Another fact of life in current society..

by Yesie L. BRAMA, our correspondent from Singapore
(reposted from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150339625990227&set=a.10150104900710227.393718.418957515226#!/notes/yesie-brama/another-fact-of-life-in-current-society/466016600821)

Another insomnia night brought me to think something mathematics, "amusing", and yet quite painful for realizing the way the present society works or is ruled..

Here is the story based on my understanding (and the mathematics assumption following the story will be 8 hrs/day, 5 days/week, 4 weeks/month):

- Domestic worker (aka maid, servant, pembantu - in bahasa): works every day with considerable strength and attention (e.g. not to burn their majesty's clothes, or not to drop the baby, or not to break the priceless porcelains, etc.), and if lucky enough, the worker gets a pat on shoulder, some bonus, more food, etc.. and if not lucky enough, the worker gets scolded, physically abused, etc. This profession gets in average: SGD3.125 to 6.25/hr that will mount to SGD500 to 1,000/month.

- Engineer/Scientist (aka tukang - in bahasa): squeezing their brain out to understand some formulas, equations, theories, etc, doing and ensuring the experiments run correctly and carefully, ensuring production yield does not fall to <99% with whatever ways, ensuring no backlog and when there's backlog, the team stays up working late. This profession gets in average: SGD9.375 to 62.5/hr that will mount to SGD1,500 to 10,000/month.

- Teacher/Professor (aka guru - in bahasa): squeezing their brain out to know how to teach well, to set good quiz/exam questions, spending considerable energy to deal with students. This profession probably gets in average: SGD25 to 125/hr that will mount to SGD4,000 to 20,000/month. Note: probably I shouldn't have combined teacher and professor, since I do believe it's more difficult practically to be a teacher than a professor. I have seen example of professor licking the buttocks of higher rank professor, stealing publications from the students, not doing the research themselves but to ask the minions to work hard.

- Negotiator (aka tukang jilat sana sini - in bahasa): squeezing a little bit of their brain out to analyze some situations, squeezing a lot of their saliva out, spending considerable strength to pat the clients on shoulder. I have never dealt with this profession before. Nevertheless I just got to know this profession rate: SGD800 to 1000/hr that will mount to SGD128,000 to 160,000/month.

The list above is certainly not exhaustive, for a reason that I'm not familiar enough to describe, but I guess it's enough to illustrate the picture of the current society, how we human beings treat each other. I might be biased in my description although I've tried enough to be objective.

I wonder, how in the first place this world could come up with such a rate? Is it the cost of education that dictates the payback? I doubt a negotiator requires very high education. Is it the rarity of the qualities that dictates certain value? Or is it the goodness of buttocks licking skills that dictates some moneys?

I had never really calculated the above math till tonight. It was certainly a surprise and a mind opening. 128,000 to 160,000/month... hhhmm... tempting enough to switch profession? hhmm... but again, I don't like squeezing my saliva out - it's messy, yucky, and disgusting.

ps: should have I offended somebody's profession, I sincerely apologize.