My wife, helper and baby got a lift from my father-in-law today morning to the polyclinic for a vaccination appointment. My mother-in-law was busy with her own personal appointment but could have driven them as well. The baby cried during the jab but stopped soon after. And they went out for lunch after that with my wife still having the time to run a personal errand.

I was at work the entire time but checking in with my wife on the progress of the vaccination appointment. It’s been getting less difficult as the 4 of them learn how to coordinate and work together to take of the baby (including going for his medical appointments). If they can manage it, I won’t take leave to be present.

I prefer to keep my leave for when it actually matters that I’m there and have more of a value-add. Such as when it’s only my wife taking care of the baby and I need to be at home to help her. Which shouldn’t happen because we worked hard to build a support structure around her such that assistance should be available on call whenever she wants it.

My job is just to claim the baby’s medical expenses under my corporate medical insurance. Which covers for his paediatrician and polyclinic visits. I continue to be thankful and grateful for the improved medical benefits that I now have after transferring from my previous shitty job to my current better job last year. It makes a big difference not having to worry about such medical expenses for my family.

As the situation stablises at home, my wife starts to have more time to hang out and catch up with her close colleagues at work. It has both a personal element (because she enjoys spending time with them) and a professional element (because they will be honest with her) to this interaction.

It has proven to be critical in ensuring that my wife receives up to date information on the timing and scope of the upcoming restructure at her bank. Based on what she can gather, it’s looking like there will be a job redundancy in her team. And it could be anyone but a higher salary does put a target on your back.

Today marks the end of my wife’s 4 months of paid maternity leave. She decided to go ahead with her original plan phase 1 of extending her time away from the office by another month (paid). So she applied for another month of paid leave until Apr using carried forward leave from last year and current year leave.

The original plan phase 2 is to further extend her time away from the office by 1 more month (unpaid). It would have required her to apply for a month of unpaid leave before returning in May. This is where we had to revise her plan with the new information about the restructure. Because we have to reweigh the benefits and costs tradeoff for her options.

By the time Apr comes, she would have spent 5 months with the baby and it seems like there are more ups than downs during this time. All the while still being paid a monthly salary. This has been mostly a positive experience that she appreciates. However, is spending 1 more month with the baby from 5 months to 6 months going to provide her with enough satisfaction to outweigh the costs of not getting paid and possibly losing her job?

It’s a difficult decision that we discussed and debated at length over dinners this week. And we both came to the same conclusion that there’s too much at risk. We acknowledge that spending the extra month with the baby will be nice in the short-term. But if it’s at the expense of losing her job (which remains an unknown factor), the monetary and non-monetary costs of this decision will really add up in the long-term.

Especially when you consider what had to happen for my wife to get to this position. It took a combination of good fortune, timing, skill, effort and work for her to obtain this job role at her age. At times, luck just placed the next stone for her to step on without us even realising it. It’s not just the salary to consider but the overall job environment (decent hours, no travel and good relationships with colleagues). This is why she has stayed with the same bank for a decade since graduating and starting her first full-time job there.

To replicate this in the current environment will be near impossible because the factors and considerations are completely different. So my wife decided to take the short-term hit and will go back to the office in Apr after spending 5 months at home with the baby. Things can still change before then. But we don’t see it happening unless the tradeoff benefits and costs alters from new developments.

We are betting on the fact that if my wife can successfully defend her job, it would strengthen the family’s financial and non-financial positions to prepare for the next phase in our lives. When the baby grows up, if we have a 2nd one and when we have to buy a bigger property. It will take up a lot of our money & time and we need to have both to give for our family to move forward in a sustainable manner.

As the virus situation worsens, the impact on companies is becoming more severe. SIA freezed hiring, staff may be asked to volunteer for no-pay leave and they are cutting flights to reduce capacity. Temasek freezed staff salaries (including promotion increases) and senior management is taking a partial cut in bonuses.

This is a bad sign. I get worried about a crisis when it actually reduces consumer and corporate spending in a wide range of industries. Because how well an economy does is in direct relation to general consumer and corporate spending. And that’s how banks make profits – by acting as intermediaries to facilitate such transactions.

When you start to see private sector firms from different industries and even governments & their companies take precautionary measures, this means it’s a widespread problem. Which has the worst impact to the local and global economy as it spreads. Before finally hitting the banks’ profits severely. And who knows how long general consumer and corporate spending confidence takes to recover.

This is becoming a test of who loses their job and hence their only active income source first. Or even whose active income is reduced significantly first. Which comes down to how much your company does to protect your job. This is when it’s better to work for MNCs than SMEs.

Because once you have no more active income and can’t get a new job in time, you are going to see how quickly panic can set in. Retrenchment is the fastest way for all your life plans as a salaried employee to be thrown out of the window no matter how much work you have put into them. Sucks to have no job.

My wife and I are aware of this because we graduated in 2009 right after the 2007/2008 Global Financial Crisis. And I struggled to get a decent full-time job that paid the bills, which continue to come due every month by the way even if you have no salary income.

It was a bad experience going through that in a foreign country with not much family and friends to turn to. Only had my wife (girlfriend at that time) to rely on and we had to learn to do so many things together. This really shaped the way we managed our finances together as a couple after that.

We have picked up many career lessons since then on how to ensure we continue to have a decent paying full-time job. These are just some of our corporate job rules we follow:

• Work in a profitable company
• Don’t be in a sunset industry
• Take calculated risks to expand skillset
• Ask for higher pay and position
• Don’t work for a bad manager
• Leave a toxic work environment and don’t stay for anything
• Job scope needs to be transferable to at least another industry
• Work for bigger private sector companies at the start

They are difficult to follow and we can’t always execute on all of them at the same time. But breaking any of our corporate job rules for a sustained period of time has always caused us to get into trouble. And it takes so much more effort to dig ourselves out of the hole after that.

As for investing, everyone always says they are not afraid of market dips and crashes because they have cash to invest. Stay vested in the markets seems to have been the conventional wisdom for the longest time. Something about having a lot of courage and willpower to stay in the market. But we forgetting it’s also an issue of who runs out of cash first and have to start drawing down on their investments.

And it always starts with a job loss, which being to dry up your cash holdings as you burn through them for all sorts of expenses. Before you know it, the time has come to draw down on your investments because you have no option left. So yes, it’s a lot more difficult to hold your nerve and position than you think. Because sometimes you have no choice. Now, who’s ready for what happens next?