Coping with retrenchment when a baby is on the way

I think I learned a lot from them. It's like I was learning and developing myself as well as we spoke to them, whether on the show or even off the show, right? One particular thing that I remember from the last season was how I personally grew, right, doing this whole podcast was a little bit not so familiar for me at the beginning, but I'm so glad that I think I've got a better sense of my feet. Yeah, that's almost like a pivot for you, right? Something different.

You upskilled. Yeah, I guess I learned a lot about myself as well in the process and this. New season I'm so excited because I get to do it again. Yeah, one thing that I really liked so far that we have really tried to do more of in the last season is to invite people onto our show to talk about some of the pivots that they have done in their lives. We had that flight attendant who came on, Jane, and she spoke about how she

did this hard pivot towards becoming a software engineer. Yeah, I remember when she was saying that when she was waiting to be on the plane again, she would quote right in the hotel room. And then we were just like, I thought you would just want to go and see the world, you know, but she was there upgrading her skills, learning some coding on her own. That's just amazing. These stories are amazing, so precious, right? So it's along that line, right? We

want to carry on these stories. It's not just the victories that we want to talk about. We also want to talk about people who didn't have an easy time in their career and that they had to face the challenges head on, taking the challenges one step at a time. So I think one biggest challenge that we've always talked about was when people suddenly get their jobs taken away from them, when they get retrenched and. What makes it worse is like you get retrenched with

many other things happening in your life. We always say that there's no good time to be retrenched, but what happens when you're told to leave your job at the same time you're having a new kid, your first kid, and at the same time you're having your first house. Not an easy situation. I just imagine how it's like. So we have someone here with us today. We have Luke Jiao, he's here to share his story with us.

So welcome. Hello. I want to ask, you were retrenched last October, right, after working for an MNC for about a year. Did you have any inkling that your name was going to be on the list? Not at all, because the company just announced a plan to build a billion dollar factory in Singapore, and this was in 2021. Yeah, and it was in progress and I have news that The plant was purchased and construction was ongoing. So there was a sense of excitement obviously in the company, right?

So walk us through how was the news told to you. I think I was blessed to have an understanding supervisor. So a month before the news was dropped. My supervisor was telling us the team that try to do our best to look for other opportunities soon. So there was a preampt to what we are going to go through at that point. But it must have been very confusing for you, right, because you guys saw that the news about the village.

Dollar factory coming and then suddenly your supervisor came and said, Guys, I think you all should start looking for options. I mean, at the start, was there a lot of confusion even among your team? Yes, there was. People were scrambling, people thought that my supervisor was joking. And everyone I think was in a denial about what might happen to them. So it was painful, to say

the least. And I think for some of us it was dreadful because they were older than I. I'm 35, but some of them were 40s, some of them were near retirement age. So when you got the news, where were you at that stage of life, like what were you expecting to do? Where were you at? OK, so this company came along with pretty good benefits, better than most Singapore's jobs from what I know. And I think because of this, my wife and I,

we were confident to have a new kid. We were confident to invest in a car for the kid, and we had our new house, we moved in in September last year. So there were a lot of things that we were prepared to invest in to pay for. So when the news came and then you had all these things with a new car. kid coming along the way, a house, what were you

the most worried about? I think the most stressful memory that I had after the retrenchment was I was scared that my kid was going to be born with some complications. Then there will be financial stress, there will be mental and spiritual stress. It's not easy having to go through all these changes at the same time. What was the first thing that you and your wife decided to do? Cut down on lifestyle spending, such as like what kind

of lifestyle? Like we used to go to sushi roll, but we go to sushi. Or sometimes like fair price sushi is good enough for us. I think people will be surprised to find out how much they can accept when they are not able to afford more things in their life. Sounds like a very big adjustment in terms of lifestyle, in terms of what you're used to having, what you're used to eating or doing as well. I mean, yes and no because he

didn't exactly cut out sushi from his life. If we use that as an example, but he just found cheaper alternatives so they could still enjoy what they used to enjoy. It's just that maybe it's Not the premium level that we would be used to or we would be going for, but it doesn't mean that it's terrible, right? So we have even tried to replicate some recipe that we ate at home. So it's cheaper and lasts longer because you can cook all the

way for lunch and dinner. It's a lot of financial considerations, mainly in terms of all the adjustments. So when this retrenchment happened, financially, how did you like work around the figures? How did you know what to spend on? Did you have like savings to tide you over this?

Period. Yes, we did. My wife and I, we both had about 3 or 4 months of emergency savings that right now I have tapped into almost half of it now really, but my wife still continue to build upon her emergency savings, which was good and some of the changes I did was to use less aircon, try to recycle some water and instead of using full premium tissue on the table, I used toilet paper instead. So no longer reply like goodbye 3, yeah.

And I think the biggest change would be the diet, switching a lot from eating outside to eating at home and going to the wet markets. But having a kid coming, that's actually quite a costly, I would say investment, right? And there's certain things that you cannot scream on. You still need your diapers or I mean if you are, yeah, if you are going into using formula milk, you still

need all of that, right? You need clothes, you need to also make sure that you are cleaning the clothes, there's a lot of cleaning, a lot of washing, right? And then you also have your car. You were saying that you also had a car. Did you have to say goodbye to a cow? Our projection was that for the next 6 months after my retrenchment, I could still afford a car stably. I think what Luke did really well was to plan. I think he planned with his wife emergency savings for

rainy days like this. And then when the day came, he started to adjust the lifestyle a bit stretching the dollar so that he can sustain a bit longer. Did the company provide any form of help for you? Any other than the normal packages, they did give me a little more because I told them my kid was going to be born. So I'm supposed to take the parental leave that is mandated by the government, so they give the extra 2 weeks. Yeah, so on top of your retrenchment. OK, so that's

actually a very good tip. Have a chat with HR or your supervisor to see where you are, right, at that point of your life and how you can ask for more to take through a difficult period. We had one episode on the last season where we talked about negotiating the packages and I guess it says something to that extent as well, which is to look at the package and then start to negotiate if you can. So I'm glad you did that. Was that the only thing you negotiated for? I think that's the only thing.

I can negotiate for, there's not much else. I think all my lists were in cash and all my benefits were not claw back. Yeah, all the flexi benefits will not claw back, which I thought was pretty decent of them. And also it's very brave of your supervisor to actually give you guys a heads up. We had a previous episode about early signs that the company is retrenching.

And when we spoke to our guest, he was also saying that it's good for supervisors to give people a heads up, but also their hands are tied because they may not be able to give as much information as they would like without causing mass panic, correct? So was that mass panic in the company at that point of time? From what I've seen and heard during that retrenchment, almost 90+% of us Let go from a department and I think the people were well prepared. Yeah, so I believe that my supervisor

got the green light to share from his boss. So I think it's pretty decent of them to give a heads up. So besides stretching your dollar and tapping into your emergency savings to help you through your day to day necessities, what have you been doing? Since you've been retrenched. So from the time when I was retrenched to the time when my kid was born, it was pretty stressful. How many months is that? It's about 2 weeks. 2 weeks. Oh wow, it's about 2

weeks and weeks after the baby. Yeah, I feel for you. That was pretty stressful because I got my kid to think about the complications, whether I have future jobs or not. But when my kid was born, there was no time to think about such things. Yeah, sorry, you have no time to even sleep, correct? So it's like boom boom boom. I had to take care of it, take care of the kid, and take care of my wife. We didn't hire a nanny, so we wanted to save on that. So I am the nanny and you. Thank you.

And after my kid was born, I saw it as like given paternity leave for a few months. Then I only really started looking for a job in February this year. That's when I gave myself time to feel the loss. I think just going through the loss that I just did, in fact, no people I know in my life went through retrenchment of this level. I have a wonderful support system around me. My wife was understanding. My mother-in-law came from Malaysia, she came from

Malaysia to help care for the kids. My mom will care for the kids sometimes. And I think something that was wonderful is that we have a kampong spirit around us. People were willing to give old clothes, kids' clothes to us. People were willing to give older strollers, passing it forward for like clothing, sometimes open diapers that no longer feed their own kid, they give it to us and I have an ex- colleague who was super kind. He gave me. Like 3 packs of diapers and 2 large cartons of

wet wipes as a baby gift. I'm a big advocate for just passing it on and sharing because you're right, kids outgrow these things so quickly. And if you are OK with taking secondhand things or things that are obviously unused but you know, unopened as well, I firmly believe that that is a good way to save. So you mentioned about this grieving process. Walk us through a little bit more about what was in your mind.

Not sure if you guys are aware of the grief cycle, that whole rollercoaster of denial, anger, depression, then you think you have. Something in between then acceptance, right? So I didn't think that I will go through this cycle so linearly, but I did, yeah. So when it started, there were a lot of denial thoughts. My train of thoughts were like, why it happened to me, it shouldn't be me, why it happened to this company, we're doing so well, things like that.

And then came the anger, the anger part was when I need to reinforce myself, not to let the feeling come out, yeah, because I'm caring for infant, so it can be very frustrating. So whenever I start to feel frustrated, I need to preempt myself to catch myself and catch my feelings of what I'm doing at the moment, especially when you wake up late at night to feed the baby, you'll feel frustration and anger can come out very easily. So I think a lot of this emotion will pass.

I think it's really important. To be connected with how you're walking through this season because it's not easy to have something taken away from you. It's not, especially when it comes to like your livelihood, it's your basic need. It's like your income and there's so many other expectations that's on you, right? It's a lot. And I'm so glad that Luke took the time to

even know that he's going through a process. Some people, they don't, they just Straightway jump into job search and then they just hold back all these and we only see this later on when let's say the job search stretches to 3 months, 4 months, then they start to enter the cycle because they didn't know it was going to last that long. Yeah, yeah. So good for you, you know, that you really took the time to know where you. are emotionally and you didn't let it affect like your family.

I'm glad you're sharing this story because I think for a lot of men, fathers as well, sometimes it's hard to be the one who's going through the retrenchment because you want to be there for your wife, you want to be proud that your wife has a job and she's going back to a job, but at the same time, Traditionally, a lot of families that we come from will tell us that it's still the mother's role to take

care of the baby. So, to be the house husband in this season of your life may not be the easiest for a lot of men and like what Gerald was saying, if the job search stretches on. That struggle that you get of wanting to be out there and provide for your family, sometimes it's at odds with the part of you that wants to continue to be a father and wants to continue to be supportive to your wife. It does feel like that. And I think that both my wife and I, we are not

able to stay at home full time. Yeah, I don't think I have the opportunity or privilege to be a house husband full time, so both of us will need to go back to work. And I think that what I see this situation is that it's a blessing, yeah, other than a loss because I have time now to improve myself. Yeah, it is an obstacle. So I see that I need to climb, I need to go over it and once I pass it, I believe and I have faith that it will be better.

When you mentioned you're improving it, are you referring to like the training you're doing now? You're taking some courses, right? That's right. So right after my retrenchment, I was thinking what should I do? And one of the things that the government was heavily marketing or the use of skillish credits. So then I looked into it and then I found that there was an upcoming cost in information system, cloud architecture to be exact, and it is a passion of mine, it is the interest of mine.

When I was choosing my bachelor's, I had to choose between materials engineering or this information system. I was offered both, but I went for materials engineering for financial reasons because it was a 3 year course compared to a 4 year course in information system. So now I have the opportunity to do my interest again, to study what I'm interested in. So I took it up, this cloud architecture course in NTU for about 6 month period and to add on top of the blessing, I have the alumni credit to

spend on to further subsidize the cost fee. The full cost would have been about 15,000 Singapore dollars after subsidies and everything with tuition grant. I believe there was tuition grant. I ended up paying $3.8,000 so it was heavily subsidized. OK, OK. What can you do with this certificate? It is, uh, they call it a professional certificate. I don't think I

can get employed using this certificate. I mean, people who are fresh grads probably have better knowledge than I, considering that they are studying this course 3 or 4 years. But what I want to do is to build on these skills that I have as a subset of my engineering skills that I want to bring to further myself, improve myself in my job search. It's amazing. You went from a full-time worker, suddenly overnight to become a full-time father.

And then also you became a part-time student at the same time with a second chance, you know what I mean, because he wanted to study both at the same time. Now he has like a second chance at trying a different path. Yes, I think we can really see how you had quite intentionally made your choices. If there's one thing I remember about you, it's like you're a person who really made the best of the situation. You really use the credits, you really use the time that you

had to say what can I do? And I like what you said, right, so that I can emerge even better than before. And recover and climb back to where I think I need to be, maybe even better than what was before. So what are your plans now? Are you going to be looking for work that is going to try and marry both material signs as well as cloud architecture? Those roles are very rare, and if any, they probably require

like 5, 10 years of experiences. When I look at it in LinkedIn or their overseas job, which I don't want to relocate. And right now it's just finding a job that allows me to plan 1020 years ahead to be stable there, to build my network there. And if possible, if my skill set in cloud can be utilized in another role in the same company, that would be great. Do you have any advice that you would give to people who are in a similar situation as you? I think that whoever got retrenched, the first

thing you have to look at is yourself. Try not to blame people, try not to blame others. Don't even blame yourself because it's something you probably cannot control. It is something that companies decision made months ago, looking at their books. And I think that when you are retrenched, you have to look at how much resources you have, not just money, how much time you have, how much of a connections you have in your life, and how you can become

better after going through these painful moments. Wow, thank you for coming on the show today. We wish you the best in whatever you are doing, and I know that the next employer who gets you is going to be a lucky employer. Very, very lucky. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sharing your story. Yeah, no worries. Hi, this is our Ask Me Anything segment where we

take a question that you've sent to us. Our listener Yusuf wrote in, he says that some companies are now looking for character references that are not family members or former supervisors. They're looking for either a colleague or a friend. It looks like they want to know more about your personal character rather than your professional character. Yusuf is asking, is this a common thing? And if so, who is the best person you should recommend?

Honestly, this is the first time I'm hearing this because oftentimes when recruiters call me up as a reference, they are asking me about the applicant's professional conduct and work-related ethics. So what is going on here in Yusuf's case? We see so many questions on this Ask Me Anything segment, right? I think this is the question that got me like, huh,

like I've not heard of. Yes, so I think what you So might be going through is very rare because like what you mentioned, most of the time reference checks are often of people who work with you professionally before your ex-boss or from a previous company, so they can validate and also check on your performance, right? But as a friend and just a, a peer colleague, I really think it's very rare. I mean, I mean to be biased

as well, right? Because you're my friend. Yeah, correct. So I'm struggling to see. Why would they want to do this unless it's just another supplementary layer, that means they wanted a professional check and a personal check maybe. But I checked with a few of my friends as well, those in the recruitment, they said, No, it doesn't happen. It doesn't quite happen

as well. OK, so more often than not, is it true that you should be asking your supervisor to be your reference because it can get quite awkward to ask your current supervisor. To be your reference, right? It means your current supervisor knows that you are a flight risk. So if you're still in a job and you're looking for a new role and you're asked to give a professional character reference, don't give your current boss, give a previous boss, right?

Give a former boss from a previous company, I think that would be the best way to go. How far back though? Like if I have already been in this company for let's say 7 years, then that means my previous boss only knew me 7 years ago by working professionally for them. How far back would you say we can tap into that boss? Yeah, I think by and large what we want to do is to offer maybe a couple of references and then we can let the recruiter or the HR person choose who they want to check

in with. So maybe offer one or two former supervisors or bosses and if possible, also offer them to be a little bit more of the diverse kind. meaning like different industries or different in terms of the job length as well. Yeah, so maybe one is more

recent and one is a bit longer time. Usually I would say go for those that you have worked for them for some time, like maybe you work for them a good 5 years, then that kind of reference might be more strong because you have a solid 5 years as compared to you work somewhere for 6 months and then you give that boss as a character reference. What if I don't have that kind of boss, meaning Let's say for example, I have been in a job

for a very long time, 1015 years. It's my first job, fresh out of school and then I want to career switch, so that's going to be my second company. Then who can I tap on if it's not my supervisor? I think if you don't have that, if this is your first job to change and you don't have that previous person, you could ask an industry colleague, a friend. Right, but someone who's from the industry is also possible to give that reference, especially if you are just starting

out as a fresh grad. People can understand that you don't really have a lot of track record to give. I've also seen before students giving lecturers, their professors are the lecturers as a reference for their work. I've seen that before, but this is only for those who are

just starting out. Sometimes some of your peers within these 10 to 15 years, they have, like you say, Gone out to other companies are working with this within the industry, but in different companies, they could also be your peer reference, right, because they may be in a position where what they say will also lend weight to your application process. Definitely. So they may not need to be in your previous company, they may have moved on, but just knowing that they are able to validate for

you your work experiences, that's pretty important. So one quick tip as well is to remind your referees, the people who you are surfacing up to the HR recruiters, right. Please call them and let them know that you are giving their names up to the HR because in this day and age, normally when someone calls you, you think it's a scam, right? Or not only that, I think it's just basic courtesy, right, because I actually heard of people saying that.

They received a phone call from a recruiter saying that their name was put down as a reference and they were not told about it. So they were caught off guard and yeah, even though they felt like they really wanted to say something nice about the applicant, they were not happy and they just felt like Why am I doing you a favor if you don't have the basic courtesy to tell me that you have

put my name down as a reference. So the moment that you want to surface a name to a recruiter, it's best that you let that colleague, ex-boss know that, hey, I'm looking for a new job, I'm in the midst of a transition. Can I put your name as my character referee? And they would be contacting you for a check. They may be doing so in a couple of weeks' time, and maybe you want to make an ask to say, could you maybe say something good about the way I worked with you before.

For my achievements in terms of certain projects that we did on that is important to the next employer. My own personal question here, what if someone approaches me to be a character reference and I don't want to be a reference, how should I talk about it? I think you can just decline politely and you can just say that I don't think I'm able to validate the experiences that you have for this job that you are applying for. So if this happened to me, I will ask for

the job description first. I'll take a look at it. I'll see whether is it. Something that I'm able to vouch for you on and if not, I'm just, I don't think I can because it seems to be a very different role. I don't have the experience with you. I don't know you that well. I may not be able to represent you or to vouch for you in a way that can help you score the job. So you're taking yourself out of the running,

don't sabo that person. Yes, I think that would be a good point to remember that not helping that person doesn't mean that you don't like that person. Not helping that person could also mean that you do not want to sabotage their chances. Yes, that's right. OK. So if like Yo, you have a work-related question, do send it to us. We are at CNA podcast at mecorp.com.sg. You can also find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Melisten

and YouTube. The team behind the Work It podcast is Christina Robert, Joanne Chan, Junai Johari and Sai Ye Win. Sound mixing is by Carrie Lim, video by Hanida Amin. I'm Gerald and I'm Tiffany. Have a smooth work week ahead.