'Ang moh' gives 'exit interview' about living here: S'pore is great but your drivers are a**holes, influencers are awful

When you leave your job, most of the time you are subject to an exit interview so the company can understand what you think of the company and why you are leaving.

A foreigner who has lived in Singapore for over four years decided to conduct his own 'exit interview' on Reddit and share what he really thinks about our little red dot.

Prior to revealing his true thoughts and experiences, he gave some background information of himself.

He described himself as an 'ang moh' who worked in management and was earning a local salary (i.e. no expat package) and has also lived and travelled to several other countries in Europe, Africa and Asia over the past six years.

Let's start with what he loves about Singapore.

THE GOOD

• You have some incredible parks and nature here

• It's so clean here!

• It's so safe here!

• Your public transport is amazing. Anybody here complaining about it needs to spend some time in a western country to see how good you have it.

• Yes it's bloody hot, but summer all the time is great.

• The ice-cream sandwich uncles! Yam flavour!

• In my experience, your police, immigration, security officers, government workers, etc. were all really kind, professional, respectful, and amazing to deal with.

• Changi Airport... holy s**t this is a national treasure. I'm sure after the next part you'll dislike me and that's fine, but if you take one thing from this: Please SG, teach the rest of the world the secrets of your airport mastery because nobody else can do it like you.

THE BAD

• Obligatory: Rent here is damn expensive! Also, your property industry has some pretty slimy agents.

• Alcohol prices are obscene, and the bar/club scene is quite pathetic for a city of this size. My guess is this is part of the reason many visitors consider Singapore boring.

• Aside from some nice Indian/Muslim options, hawker centre food here is way overrated. It's really oily and bland, usually loaded with sugar, salt or MSG to try and compensate, and just overall unhealthy and not very nice. *ducks*

• Speaking of pop culture, your media and especially blogger, YouTube personalities, and so-called "influencers" take "cringe" to a whole other level... I mean, these people are usually awful everywhere, but here it's like a poor man's copy of the awfulness.

• I'm not sure if Singaporeans are "cold", but I'll say this: I have lived in numerous countries around the world and this is the only place I've lived that I haven't made a single local friend (and interestingly enough, SG is the only other place besides my home country with English as an official language.)

• My god people here walk annoyingly slow and stare at their phones a lot... I mean, people in other countries do too but here it is almost comical. This wouldn't be a problem but so many here are oblivious or just don't give a shit about anybody else around them, and always walk in the centre making it difficult to walk around them. Ugh just move to the side if your phone keeps you from walking a normal pace.

• Most of your drivers are complete a**holes. I've never seen such entitled motorists anywhere else in the developed world. I guess when you pay 3x the value for a car, you can't help but feel like a king that deserves more respect than pedestrians (peasants).

• As a coffee lover, I've never seen a large city with such poor cafes: most are expensive, crowded, and uncomfortable. There is nothing relaxing about hanging out in a cafe here at all. And while I enjoy kopi for what it is, sorry - it is not coffee. *ducks*

• I'm sure it's been effective, but maybe tone down the flood of service announcements dictating acceptable public behaviour? That said, Bag-Down Benny makes me lol every time I see him.

• Business culture here is... challenging. I work in management and virtually all of the local companies/clients/stakeholders I've dealt with take weeks/months to make a decision. Worse, they are extremely cheap yet expect world-class design and development. In my experience, 9 out of 10 times rather than pay a local price or hire Singaporean teams, they will outsource to developing countries (or use a local agency/middleman that outsources to them) for a fraction of the cost. They end up with garbage, and wonder why their website/design looks like it was developed in the 1990s, rather than the gorgeous and modern Silicon Valley design they envisioned. They abandon it and move on to the next idea. Rinse, repeat.

• The mental gymnastics some of you go through to justify your borderline slave labour... come on. I mean, yes, by all means CONGRATS that you are not Qatar or Saudi Arabia in your treatment of foreign workers, but I think deep down you know SG is better than this.

CONCLUSION

Enjoyed my time here, but also happy to move on. After writing this the criticisms are more, but only because Singapore does so much so well that there is a lot of good that probably just went under my radar.

Although there are some points we have to agree with (drivers from hell), there are also others that affront us (how dare he criticise our FOOD).

However, despite his criticisms, he seemed to have genuinely liked living here while he did.

What do you think?