Meet the Phoenix of Simon Fraser

By Lisa Von Tang

Creative Director of Lisa Von Tang

First Published By High Networth at http://www.hnworth.com/article/2018/11/16/stories-of-resilience-lisa-von-tang/?fbclid=IwAR3WFKIvKiovskW-ulYiofsu2_kuztCYAJ5RVEARLo2OZVaUsU9pbazErM8

Writing on resilience is an exercise of reviewing my entire life. By its nature, resilience is about enduring over a long period of time. Year after year, recovery after recovery, it becomes (or is revealed) as a core part of your character—and you no longer need to be resilient; you simply are.

Resilience also has a bouncy, shiny quality to it. Like springing back from a guttural punch with a glowing complexion and yelping a joyful ‘whoopee!’ whereas “Perseverance” has a heavier, adult, tone. I imagine a marathon runner in his last stretch, eyes steely with determination, mind over matter, resolving to keep going no matter what. Or a chronically disappointed wife—“I shall persevere!”

Strength has no context built-in, which makes it less interesting. It’s a rather flat adjective.

I like the term Resilience because it indicates a blossoming following a struggle. Anyone can build a wall after a tragedy (in fact, it’s the most instinctive thing to do). Most people, however, find it hard to melt, learn, and shine on. Resilience not only means getting up after a fall, but rising from the ashes, and transforming into the mythical Phoenix, with more purity, power, and beauty than before. Resilience is not just sheer willpower, it is transformation. Its spiritual alchemy. Its magic.

Image Credit: Warwick Saint

My first introduction to my own resilience was as a child. I grew up in an incredibly abusive household. My dad once burnt my hand with a boiling fork because I didn’t remember a bible scripture properly. And that’s just a PG-rated example of the abuse we endured on a daily basis.

I managed to remain as an openhearted and kind little person until the abuse peaked: My parents then separated, and a bleak period followed. At this point, my youthful resilience was swapped for adult fortitude. I didn’t have enough heart left to do more than just protect myself and survive.

I was twelve, and I had no relationship with either of my parents. I’d been stalked by a paedophile, who would follow me home (as I biked alone) from ballet class. He broke into my house one night (I was safe in my room, but he was never caught by the police). I hung out with some unsavoury types and put myself in some compromising situations. I was considered a “rebellious teen” which is a term that has always cracked me up. As if teens become rebellious randomly, with no cause at all. “Yea, an alien ship came down at recess, and I went onboard and said Hi, and now I hate my parents.” Right.

I grew up, otherwise quite fortunate, in Canada with a mom who was a gifted Chinese immigrant and dedicated to providing for us and making us into successful humans—particularly from an academic point of view. I’ve always been grateful for that Chinese immigrant focus on material success—I feel it saved me in some respect, because it kept doors open. Also, Chinese home cooking deserves a shout-out here! My favourite memories during my formative years are food-related.

At 15, I would ace my exams in high school, then go raving all night. Floating above my misery like a black balloon. Once I started college, I got the opportunity to travel the world and model. I would either take courses by distance if the professor would allow it, or I’d come home to be on campus in between modelling contracts. I did this for a few years, then quit modelling once I graduated and got my first dream job with one of the world’s largest advertising companies.

I met my ex-husband when I was modelling. He was from New York but living in Singapore. It was an arrow through the heart for us both—tragic, young, foolish, Romeo and Juliet sort of love. I let him melt my last glaciers away. I tattooed the date we met on my wrist. We wrote each other epic prose that would make you want to vomit. We had sex in the most inappropriate places, which still makes my eyes widen with disbelief. He proposed within three months of me moving in.

My first big love looked hot in a suit and would walk to work listening to a mix of Snoop Dogg and Dvořák. He was intellectually brilliant, amusingly strange, and preferred Tolstoy and a glass of cognac to human company. He was also an alcoholic. It was fun in the beginning until it wasn’t.

People never understood why I left him—particularly the women he dated after me. But it crushed my soul how he’d drink to the point of injury, blackout, broken glass, screaming, or hospitalisation—on the regular. Our finest moments involved me throwing a vase just degrees from his head, and him punching the wall next to my head (and breaking his fist). We never actually hurt each other physically, but we did a big number on each other’s hearts. Eventually, you learn not to touch a hot stove.

So I moved out, and got my own place. It was an HDB flat in Lavender. It was not glamorous. But I was free. I was about half a year into my first start-up business, a multi-label retailer for independent designers. I had spent a year at Ogilvy & Mather as a brand strategist, but then realised that the bureaucratic nature of corporates (even awesome ones like O&M,) wasn’t for me. I was prepared to work harder, feel the results, and trial and error my way to success.

Work was killing me, because I was using it to hide from my disappointment over my divorce. I worked myself into the ER many times, that I wondered if hospitals had punch cards for VIPs. I was pulling 16 hour days. I hadn’t learned how to “be supported by others” in my life yet, and was awful at finding the right people for my team. While I hired some great individuals at my first company, no one I hired was the right fit. When you don’t have the right people to achieve your goal, it’s not a neutral situation either—it goes backwards fast, and unfortunately, you’re still paying for it.

Being a 24-year-old, ex-model, boss lady, was not easy either. As a workaholic, I didn’t see many friends outside of the people I worked with. I needed their human company. But as soon as you become friends with an employee, it really messes with the authority structure that’s needed to run a business. It’s easier for men I believe, but women aren’t just handed respect as a given. You need to fight for it, tooth and nail, and prove yourself to be competent, before you can avoid judgement.

I would leave work, exhausted. Try to sleep without a sleeping pill. Have anxiety and give up. Then start all over again. I dated. I travelled. I got into a new relationship. And then finally, at the age of 29, I had an epiphany that would change how I approached life. I realised that I was living in a fortress to protect myself from the bashing I had gotten from the world, but I couldn’t bloom in there. I couldn’t even properly receive love and support from in there. It was grey. I had to trade Fortitude for Resilience.

This epiphany started through a dear friend of mine from San Francisco messaging me, “Lisa, why don’t you focus on Self-Love?” I had been confiding in her with regard to all the pressure and anxiety I was experiencing. “Self-Love? What’s that?” Now it’s a buzzword, but at the time, it was a foreign term to me. I googled it, and realised that it was about leading a life of self-respect that you enjoy. This may sound like common sense to those of you who grew up in healthy environments, but it was a revolution for me. I had grown up supporting people around me, and had carried that habit into my work life. I had also carried that habit into my love life. I was always the Big Spoon. She also introduced me to a spiritual guide, who helped me connect back to the earth, and cultivate joyful living.

Suddenly, I could see with clarity that I never had before, that I had internalised a lack of love from my childhood, and it was dooming me to outcomes that perpetuated a state of misery. I was pretending I was okay with just surviving on crumbs from others (in work, and in love life) when I desperately needed a bigger piece of the pie. This inherent lack of Self-Love had stormed its way through my first company, blocking me from finding the right support, and I couldn’t do the same jam anymore.

I let it all burn to ashes. My first company. All relationships that sucked energy and were not supportive. I took responsibility for all outcomes in my adult life being my fault. And decided to commit myself to a life of joy, even if that meant a complete reconfiguration. I was finally learning what it meant to be resilient. I felt happier than I had in years. I felt shinier. I felt younger. I felt beautiful.

I also left a relationship that I knew wasn’t good for me. I had been campaigning for marriage and kids, and when it finally came time to build the nursery, I realised I was selling myself short. I realised that I’d be happier on my own than with someone who wasn’t able to prioritise me in his life and legacy plans. Self-Love. I’m telling you, ladies. It’s like the sky clearing after the storm. Nothing is foggy anymore.

I have to mention at this juncture of the story, that many of the people who were not right for my company (or bedroom) were still very good people. They just weren’t right for this particular journey. I take responsibility for the collateral damage that grew out of my nasty habit of martyring myself. You can’t explode in growth without an amazing team backing you. I know that now.

2018. 31 years old. The new company is doing well. I’m doing my dream job and have been for a few years now (a conversation for another article). My bonds with my loved ones continue to deepen. I’m happy as a default, and I realise that joy is my guiding light—as it should be yours. I don’t say this as a hippy by the way. Even from a strategic business point of view, I see ‘joy’ as being a clarifying elixir for how I choose people, how I decide on our plans going forward, how I design and create.

I roll like a Phoenix now. No matter what happens, I know I can reach within myself and find even more strength, even more clarity, and even more beauty. I don’t need fortress walls anymore, because I know that I have the ability to bend, rebuild, and always turn my heart back towards the Sun.

A Note from a Busy Oasis

Didn’t plan on it but a few weeks back, the day-job boss got a client based out of Dubai and as things would have it, we were required to head to Dubai and so, I’m here taking advantage of the hotel’s lap top to try and get the writing juices flowing after several days of heavy data entry activities.

Dubai is a special place for me. My stepdad, Lee was sent to Dubai in the late 1990s to set up the agency of what was then known as Lintas. As a result of his posting, Dubai became the first place in the Arabian Gulf that I visited. On my first trip there, Lee went out of his way to ensure that my sister and I got the full “Arabian” experience, which included a camel safari (which was run by a couple from Bognar Regis and their Pakistani workers). On the second visit, he had hired a maid who happily took us to discover the sights and sounds on souks and malls, the two places that the GCC region in known for.

My life in Singapore took an unusual turn around 12-years ago when I got sent to Riyadh as part of the Saudi Embassy’s delegation to prepare for the visit to the late Crown Prince Sultan to Singapore, which was the underlying fact in the turn my life has taken.

For some strange reason, blessings and salvation have always come from those of Indian Origin or Muslims (my current day-job boss being both). This tie with the Indian Subcontinent and the Arabian world is such that the only languages that make me feel that there is an emotional tie are the languages that I don’t speak, namely Arabic and Hindi-Urdu (the languages that I actually can communicate in being English by a long way, German in a distant second and Cantonese and Mandarin if I am pushed to. These are languages that I can use but I don’t feel anything special about them in the same way that I don’t feel anything special about the fingers typing these words).

So, you could say that Dubai could be an emotionally good city for me, in as much as it’s filled with the two groups of people who have blessed me and there is something very comforting with starting every conversation with “As-Salaam-Alaikum ” (Incidentally, the familiarity with using Salaam was easily translated to Shalom Aleichiem when dealing with the Jews).

Dubai like Singapore is a curious match of East and West and Old and New. On one hand the city is built to impress. Dubai, like the rest of the GCC is obsessed with shopping malls. The mall, is the centre of life and Dubai is on a mission to build the biggest this or that. I had my second visit to the Dubai Mall (described by my Evil Teen as –“Boring Sia,”) and seen the Burj Khalifa (so named after the cousin in Abu Dhabi, who bailed them out of the financial crisis). Dubai is filled with outrageous opulence. You can even get “booze” here – I had managed to get my beer in a nearby lounge with Indian and Nepali dancing girls and there is even “naughtier” entertainment in the “spas” that fill four-star hotels. My fellow traveler said Dubai was looking like New York – I beg to differ, New York would love to have Dubai’s buildings and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills looks like a rats nest next to some of the swankier parts of town.

Yet, I seem to have aged in as much as these are not the things that I aspire to. There are only so many shopping malls that the system can manage, which was a point that my Saudi tour guide didn’t quite get – why do you travel so many thousands of miles to see more of the same.

What I liked about Dubai was found in the Gold Souk, where merchants from all over the world came to haggle over that most glamorous of commodities – Gold. I liked the fact that the Pakistanis and Arabs dressed traditionally and went about their business as they may have had several years ago. I enjoyed watching Nigerian tourist complain that the shops were using the “wrong” currency rate (why use 100 – use 99 – the difference of 1 Naiara being negligible in most other currencies).

If you ask me what Dubai has gotten right, it is the fact that the “trader” is celebrated. Traders are the people who make the world prosper. Traders make goods and services move and they create markets. A sensible government encourages that type of activity. Hustling is a noble activity that feeds people – it was one of the attractions of Hanoi – people were poor but they were not begging – they were trying to hustle you.

It’s something that I never quite understood about Singapore. We are a trading hub and I could never understand why “trader” was considered a “derogatory” word. Lee Kuan Yew famously wrote, “Our people were not entrepreneurs – they were traders.” Erm, it’s quite clear that Old Man Lee didn’t quite understand – entrepreneurs are traders.

Dubai is an odd ball in the Middle East. It’s a place that has created a reasonable economy and outrageous sums of money without using oil (not that it had much of it in the first place). When you think about it, that’s an achievement. Dubai has been smart in being open to trade and hustling. It’s something we should go back to in Singapore. We were a nation built by trade and we should be proud of being traders rather than bureaucrats. A trader can survive without a bureaucrat. The bureaucrat cannot survive without the trader. It’s something we need to look at.

The Grand Advantage of the Rich

One of the most interesting things about working in media is getting to see how easy it is to sway the public with the right headlines. I learnt this first hand when I was recruited by PN Balji to work on the Susan Lim case.

For readers outside Singapore, Dr. Susan Lim was one of our most prominent surgeons who had the misfortune of taking on a relative of the Sultan of Brunei as a patient. The relative in question was dying of cancer and had sought Dr. Lim out to help prolong her life. In return for giving exclusive and personalized service, Dr. Lim was reimbursed handsomely. However, the woman eventually died and the Brunei government which had paid the bill happily, decided it was time to ask for a discount, where upon the Singapore Government (which is exceedingly close to the Sultan) decided to raid Dr. Lim’s clinic and promptly accused her of “overcharging” the patient.

From my professional standpoint, it was a challenging case. Dr. Lim had already been “tried” in the court of public opinion and we knew that we were not going to win in the local press. However, we managed to get some of Dr. Lim’s story out and somehow, we managed to get some of her side of the story out.

However, while that was an interesting enough challenge, I noticed that the average reader developed an incredible dose of self-righteous anger against Dr. Lim. I remember the Young Muslim Politician who Guzzles Pork in a Ramadan day telling me, “She’s terrible, she cheated the Sultan of Brunei.”

I’ve said plenty about the case and I’m sure many people will discount my views now that its public knowledge that I was one of the PR people on the case. However, what still intrigues me is the dose of self-righteous anger the public held for Dr. Lim for having the audacity to bill one of the few people in the world who can afford such medical bills. I find it particularly intriguing that many Asians in particular felt that it was wrong because “Even Doctors in the USA or UK don’t ask for such a large amount of money.” I take the statement of my favourite Young Muslim Politician as an example – “She cheated the Sultan of Brunei,” as a starting point.

If you look at the facts of the case, it’s hard to argue that Dr. Lim “cheated” anyone. The scope of the services expected were such that she was required to sacrifice business from elsewhere in order to tend to this single patient. I’ve always felt that Dr. Lim should never have apologized for her bills – it was a case of “My practice has a turn-over of x dollars and if you want y services at the expenses of all others, you need to pay accordingly.”

However, is particularly intriguing here is the question of “how” do you actually cheat a rich and influential person. The bottom line remains, rich and influential people are generally that way because they had some sort of “smarts” that the rest of us did not have. It’s often said that one of the gifts of the “rich” is that they have an idea of the value of things and they have an uncanny knack of avoiding spending more money than they have to on certain things.

PJ O’Rouke, the famous American satirist once made the observation that the really rich (in Bank Speak – HNW individuals) didn’t spend much money on designer brands because they didn’t need to show off. Bill Gates, who has been the richest man in the world for the better part of two decades was famous for flying coach. Why would a man who has billions need to count the pennies? I believe its because Mr. Gates is aware that the value of the extra comfort between coach and first isn’t worth all that money (I, on the other hand dream of flying in Ethihad’s Residences, which costs around $40,000 – my sister then put me down to earth by reminding me that I’d arrive at the destination in the same time as the chaps who flew coach.).

 Another billionaire who made a point of protecting his wealth, was the infamous Jean-Paul Getty, who installed a pay phone in his house because he noticed that his guests were using his phone to make prohibitively expensive calls at his expense – his logic was simple – I may be rich but there’s no reason for you to get a free ride. The late Mr. Getty also made it a point to remind the world that he never married his five wives, they married him or at least they hopped they were marrying his money.

You could argue that not every rich person is smart with money. You could argue that I am only talking about those who had to work for it and got scorched along the way. One only has to read gossip mags to know about the way the young brats spend inherited fortunes. 

However, even then, it’s tough to “cheat” the rich in as much as even if the said rich person is an idiot, he or she will have someone out there willing to protect him or her from the world’s scoundrels. To get access to the well to do is a challenge.

Then, there’s what I call the “Beauty Parade” syndrome. Like it or not, the rich become automatically very attractive, especially to the world’s top most sales people. 

As every “hot chick” will testify to, when every guy drool over you, you get to pick and choose. I remember the former head of SAGIA (Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority) in Asia Pacific telling me that the problem with getting Singaporean investors was the fact that they were used to dealing in countries that were desperate for investment. As he said, “With us, the Americans and Europeans are knocking at our doors.” He’s right, despite the brutality of the Jamal Khashoggi killing, the Saudi Government remains very aware that if the Russians and Chinese are more than happy to fill the gap if the Europeans stop selling them arms. 

If one takes the analogy of Dr. Lim and the Sultan of Brunei as an example, it’s very clear that Dr. Lim wasn’t selected stupidly. When the Brunei Royal Family says they need a doctor, every respectable medical institution in the world will fly over and offer what they believe will swing the deal in your favour – which hospital wouldn’t want to claim that they were chosen by the Sultan of Brunei?

Then there’s the fear factor. Money, as they say, often buys power. Money combined with influence means that people have an urge to be good to you, if anything, its for the fear of being crushed by you. Money can buy very good lawyers. Money can buy muscle of the illegal sort.

I’m not saying that you can’t cheat rich people as the very existence of Bernie Madoff will attest to. Nor, do I subscribe to the philosophy that you should cheat the rich. “Cheating” as they say is one of those things that has a way of biting you back both in the legal and cosmic sense. 

What I will say is that “Warren Buffet” is correct when he says that people like him don’t need protection from the government or extra laws to help them get buy. 

I’d also ad the caveat that working to become rich is a worthwhile exercise in that it will probably train your mind and character in very unique ways. Some of the richest people I’ve known have this incredible way of being above the “hype” that the rest of society likes to inflict. That is a priceless ability and all the other trappings are nice too. 

The Nature of Wealth as Expressed by Vagabond.

I am hardly wealthy. I admit to the fact that I’m often struggling to find my next meal and now that the Evil Teen has become an adult, it’s been a challenge to make the pennies stretch.

However, while I’ve not made money, I’ve had my successes and I attribute my successes to the privilege of being known by successful people (I work on the adage that it’s the people who know me that count rather than the people I know – because I know everybody). I’ve often mentioned that I’ve had the good fortune to be guided by the likes of PN Balji, former CEO and founding Editor of the Today newspaper and I’ve also had the good fortune to work with the likes of former Saudi Ambassador to Singapore, Dr. Amin Kurdi and Girija Pande, former Asia-Pacific CEO of Tata Consultancy Services, who once told me, “Just make it happen, you’re as good as any of us.” (He was referring to a host of Indian Institutes of Management Alumni who happened to have exceedingly successful careers.)

So, while I am by no means wealthy and I do not have a “career” in the conventional success, I can be deemed successful in as much as successful people have been willing to associate with me. Success, as they say is contagious. In every study of wealth and the wealthy, one common feature stands out – successful people inevitably hang out with people who are equally so. Think of today’s great genuine friendship between Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who come from different generations and very different industries (Buffet famously did not invest in technology companies during the dot com boom of the early 2000s, while Gates built the technology industry making software rather than hardware the focus.) Li-Ka Shing, Hong Kong’s famous “Superman” and for many years, the richest person of Chinese descent, advised the up and coming to spend money on lunch with someone more successful.

A while back, I once tried to list down the wealthiest person I knew of every ethnic group to see if I could gain a greater insight into what makes people of a certain wealth level what they are and whether there were any particular industries that were good for making fortunes.

While, I can’t come up with any ground-breaking theories that haven’t been bandied about before, I think one of the greatest factors is the willingness to try new things and new places and to do things differently. The examples I have are as follows:

Hans Hofer, the founder of Insight Guides. Mr. Hofer left Germany in the 60s and moved to Bali. He fell in love with the island and felt the urge to share the beauty of the island with the world. He convinced the General Manager of the Intercontinental Hotel to back him up in producing a guide book with coloured photos, something which until then didn’t exist. Insight Guides grew into a publishing empire turning over some S$25 million a year and then Mr. Hofer was bought out by Langenscheidt KG.

Mr. Hofer’s story is remarkable in the sense that it combines the concept of being far away from home but also being close to home. The place that gave him the seed for his money was Bali, many miles away from his native Germany. Mr. Hofer’s success was built entirely in Asia.

Yet, at the same time, Mr. Hofer has never forgotten the German community. I got to know this when I asked him who gave him his first break. He made the point that the General Manager of the Intercontinental was a German. You could say, the take away from Mr. Hofer’s story is that you should be willing to travel the world and seek adventure beyond your home shores but never forget your people so to speak.

I also think of Patrick Grove, the CEO of Catha Group. Mr. Grove, who is one year my junior, went to work at Arthur Anderson in their corporate finance division. He’s said that he needed to assure his parents that he would get a proper job for at least two-years. Once that two-year period ended, Mr. Grove went out, searching for bright ideas he could bring to this part of the world and the success of Catha Group is based on the diversity of industries like selling cars, selling entertainment and classified.

The take away from Mr. Grove would be thus – don’t be a prisoner of your professional background or education. Use the skills you learn from those experiences but don’t be afraid to look at other areas and how you can do something in areas that aren’t officially yours.

The other story that’s worth mentioning is that of Arun Jain, the founder of Intellect Design Arena Limited, and former Chairman of Polaris Consulting, a company which he eventually sold to Virtusa Limited. Mr. Jain had the good fortune to get a “US” Green card, where he could have worked as one of the many middle-class Indians who have benefited from the outsourcing bug that many companies caught in the 1990s. Yet, Mr. Jain decided that he could build something out of India and gave up the prized Green Card. One of Mr. Jain’s founding employees told me, “that man could dream and he could get things done.” Instead of talking about trying to pay the mortgage and other middle-class worries, Mr. Jain has the pleasure of focusing on how to bring technology to benefit the masses, all because he was able to break out of the common mold that working in the USA as a programmer would be his path to success, which is what the Indian IT industry has been based on.

Not everyone with the entrepreneurial bug is successful but as the three men I’ve mentioned earlier show, setting your mind free can be a liberating and even financially rewarding experience.

Of Trolls and Vigilanteh

By Marc Bakker

Marketing Director of Right Hook Communications Pte Ltd 

Hawkers have been a hot topic in 2018. The attention is showing no signs of fading with experts coming forward regularly to add their insights, which is healthy and informative when dealing with a complicated topic, especially one which touches on sensitive issues like people’s livelihood, affordable food, nutrition, exploitative contracts, etc.

Unfortunately, as with most heated issues, this is an environment that also attracts trolls and agitators, often anonymous, who muddy the waters either intentionally or by accident. This is much less healthy and with fake news also being a hot topic in 2018, this is a good time to take a closer look at the real damage that these kinds of agents can cause. In particular let’s shine the light on an incident that happened just this week that involved my business partner and exposes a U-turn of breath-taking proportions.

In the Defense of Hawkers

Last week KF Seetoh of Makan Sutra fame, made the headlines by exposing what appear to be exploitative contracts from Social Enterprise Hawker Centres (SEHC) that unfairly penalise hawkers. KF Seetoh is a long-time and vocal defender of hawkers and hawker culture. This is pretty much public knowledge, so his contribution to the debate was no surprise.

What was surprising was a post, now deleted, by the folks at SMRT Feedback by the Vigilanteh accusing KF Seetoh of being a hypocrite since he also runs a hawker centre.

This was out of character for the well-known troll page that over the years built up a reputation for sticking up for the little guy and speaking truth to power. Needless to say, the backlash was swift and brutal, as is often the case on social media. What happened next is very much a perfect example of what not to do when you mess up online.

How not to Internet

The main gist of the backlash was that the group was comparing publicly funded SEHCs with a for profit organisation. My business partner was one of the many critics. Ultimately the group took the post down, replaced it with a half apology then edited that post and yesterday took it down again as if the entire sorry saga never happened. There’s too much to go into in terms of the specifics, but for those who want to know more, this is a pretty good summary of what went down (http://theindependent.sg/smrt-feedback-recoils-backlash-deletes-post-criticising-food-guru-k-f-seetoh-evokes-lky-to-apologise-clears-post-and-throws-previous-admin-under-the-bus/).

In a nutshell, things went off the rails very quickly. Let’s have a quick look at some of the communications/PR sins committed:

1.      Personal attacks: rather than address the criticism head on and defend their position, the first response was to personally attack the critics. For example, in the case of my business partner, they belittled him as a failed business person, which isn’t even true. We’re doing quite well thank you very much. Another critic was lambasted for being the ex-founder of the Middle Ground, an online media outlet that closed its doors this year.

2.      I’m right because I make more money than you: the group then took things a step further and started boasting about their financial backing as if being wealthy is the same thing as being right.

3.      Deleting posts: deleting posts from people who disagree with you is a pretty basic mistake and for a group that, in their own words, has “regular client work in the marcomm field” it’s particularly puzzling.

4.      Banning readers: Full disclosure, I was one of the people banned from their page, which is puzzling because I hadn’t contributed to the discussion beyond liking a few posts. I have no issue with banning abusive profiles, but when you insult someone’s company and then ban them before they have a chance to defend themselves, that’s weak.

5.      Appropriating content: The only post remaining on their Facebook page on this whole saga is basically coming full circle and, like KF Seetoh did, expose a seemingly abusive contract that they “received today”. The problem? The exact same document was already exposed by All Singapore Stuff in 2016. Maybe someone did send it to them that day, but even the most basic google search would immediately tell them that this was old news and hardly a scoop.  

The U-turn

To add insult to injury, soon after the original post was deleted, the group did a complete 180 and put out a post which basically mirrored KF Seetoh’s suggestions. With the sordid history deleted, media outlets like Yahoo News and Coconuts even covered the story as if SMRT Feedback and KF Seetoh had been on the same side all along.

Where it gets Sinister

So how does a legendary troll site end up not only get on the wrong side of the “little guy”, but mess up so badly in handling the predictable backlash to the point where they need to pretend it never happened?

Well, as it turns out the Vigilanteh isn’t the Vigilanteh anymore. The original owner sold the site to a nameless company some time in 2016. So all those feel-good “little guy sticks it to the man” stories? That’s the old guard. These are not the same fellas, they’re usurpers using the good name and reputation of a genuine folk hero for purposes that are not altogether clear.

There is a deeper issue coming out of this minor Internet squabble and that is the question of responsibility and accountability. There’s nothing wrong with being a troll site and we all love our edutainment, our memes, our snarky posts and clap backs. It’s all fun and games until suddenly it isn’t. Sites like SMRT Feedback walk a tight rope between fun and entertainment and getting involved with serious public discourse. Currently these agents are not accountable to anyone. And what happens, like in this case, when the ownership of a site changes hands and the Robin Hood turns out to be in cahoots with the Sheriff of Nottingham?

It’s like Johnny Depp’s Ichabod Crane said in Sleepy Hollow: “Villainy wears many masks, but none so evil as that of virtue”.

377A Doesn't Show We Are a Conservative Society - It Show's We Don't Know Being a Bigot is Bad for Business

By Mr. Mark Goh Aik Leng
Founder and Managing Director of Vanilla Law LLC

The decriminalisation of gay sex between two consenting adult men once again surfaces as a hot-button topic of discussion across the nation after India struck down their Section 377 and Professor Tommy Koh asked the gay community to challenge our own Section 377A again. Since then there have been opinions from religious leaders in Singapore, a new constitutional challenge filed, extensive arguments by former Attorney Generals and a town hall held to rally individuals to speak to their Members of Parliament.

Here at VanillaLaw LLC, our stand is clear – inclusion and diversity is of utmost importance when it comes to creating a workplace environment that is safe, welcoming and ideal for, well, work. No employee can possibly function well if they feel that they have to hide who they are, watch their mannerisms, watch what they say, etc. Can you imagine having to work in a place where your most constant thought is, “I better make sure not to reveal that I am gay because my colleagues and bosses do not like gay people.”? In our community, it’s more important to be open-minded, respectful and willing to have open discussions about our differences.

On the human resources front, diversity and inclusion efforts specifically work to combat any form of discrimination due to gender, age, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, marital status and disability. A 2018 study shows that while things are improving, more still needs to be done. Workplace discrimination disregards a person’s talents, experiences and skills, which from an employer’s perspective, is human resource suicide. There have been companies that have been boycotted by whole segments of their client base because of open discrimination from the company and/or its leaders on specific sensitive issues.

On the legal front, it is interesting to note that there is no specific part of the Employment Act that actively protects against discriminatory practices. However, the local Ministry of Manpower (MOM) refers to the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TAFEP) when it comes to employment discrimination. If any employee experiences employment discrimination, they can contact TAFEP for help. At this stage, the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) is a possible avenue to see redress. If an employer is “recalcitrant, unresponsive, or persistently fails to improve their employment practices”, TAFEP will refer the case to MOM for further investigation. After the investigation, if the employer is found to have engaged in discriminatory practices, MOM will take the appropriate actions to curtail his/her work pass privileges, with the period of curtailment varying depending on the severity of the case. Read more about it here.

In spite of the above measures that are in place, if we were to look more critically at the realities of the law, two glaring points stand out – a) TAFEP is only consultative and seeks parties to mediate, b) there are presently no specific anti-discrimination law, which makes us wonder if MOM actually has any power to persecute, let alone investigate companies.

At the end of the day, we seek to encourage all employers to implement anti-discrimination policies. These could be in employee handbook or in the terms in the employment agreement.  Business owners should think carefully for themselves about the kind of work environment they want to operate in. Always ask yourself, what is truly best for your business and the people working with and for you?