“This is going to hurt just a little bit,” my doctor says, brandishing a needle and a syringe.

I brace myself, squeezing my thumb to divert some attention from the incoming pain, as she pricks my skin. There is some pressure and discomfort, as she squeezes the syringe to dispense hyaluronic acid to fill in the sunken space under my eye.

She pulls back, and I let out the breath I have been holding. She holds up a handheld mirror for me to check out my face. The fillers I have just gotten have smoothed out my eye bags. I look more awake and a little more alive.

“Looks good, yeah,” my doctor tells me. “Not so sleepy-looking anymore.”

I agree, then pay and leave.

School’s out! After a harrowing year of trying to figure out homework and not seeing their friends, it is finally time for kids to have a well-deserved break this November and December.

But what about our teachers, who have worked tirelessly this year, as they have had to adjust to demands by the Ministry of Education, their faculty, students, and parents?

The proposal for minimum wage

In October, the Workers’ Party (WP) called for a universal minimum wage starting at $1,300 per month for Singaporean workers.

Leader of Opposition and WP chief, Pritam Singh, said that the implementation of minimum wage is “not just a moral imperative, it is an act of national solidarity, one that is even more relevant in today’s economic environment”.

His comments were in a Facebook post dated 12 October in response to Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo and secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Ng Chee Meng, who announced a new Tripartite Workgroup the day before.

Teo, Ng, and Singapore National Employers Federation President, Robert Yap initiated the formation of the workgroup, which will expand on the current Progressive Wage Model (PWM) to “cover more workers while protecting their employability”.

“Hi Mitchell, thank you for your interest in our company! We have considered your application but have found other candidates who are a better match for the job. We wish you all the best in your job seeking journey.”

This was an email Mitchell had received many times. The 43-year-old former logistics manager had been on a job hunt since his retrenchment a few months earlier when Singapore entered circuit breaker.

This wasn’t Mitchell’s first time being retrenched either. He was previously retrenched slightly more than 10 years ago during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Then he was retrenched again in 2015, when his company unexpectedly went bankrupt.

How far would you go for a job?

In this economy, where applicants outnumber jobs, subjecting one’s self to multiple job interviews and jumping through hoops to impress a potential employer seems like the bare minimum one must do.

In the case of employers, with applicants outnumbering jobs, it only makes sense to subject potential employees to stringent rounds of interviewing and testing to see if they make a good fit for your team and company.

It is a never-ending cycle that has caused frustration among jobseekers in Singapore.

The weekend before my one-year anniversary at my previous workplace, my colleagues and I receive an email from HR. It was one I had been dreading but also expected – I wrote for the aviation industry, and with planes grounded and travel pretty much at a standstill because of COVID-19, it was all a matter of time.