The past few days has been tough. We spent the weekend buying groceries & household supplies from supermarkets to prepare for the lockdown. I refuse to call it a circuit-breaker because it’s essentially a shutdown. And we are better off confronting this as what it actually is. Not give it a nicer sounding name so the people don’t panic. It’s time we grow up.
My wife went back to work on Mon from her maternity leave and started off working from home already. She didn’t have to go back to the office and is still in the process of setting up her remote working capability. She has gone on multiple conference calls to catch up with her colleagues so she knows what to expect in terms of her scope of work for the rest of the year.
It will take time for my wife to settle back into work. And I’m happy her team has been accommodating enough to let her take her time with the process. Even if it means them continuing their wider coverage of work in the short term. While understanding that there will be an acceptable loss of productivity, effectiveness and efficiency for the bank.
This is the reason why my career advice to my wife is for her to stay on in her bank even if she wants to switch job roles. It’s rare to find such an employer in Singapore. Anyway, I’m sure she doesn’t mind working for the same bank/employer her entire career if they treat her well. But things can always change for the worse and we should not be complacent.
My push to work from home has been going badly as my bank struggled to set up our remote working capability. I have been unable to resolve the IT issues and it has been an ongoing source of frustration. And my bank refuses to allow an acceptable loss of productivity, effectiveness and efficiency. With the looming Tues 7 Apr deadline, my anger came to a boil and I snapped.
I started working from home on Tues 7 Apr with a limited remote working capability and practically did nothing most of the day. Just to force the IT teams to prioritise my case since everyone is now more incentivised to resolve my issues. I have been facing increasing pressure from my wife to work from home as she feels my daily journey into the office puts the family at risk.
I agree with her and now that the Singapore Government’s position on this is very clear, my plan is to work from home even with a limited remote working capability. I refuse to jeopardise the safety of my family due to the failings of the organisation/bank that I work at. It’s not worth it.
Anyway, I continue to be impressed by how the Singapore Government is managing the Covid-19 crisis. The Solidarity Budget was announced on Mon 6 Apr with enhanced support measures to the businesses and the people. My view is that they are seriously going all out to protect as many of us as they can in these exceptional circumstances.
I have to admit that I did not account for the level of Government intervention in the Covid-19 crisis. It’s extensive and I can’t believe how far they have been willing to go to support the local economy. The positive effects of this should not be under-estimated as it could be the band-aid that tides us over the recession this year. In fact, this has been happening in countries all around the world.
By staying at home to stop the virus from spreading, the hope is that we can reduce its medical, financial and economic costs. If all of us take the short-term hit, we can hopefully avoid the much bigger long-term hit down the road. Based on the latest data, the curve might finally be starting to flatten. And that’s cause for optimisim indeed.
In the meantime, our jobs could possibly be saved by the Government’s support measures. At least until the end of this year. Which could be all we need to tide over this crisis so that the economic recovery can start next year. If necessary, we can even defer our mortgage payments to next year. Not having to worry about our housing loan for now is a big weight off our shoulders.
Most importantly, this means that even if one or both of us end up losing our jobs, we don’t have to worry about the monthly instalments. Which is the largest proportion of our expenses and could really cause problems for us. The worst outcome being we have to sell our investments to fund the repayments or even the property itself to get rid of the debt.
This is a crucial month for us as we stay home to spend more time together as a family, while stopping the spread of the virus. It’s been nice for me to see the baby more often now that I’m at home on the weekdays. We are striving hard to achieve full remote working capability so we can work from home on a more permanent basis going forward. Let’s get through this together!