Tis the Season

This is the third week in a row that I'll be involved in an employment termination. Some other Sad Sack is going to get canned very shortly and I'll be adding further credits in my karmic account. If this continues, people will start avoiding my calls. I'm like, the Angel of Death with regard to their livelihood.

How do I internally justify this to myself? Well it's quite straightforward. I look at the monthly salary of this person and their job description. It's really easy to prepare the termination docs when they earn the equivalent of S$70,000 per month and have a chauffeured 7-series car, for doing a job that doesn't sound particularly like "ROCKET SCIENCE". I thought you had to, like, sell a planet to make that kind of moolah. But no, the person driving in the next car could be making that kind of money. It's pretty common.

Or the guy who had to work only 2 weeks out of 2 months, and was making the equivalent of S$50,000 per month. EVEN THE MONTHS WHERE HE DIDN'T NEED TO WORK. And the fucker had to spend all the money on heroin (No, the Singapore authorities shouldn't bother with this one, he's not Singaporean and he didn't work in Singapore) - the termination documents just shot out of my printer like greased lightning.

Clients always ask about the likelihood of retaliation. I go through the options with them and offer solutions, but I never mention that most likely option of all and that is, the employee may go berzerk and come back to the office with a knife or a gun. I don't mention that one because I don't have any solution to it, other than "Run for your lives!"

And no, none of these terminations deal with Singapore law. I didn't know when I was an undergrad but I certainly know now - Singapore grads who join foreign firms cannot practise Singapore law because it's illegal. Therefore you must work for a local law firm if you want to practise Singapore law. And what law are you qualified to practice when you graduate from NUS and get called to the Singapore bar? First person to answer that gets a prize!

Maybe if more undergrads were aware of this, then the demand for a second Singapore law school might ... never mind. OF COURSE there would still be a great demand for a second Singapore law school. Of course Singaporeans only want to work in local law firms. Of course foreign law firms can never match local law firms for pay and benefits. If we can't hold out for less in the name of national pride, then how else can we serve our nation?

I can't remember the day I finally figured out that I wouldn't be in this conundrum if I had only gone overseas to study law instead of staying here but that's probably because I went and ate puffer fish and then got blind drunk.