Why you will never get a cab in Singapore when you need one

So today the Straits Times proudly declared that the cab situation has been miraculously solved by the fare hikes. But taking a closer look at EVERYBODY's twitter and facebook, we know that this is simply not true. The situation seems to have worsened at the 9am mark and the 10-1030pm mark. To be sure, for people travelling under 10km during the 8am timings and the evening 7pm timings, they have cost savings because the surcharge dropped by 10% and the fee hike increase does not yet rise above the 10% savings.

But for the rest of us, getting a cab is STILL a nightmare. The reason is very simple - the demand and supply has been completely screwed up by the neverending, complicated surcharge structure. (I trust that we don't need to revisit the surcharge details). Think about it, why would a driver want to be on the road at 10pm when at midnight, the extra surcharge goes from 25% to 50%? Any knowing that drivers do split-up day shift/night shift, they would need to head back and wash the car before passing it to the night shift driver. And it will happen at THIS time (10.30 pm) because the damn 50% surcharge kicks in at midnight. So no matter what they (CDG or the government) do, the moment there is a surcharge this will happen.

LONG queues for cabs, experienced this recently??

Same thing at 4.30am thereabouts, there will be NO CABS because the night shift driver has earned enough and since the surcharge is going down to 25% at 6am, they will go back and rest or pass the car to the day shift driver. Then there are those who will push and drive until 8 plus and then head back to rest. So this leaves everyone with little cabs at the timings near surcharge changes.

And with booking fees, many cab drivers just wait around to get people to call and book and earn that extra amount.

The simple supply and demand has been screwed. If there is a demand and a chance to make money, there will be supply. There will always be cab drivers at night because Singaporeans stay out late and at locations where there are night owls, even without the 50% surcharge, there will be cab drivers. At airports, even without surcharges, there will always be people heading to the airport in cabs, and therefore there will always be cabs available to pick up landing passengers. The problem now is that there are just too many cabs queuing up for HOURS at the airport to earn that surcharge, leading to.... no cabs in other places.

The REALLY long queues of cab waiting at Changi

What is the solution to this? Let there be NO surcharges. Simple as that. Or if you must, a token $2 for bookings, although in Hong Kong one gets a discount for bookings. That's it, that will solve this stupid cab situation that we have created for ourselves. Note that there are no cab shortage problems in Hong Kong despite there being less cab per population as compared to Singapore!

Brenda's Wedding!

That's the gorgeous bride Brenda, and I

Over the weekend, I attended the wedding dinner of a dear friend, Brenda! It was such a lovely wedding that it makes me want to have a little ceremony with (hopefully) Fabian some time in the near future! The wedding was something that I would want for myself - a small intimate affair with close friends and immediate family. Because a wedding, for me, is a an ceremony of commitment that I want the people dearest to me to witness, and not for the whole gin-gang of my mom's friends and my dad's friends and relatives of 10 degrees or what have you; which is really what a lot of weddings have become today.

Its a tired formula of "snatching the bride" in the morning, then rushing for the tea ceremony, before rushing to the hotel, and then attending a banquet of countless tables, and rushing from table to table to say hi for 5 mins and a photo, and rushing off again. Add in cheesy collage photos from childbirth to how the couple met, and of course the walk-in music of 'From This Moment On' by Shania Twain and there you go, a classic Singapore wedding.

What I really love about Bren's wedding is that its so simple, cocktails and vows (which we missed because we assumed it doesn't start on time, and boy were we wrong!), and then a buffet dinner at a lovely venue - One Rochester. Love the outdoor verandah, and sitting down with friends that I have not seen for a while and catching up. Because it was small, the bride also had plenty of time to come sit with us and chat till 1am! I cannot begin to tell you how much fun we had, just gossiping and talking and laughing and teasing the bride!

Bren looking really pretty.

I am so happy to see the couple so happily in love for so many years and finally tying the note. For myself, I hope one day I can be legally married to my partner because it is a commitment that I want to make, and the legal hassles of not being married can be very arduous, but I will touch on that in a blog post another day. In any case, even if I can't get legally married, I will want a ceremony!!

Bye bye Ph.D

I had a lovely chat with Jeremiah today and it is quite amazing to be able to just sit and chat with an old friend like that, and that's the thing about friendship isn't it, once you have a strong foundation, one can go away for long periods of time and it is easy to just pick off where we left off. There is no awkwardness or anything like that. And it really got me thinking about friendship and life in general.

I am at that point in life, as you would see in all chick flicks, where friends around me starts to get married, or even have babies, and I am of course happily going about my life, with my group of girlfriends wondering where we are headed, all the while looking fabulous and sipping cosmopolitan. Sounds like a scene out of Sex and the City isn't it? It did happen before, really just that we were not ALL sipping cosmo. We were at the point in life where the 4 of us are not really sure what on earth are we doing with our lives, we were all not really in a committed relationship, and some of us have commitment issues. We are well into our first jobs, but we are not really what to do next, and those were enjoyable evenings bitching about all these married friends - why on earth would they marry so young! Don't they have goals that they want to achieve!

Not the Four of us, but this was Alexis, Nette, me and our senior Jocelyn at ZoukOut 2011

One of my goals when I was schooling was to get a Ph.D, in Clinical Psychology, so that I can be practicing psychologist and help patients, because as all of you know by now, I sorta have the Buddha Complex (yes I just coined that term up myself) and I can't help but feel the need to want to do good and help people. I thought maybe I could that by being a psychologist. There was also the element of intellectual pursuit, because nothing is more valuable in life than a life of learning and knowledge pursuit.

Mom, Dad and I on my Convocation Day, 2009!

But as I work, the goal seems to get further and further away. It just does not make any sense for to spend 5 years of my life to do that. In Singapore, males are already behind by 2 years because of National Service, and I cannot imagine taking 5 years off, living as a poor student and then restarting my search for a career at 32. And its not like getting a Ph.D will significantly increase the pay. Then there is the startling realization of how ridiculously expensive Singapore has become. How am I ever going to be independent with my own property if I start my career pursuit so late in life. Its not like I come from a rich family that will allow me to not bother about anything in life.

Let me just do some VERY simple sums for you. As a gay man I can only buy private property or HDB resale at 35, so a simple condo of $800,000 will require me to have a downpayment of 20% minimum, whereby the minimum cash outlay is 5% and the other 15% can be from CPF. It also means that I need $40,000 cash and $120,000 in CPF. Even if one maxes out their CPF contribution, it would take about 7 to 8 years to have that much CPF, and then after you DEPLETE it, what about retirement?

What this means is that for me to have my own property at some point in life, I absolutely need to work like a slave, and spend the rest of my life paying off my loans. Tragic isn't it? But I can't leave Singapore either, because my family is here, and I want to take care of my parents when they age. So this is really the problem that the middle-class faces.

I guess at this point of time, I am indeed going to give up the idea of ever doing a Ph.D because its simply not feasible. This does not mean that I do not ever want to further my studies. At some point in time, I might take a sabbatical and do a 1-2 years masters in something maybe. But I am fairly certain that right now, I am writing off a doctorate.

Such is life.