as his father’s stall at Chong Pang Wet Market needed workers. What he thought would be a temporary stint stretched into years along with the pandemic. Slowly the work pulled him in, and his interest in the trade grew. He took pride in handling seafood and enjoyed engaging with long-time customers even as the work demanded 14- to 15-hour days, with unpredictable income. WATCH: Millennial fishmonger speaks many languages, has a tourism management degree (10:51)     The stall, Panjang Ikan, has been in the family for three generations, starting with his grandfather and spanning more than two decades. Whenever Ang considers switching jobs, there will be loyal customers who remind him of the responsibility he carries — as some of them insist on buying seafood only from him. “If I’m able to build … this business (into) a brand,” he said, “that’ll be an even … better thing that I’d look forward to.”     https://www.channelnewsasia.com/cna-insider/degrees-wasted-graduates-career-success-fishmonger-livestreamer-tyre-mechanic-5623321

While out on bail, he stole a bottle of whisky from a convenience store.   Quztaza’s actions caused more than $2,700 in damages to the bus, and he has made no restitution.         SG steady, bring in this type of new citizen 

SINGAPORE - Unhappy with a male bus passenger who had flashed him an obscene hand gesture, a man flung a glass bottle at the vehicle from the side of a road.   The bottle broke a window of the double-decker bus and struck the passenger’s 57-year-old wife, causing the woman to sustain facial wounds that had to be stitched up. Three days after the incident in July, Quztaza Kamarudin, 38, was arrested after he was identified as the man who had thrown the bottle.   While out on bail, he stole a bottle of whisky from a convenience store. On Dec 16, the Singaporean pleaded guilty to one count each of causing hurt to the woman by performing a rash act, committing mischief and theft. Court documents stated that the incident involving the broken bus window took place on July 5.   Quztaza boarded bus service 190 in Bukit Panjang at around 5.30pm that day and sat on the upper deck of the vehicle.   He then drank soju from a bottle before the vehicle reached a bus stop near The Heeren shopping mall in Orchard Road at around 6.40pm. He was about to walk down from the upper deck of the vehicle when Mr Lim Phang Kai, 60, and his wife blocked his way.   Deputy Public Prosecutor Intan Suhaily Abu Bakar told the court that Quztaza and Mr Lim had a verbal altercation and both men hurled vulgarities at each other. Quztaza then alighted from the vehicle while the couple took seats on the upper deck of the bus, with Mr Lim’s wife seated next to a window. When the bus stopped at a nearby traffic light, Quztaza walked past the vehicle and kept a lookout for Mr Lim. He then saw the older man making an obscene hand gesture at him, the DPP said. “Angered by Mr Lim’s actions, the accused threw the soju bottle towards the window where Mr Lim was seated. (It) broke through the window… and hit the victim on the left side of her cheek.” Mr Lim alerted the police and his wife was taken to hospital, where her wounds were sutured. She was later discharged and given five days of medical leave. The DPP said that Quztaza’s actions caused more than $2,700 in damages to the bus, and he has made no restitution. He was charged in court on July 9, and stole the bottle of whisky while he was out on bail.     At around 1.30am on July 26, he went to a convenience store near Boat Quay to buy some food. While there, he spotted a bottle of whisky worth $78 on a shelf. DPP Intan said: “The accused felt stressed and wanted to drink alcohol to relieve his stress. “As it was past the legal time allowed to (buy alcohol)... the accused formed the intention to steal the (bottle).” He then slipped the bottle into his pocket and walked out of the store without paying for it. A manager at the store later checked CCTV footage after noticing that the bottle of liquor was missing. He saw Quztaza walking towards the liquor shelf in the clip and suspected that the offender had stolen it. Quztaza was later spotted nearby with the unopened bottle of whisky. Police were called to the scene and officers arrested him soon after. Quztaza will be sentenced on Dec 24.

Elite's 71yr old Mom shop outside SG de ..