Not easy being a freelancer on Upwork

Upwork is a good place to find and bid for jobs with constant offers. But to win the bid, you have to pass tests like programming in constructive C, Ruby on Rails, PHP, etc. if you are looking for programming jobs. Well, I failed my writing jobs in the past due to mistakes made. There are a lot of people needing Shopify and web or mobile development projects and this pays handsomely. I have partnered with a younger brother who's a computer science graduate and we are working together, hopefully for a long time to come. I have other projects that I might need his help, but so far, he has not accepted any for paid ones from me. And Upwork takes 20% of the commissions that you earn. If you bid for $300 job, $60 goes to Upwork, leaving you with only $240 !

Working from Home is Good

I have been blessed to work from home in the last 14+ years. And the benefits are good too - with medical benefits, EPF, SOCSO, free meals daily, paying of utilities and rental of the unit to the company. This is all possible because my boss used my name to open up an enterprise company and while he helmed the SME, I did all the computer, secretarial and admin work besides updating the website that brings in 90% of the business. Some particular 2nd sister-in-law is very jealous as I did not help her daughter in computers and employ her, but hey, I did not go to university for free either. I had to pay through my nose for the exorbitant fees and slowly pay back the student loan that I took month by month. My parents did not help me as much as my younger sisters where they had excess money to tour Europe and USA as a gift for graduating!

Planning to go to Dubai next year with someone special

Now I got bitten by the travel bug. I hope to travel to Dubai via Emirates with someone special and this time really enjoy my trip. Youngest sister was too bossy for my own good. Besides, I missed the helicopter ride just because dad poured cold water to my plans and brainwash youngest sister that it was dangerous to fly in a helicopter! What utter rubbish! The weather was excellent and well, I just missed the opportunity. Sister was supposed to pay for me, but somehow my parents rather she used the money to buy vitamins for them instead!

My youngest sister is going to China

My youngest sister will be going to Fuchou, China from Penang and transit in Hong Kong before flying to the destination. She will be there for 1 week for work together with her colleagues of about 6 of them. She is a very capable manager, able to play 'tai chi' and survive the office politics and manage people well. She is also busy attending weddings and friend's parent's funerals. Being a lector in her church, she is comfortable with public speaking and reading out the scriptures. Thereafter, we both will travel to New Zealand for holidays from 14th to 24th December 2017. Later on, after dinner, I will do the company work and then continue writing for Writer Bay which has so many assignments.

Might travel to KL tomorrow

I am happy working in my home office small office or abbreviated as SOHO. Early tomorrow morning, I might just follow my colleague to Rawang for a meeting and then he will drive back the same day at night thereafter. It is very rushed, but he has a lot of logistics and planning to do in Penang. There's going to be a new job that requires Autocad drawings of the various courts for the client, a PhD holder to view before he approves the project. Apparently, he is the head honcho for the private school. Later, on I shall go back to my parents' home to pass the RM 438 for the car maintenance of Myvi that dad drives. Very soon, it is monthly allowance giving the first of every month!

The retirement conundrum

NEXT year, about 100,000 workers who should have retired at 55 in the second-half of 2013 will finally leave the workforce at 60 years old.

In other words, after a period of five years where zero mandatory retirements took place – within the private sector at least – we will have some 100,000 workers leaving their jobs.

Recall, within the private sector, the retirement age was upped to 60 from 55 in 2013, when the Minimum Retirement Age Act kicked in.

Within the civil service, the minimum retirement age in the government service was increased gradually, from 55 to 56 in 2001, 58 in 2008 and eventually to 60 in 2012.

Exactly, what kind of implications can be expected from the sudden influx of retirees? Equally important, what are some of the measures that can be taken to mitigate the negative impact, if any?

Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan says firstly, this will result in the re-opening of the replacement market, which has not been available in the last five years – but only to a certain extent.
“Every year, there are about 200,000 new graduates entering the job market with another 300,000 school leavers also entering the workforce, but this (retirees leaving their jobs) may not necessarily translate into increasing chances of these graduates getting jobs.

“Companies have become very careful in hiring now, and they may not fill up the positions (that the retirees will leave vacant) due to the prevailing weak economic conditions,” Shamsuddin tells StarBizWeek.

Will this affect productivity?

Yeah Kim Leng, a professor of economics at Sunway University Business School, says whether or not productivity will be affected is more company-specific than anything else.

“Companies will need to weigh out the cost versus benefit in their hiring decisions,” he says.

Having said that, it is difficult to quantify intangible costs and benefits.

The current unemployment rate in Malaysia stands at about 3.5%, translating to about 600,000 people being unemployed.

“The question is whether the retirees have enough retirement savings,” Yeah says.

To be sure, although the mandatory retirement is at 60, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) withdrawal is still maintained at 55.

“What this (ageing population) could also mean is that the dependency ratio, which measures the number of dependants one has, will start to increase and on a macro level, this could pose a greater burden on the overall economy.”

According to Yeah’s back of the envelope calculations, to retire comfortably in the Klang Valley, one would need about RM5,000 a month, RM60,000 year or a total of RM1.2mil just for living expenses, assuming one life to about 80 years old. This is also on the assumption that there are no more debts to be serviced.

“If the lower-income people under the B40 category can move toward the middle-income group (M40), the financial burden of those who are being depended on will lessen as time goes by.”

According to Socio Economic Research Centre executive director Lee Heng Guie, the demographic shift towards a higher proportion of the ageing population which he describes as “unprecedented”, threatens to impact productivity, economic output and economic welfare which requires a social, political and economic change at all levels.

Firstly, the vast numbers of experienced workers who retire from the labour force will cause capital to become scarce and result in reduced savings in pension funds, Lee says.

However, Sunway’s Yeah says that pension funds like the EPF already have surplus savings, which means that this is hardly an issue.

My TAT Test Results

Just click on the TAT test above to see my score more clearly that I just took this morning. It was taken from this link >> http://www.utpsyc.org/TATintro/LIWCTATresults.php. It is a Psychology and Language: Projective test:

Based on the image given in the link above, below is my article written for 10 minutes straight:

There are 2 ladies in a chemistry lab. One of them is observing while the other is filling a set of beakers with liquid from a pipette. They are wearing the standard white lab coats as in any chemistry lab. The lady doing the test has to be careful with the measurements to an accurate test.

The chemical compound could be hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid or even alkaline with Ph reading of more than 7 while acids have Ph readings of less than 7. The lower the reading, the more acidic and caustic the compound. The highest alkaline reading is Ph 14.

The lady observing is probably a student learning from her teacher or mentor in chemistry. Chemical engineering is a much sought after work and employment. Though there are not many chemistry graduates, it is a much sought after profession to do research and test out new products in a lab. New foods, ester, flavourings, and the like are discovered by chemical scientists with constant testing in a chemistry lab with different compounds.

Women tend to be more cautious and careful in their readings and their patience makes them suitable for lab testing and chemical research. One has to work alone most of the time and this is suitable for meticulous research assistants without any political struggles, unlike an office.

Need to write some articles later

I installed a free software to check for spellings, grammar, etc as I write and type on the go. It is a very useful tool to use and increases credibility and probability to get hired for writing articles as a higher pay. Otherwise, all your mistakes will show up and no writing is perfect without using this technology. My second sister had recommended me to install this software before, but I procrastinated then. Having installed it successfully, it has helped in my writing by leaps and bounds. And I am thankful for this little tip to help improve my writing to another level! There are many graduates working as freelance writers, such as yours truly on a part-time basis, whenever I am free and in the mood to write