Aussies in Asia

I am sorry to everyone for the lack of updates, but as you may have guessed nothing has happened with my potential jobs. Unfortunately right as we were getting to the finer details of these roles the global market took a nosedive which has put a lot of banks in to caution mode on new hires. It is hard for UBS to hire right now when they have just announced redundancies of 3,500 people, right?

All is not lost however. UBS want to hold off for a couple of months and see where the market heads before we have another conversation. They still have a massive need for my experience so we just need to wait for the turmoil to settle. We will see.

Standard Chartered are still keeping in touch however the role with them depends on projects being approved for next year. This is my preference so hopefully it gets sorted soon and I am on my way to Singapore. In the meantime, I am continuing to read all of your blogs and tweets and will update when I can.

It is hard to continually update my blog right now due the lack of things to discuss. We have hit a place in time where everything stands still and we are living in a state of limbo. I have been discussing two positions with different organisations, have had interviews that went well, but both are up in the air right now and I will not likely hear back on either for a few weeks. I am still reading up on as much as I can, we are hitting our books yet I have run out of questions to ask. Reading the blogs of a lot of people keeps me highly motivated and my resolve to get over to Asia is as strong as it ever has been, but things are now out of my hands and lie squarely in the clutches of the worlds most inefficient beast – the corporate HR department.

It is draining as we continue to avoid committing to long-term plans here in Melbourne, but there are things fast approaching that are going to need us to make decisions that will have longer term impacts. We need to start considering a secondary school for my oldest son who is 10 this year. We need to think about work for my wife who is starting to get restless at home now that our youngest has started school and we need to think about setting ourselves up if we stay.

The waiting is the worst… next updates on the job front are note likely to be before mid August so I just have to learn patience the hard way.

Oh… to make things more interesting I received a call today from a headhunter asking me to consider an advisory role for top-tier consulting firm in London. Going to speak to her again this evening to get some more info however it would have to be a pretty amazing offer for me to consider London. I need warmth!!!

And lastly, my boys somehow convinced me to get them one of these for their birthdays in September/October. If I have to go through with it then a lot will change if we do ever secure a role overseas.

I’m not sure how it got to this, but it is a feeling I imagine most expats have potentially experienced prior to leaving their home country. It is that sudden realisation that nobody other than you really cares that you want to move to another country. Early on it was exciting and most people showed interest, the majority was usually negative and “are you crazy?” type conversations but people cared. 12 months on and when I mention that I went for an interview, people go glassy-eyed and you get the standard “ok” type response before they change subject.

My wife and I still talk about moving to Asia constantly and share things we learn along the way, it has remained a popular topic of conversation for a long time now. Yesterday I was talking to my Dad and he completely dismissed comments about the interview as if I was telling him the weather. A discussion that could ultimately mean his grandchildren are moving a long way away and yet his disinterest was amazing. I know this is a journey for my own little family and that we are potentially leaving everyone else behind, but it saddened me to think that before we have even left this is just background noise to most people.

Time to head back in to my personal little space where it is all exciting again, read more of my books and talk to my wife about it.

Following an invaluable piece of advice I received from Kelly, I went out and purchased the book “Singapore Explorer: the Complete Resident’s Guide“. Whilst I haven’t had a chance to dive in to it yet, my wife has spent the last few days combing through it and it already looks well-loved with a million little note tags sticking out of it. For anyone considering living in Singapore this book is gold. It has information on almost anything you need to know about life in Singapore; from immigration issues to detailed explanations of the different regions, information on schooling, housing, holidays and everything else you could imagine.

This may very well become our bible over the coming months, thank you Kelly!

Whilst ordering this I also grabbed the book “Expat Women: Confessions” for my wife. It has loads of useful tips and real examples of things you need to deal with as an “expat wife”. Hopefully this will help deal with some of the culture shock issues that are likely to occur, I will give more feedback once one of us reads it.

How the wheels turn slowly in large organisations. I have been in constant communication with UBS and it sounds like the role is almost mine, however there has been a delay in the hiring manager getting final approval to fill the position. This is extremely frustrating as I am ready to just up and leave and living in limbo is horrible. I am due to speak with them again in three weeks to see if this has been progressed. THREE WEEKS! My wife has already given up on this role but I am an optimist, time will tell if I am right.

On another front and back to where this saga all began, I have an interview this evening with a senior manager at Standard Chartered in Singapore. I am not sure that there is a role specifically available right now but he has seen my CV and wants to see where he can potentially fit me in. I’ll let everyone know how it goes tonight!

Kate over at WTF Mate posted one of the most insightful posts I have come across covering the challenges of renting an apartment in Singapore. I have bookmarked this for when we finally find ourselves in this position and can assure you I will be looking to get the contact details for Grace myself.

http://katemate.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/finding-an-apartment-in-singapore/

Check it out, this one is worth reading!

I have fiddled with this WP theme enough to know I don’t think I can live with it, and it scares me to think I might have to just bite the bullet and get one designed from scratch. How did you all find the right theme for your blog, and then stop fiddling with it? It is getting very frustrating…

One of the things you get when living in suburban Australia is space. We live in a relatively new suburb on the fringe of metropolitan Melbourne and the blocks of land here are extremely large. We have been renting a house here for the last 5 years and it is over 3200 sq ft in space and on a 700m² block of land. This is huge! I love having a big house but I certainly won’t miss this when we move to Asia where apartments are extremely smaller than this.

The biggest problem I find in living in a place with so much space is the amount of maintenance required to keep it looking good. I am not an outdoors gardening type, and I begrudge every moment of my time required to keep the outside of this place looking as neat as possible. We have been through a terrible drought in the past decade and it caused all of the lawns and gardens in our area to die off. Only in the last couple of years have we had rain regular enough to maintain plant life however due to the damage that was already done about the only thing thriving in this environment is weeds. I have more space than you can imagine, both in the front and back yards of my house, that have this horrible grass-like weed growing everywhere. All it takes is a few weeks worth of rain and some sunshine and it grows out of control.

We have asked our landlords to do something about it but they don’t really care all that much, I can’t really blame them as it has no bearing whatsoever on their rent price in the area. I have contemplated paying to fix it myself but we were looking at thousands of dollars and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, for another persons house. So every couple of weeks I get out there with my lawnmower and whipper-snipper and spend the majority of my Saturday trying to get rid of this mess. It is a job I despise and unfortunately due to a combination of weather and weekend commitments, I have not done it in a couple of months. Here is the result, this is my backyard and what I need to deal with this afternoon! Please note that the bricks under the window you can see are about a foot off the ground.

Maybe if I had grass that looked like this I’d be happy to do the work, but I still doubt it.

Something that has been on my mind lately is what it will be like to work in Singapore. I can only imagine that things will be different, but what in fact does different mean? So here are some questions that come to mind when I think this through.

1. What do people wear in a corporate environment? I would never dream of going to work in anything other than a suit and tie, but how does that fit in to the climate of Singapore? Do men wear long-sleeved shirts or are short-sleeved shirts in? What type of suits? Woolen? Too heavy? Do I have to dress like this guy?

2. What hours do people work? I have read a lot about Asian cultures having an attitude that the longer you work, the more committed you are. Does this apply in Singapore? What sort of hours are people working in the office over there?

3. I generally don’t get away from the office at lunchtime but again I have read that offices across Singapore become deserted for an hour or more in the middle of the day. Can anyone please elaborate on this? Is it true? Where do they go? Can I still bring lunch from homer and heat up at work to eat?

I would love to hear any other office or employment based information from you all. Now, to hurry up and get a job so I can get to learn this all first-hand and not through my readers.

I have just completed my tax return for 2011 and have paid 33% of my income in tax. I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination yet the Australian Government feel the need to take a third of the money that I earn, and now they want to tax me even further with an idiotic Carbon Tax scheme that will use Robin Hood like tactics to take more from those who earn it. Rough estimations see me paying an extra $1,000 a year in tax plus the increased cost of living will make a bigger dent.

So disappointing, bring on the lower tax rates of Asia.