The Usual Place

Should you secretly record your workplace meetings, even if it’s legally allowed? A recent case, where a PR firm director was fired after secretly recording an internal meeting, has brought into focus the issue of how employees can document such meetings without putting their jobs at risk. Also, should employment contracts now spell out the rules on recording conversations? The director brou...

Would you eat 2kg of durian in one go to sell a batch of the fruit? How about yapping for eight hours straight to hit your sales numbers? Live-streaming is booming, and for some, it looks like an easy gig with easy money. But seasoned live-sellers say the market is saturated and only the top sellers get high commissions. In this episode of The Usual Place, Natasha chats with social media personali...

Singapore’s Transboundary Haze Pollution Act (THPA) has been criticised for being toothless, but is that criticism fair? And if the anti-haze law is not working, can Singapore take Indonesia to the International Court of Justice? As Singapore finds ways to tackle its worst haze crisis in over a decade, Scott Tan, a partner in the International Arbitration practice of Rajah & Tann, says d...

In the first two months after the Online Safety Commission (OSC) started operations, the agency handled more than 500 reports of online harms. Doxing and online harassment made up the bulk of eligible reports. The OSC is a new avenue - it launched on June 29 - that helps victims by compelling platforms and group administrators to remove harmful content quickly. Can the OSC make the internet a safe...

Will COE prices for cars fall if there is just one COE category for cars, with a tiered surcharge or rebate depending on the vehicle’s open market value? These are some changes that the Land Transport Authority (LTA) proposed on Oct 8, as part of a review of the COE system. This comes as the gap between Category A and B premiums has narrowed, making the distinction between mass-market and hi...

Parents have long complained that the education system in Singapore is too stressful for children. To address their concerns, the Ministry of Education has made policy changes over the years, including scrapping PSLE T-scores and removing weighted assessments and examinations at certain levels. But have these measures worked? A recent survey by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) showed that par...

Will AI eventually be able to kill us, or are AI doomsayers being alarmist? Recently, employees at AI frontier companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have voiced serious concerns - and made doomsday predictions - about the technology getting out of control. What made people pay attention: Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon publicly quit the AI giant in September, writing on X that “the people bui...

If you’re a customer with a pre-paid package with a business and it closes, will you ever get your money back? True Fitness and True Yoga customers and employees were left in the lurch last week after the businesses shuttered. Many have unused memberships, packages and services, and members have reported losses of more than $609,000. And it’s not just gyms. Prepayment packages are comm...

Will the increase in ministerial salaries cost the People’s Action Party (PAP) votes at the next General Election? On Sept 8, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced that political office-holders will get a one-off pay increase of up to 9 per cent. This will take effect from Oct 15 - an entry-level grade MR4 minister getting the full adjustment will see his annual pay rise from $1.1 million t...

If you own a private condominium unit and are looking to downgrade, or a family considering buying a BTO flat, the two recent housing policy changes would have brought some relief. In July, the 15-month wait-out period for private residential property owners who want to buy a non-subsidised HDB resale flat was lifted. In his National Day Rally speech, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced that th...

If you’ve been thinking about having kids, last night’s National Day Rally might have given you something to rally about. Parents - and those who are considering having children - were the focus of PM Wong’s address on August 23. In a nutshell, parents will get more help: more childcare leave and financial support, along with lower pre-school fees and more ballot chances when buy...

What kind of involvement do Singaporeans want in policymaking? The Maju Forest-Gillman Barracks issue has seen Singaporeans making their voices heard, offering counter-proposals, and demanding more transparency from the Government. This isn’t the first time Singaporeans have made their views known - remember issues including the Dear You bilingual policy debate, the SimplyGo roll out, and th...

Would you read regularly if you were paid to do so? The National Library Board (NLB) is hoping that people will develop  a consistent reading habit by giving readers virtual coins  that can eventually be exchanged for cash. They need to spend at least 15 minutes on the activity each day. But why does the library have to incentivise us to read for fun? What do we lose when we no longer re...

Millennials are the generation that changed the conversation around mental health. They normalised mental health talk, encouraged self-care and made going to therapy less taboo. So what caused the 50 per cent jump in suicide deaths among adults in their 30s in 2024? Recently released data from the annual report on registration of births and deaths by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority showe...

Will the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link sound the death knell for smaller, home-grown businesses when it opens in a few months? A new study, which was released on July 16, highlighted how Singaporeans are slated to spend $1.05 billion more across the Causeway in 2027. But visitors from the other side aren’t expected to send as much business our...

It has been quite a week in Singapore politics, with adjustments to the Cabinet line-up and the surprise resignation of Acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Faishal Ibrahim. In this episode, Natasha takes a deep dive into the implications of blooding younger politicians such as Jasmin Lau into the Cabinet and junior ministerial roles now, and if the PAP’s high moral standards will cos...

Should young job seekers start their careers with contract roles? With stiff competition for full-time roles, a tight job market and employers being more selective about new permanent hires, perhaps contract roles shouldn’t be off the table. In Singapore, such roles have become more common over the past few years. What can young people do to build their careers? Also, is contract work truly...

Are Singapore’s lawyers doing ok? The Legal Profession Sustainability Study, which was released on June 23, suggests that lawyers were leaving the profession because of toxic bosses, inflexible court timelines, punishing deadlines and the constant need to be available 24/7. These are just some of the grievances aired in the study, which had 31 in-depth interviews with former judges, legal ac...

Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh fobbed off talk that he would face a challenge to his position at the party’s proceedings on June 28. The results from the party’s internal meetings showed that most party members are still very much behind him. What does this mean for the WP, and has the party turned the page on the saga involving Raeesah Khan? In this episode, I chat with Tham...

The Chinese film Dear You, shot almost entirely in Teochew, is not only a box office hit - it has ignited intense debate among Chinese Singaporeans. From film-makers to politicians, many people have weighed in on the authorities’ decision to limit screenings of the Teochew version, and instead have a wider general release for the Mandarin-dubbed version. The Infocomm Media Development Author...

Independent content creators in China are making online posts disparaging Singapore, its politicians and minorities. The latter, in particular, has made the authorities here concerned enough to  block access to 14 online posts earlier in June,  which targeted the Indian community and contained inflammatory narratives about Singapore’s cultural diversity. If the content isn’t...

A recent Straits Times survey of 1,000 unmarried people explained why the dating scene is so bleak: it’s hard to meet new people, dating can be expensive and there are unrealistic expectations of love and relationships. In this episode, Natasha chats with: • Liu Zhiqun, co-founder of Kopi Date, a dating platform that curates one-on-one coffee dates, and • Dr Kenneth Tan,...

Do fathers in Singapore get a bad reputation for being hands-off? Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah, who chairs the new Marriage and Parenthood Reset Workgroup, drew some flak for speaking about career “detours” as something that should be normalised for mothers - with little mention of a fathers’ role in the parenting journey. Why do we frame the paren...

Will a new bystander campaign by the police get more people to speak up for victims for molest and voyeurism? In this episode of The Usual Place, I chat with Ms Lim Shoon Yin, the executive director of Singapore women’s rights group Aware, about what holds bystanders back and what they can do. Also on the podcast is Dr Julia Lam, a forensic psychologist, who assesses people who have committe...

By 2027, every school will have to follow standard disciplinary measures such as detention and conduct grade adjustment for different types of misbehaviour. But the measure that divided parents, teachers and parliamentarians was that bullies can get up to three strokes of the cane. Caning in schools is not new, so why were so many people upset that school bullies will be caned? In this episode of...