I was pissed off last Friday the 28th of July 2023. I was pissed with project team members’ attitudes and how others work without aligning the communication and start to send emails to the entire world. This project guy sent me an email “My operational risk governs over your financial risk.” Are you telling me your balls are bigger than mine? Do I need to take your words as the bible and kowtow to your bull shit?
Why FIRE is good in this instance?
There are bound to be shitty colleagues, and bosses who fail to pass you for promotion or the increment that you are looking for. This is why the pursuit of FIRE is great. I need to emphasize that you do not need the “RE” portion and can continue to work on things that you find purpose with.
With the progress of FIRE, you will have more courage to speak up at work. My wife shared with me this fact recently, she has evolved to speak up more at work to her management. It may not be things that they like to listen to and she will just share it openly. We Asians tend to be accommodating and not speak up about what we truly feel and we will like to encourage you to always tell our counterparties what we think is correct. Do not worry about making mistakes, you can always correct them. If you get fired for speaking up, then this company is not the right one for you. Ok, unless you need the funds to build your FIRE plan, then continue to work quietly but hatch a plan to get out of the toxic place.
When you are pursuing FIRE, you can take on more risk at work. This means you can raise your hands up to do more at work without fear and holding back. This may indirectly help you to be seen as someone that is valuable in the workplace. You do not need to work more hours but spend your working hours on high-value things. If you spend 8 hours pursuing high-value projects at work compare to someone spending 8 hours sending emails to look busy, who will get the promotion? Who will get the pay increment? Who will get the next opportunity? You get the gist.
One other thing while pursuing FIRE, we can still be nice and humble but we hope that people do not take us for granted. We can tell people off nicely and remain professional. You will know there’s nothing to hold you back to tell people off. You can ringfence your territory and never allow others to cross that line.
What we are doing?
Whenever we face shitty situations like this, we do not rush out to quit. We are not quitters. We learn from things and become better. We tend to take revenge by investing more. We decided to reduce the cash proceeds from selling our HDB flat.
We bought the following shares in July 2023 on impulse:
- 100,000 shares of BOC (3988.HK) at HKD 2.8/share
- 80,000 shares of ICBC (1398.HK) at HKD 3.62/share
- 60,000 shares of CCB (939.HK) at HKD 4.3/share
- 20,000 shares of MXNU.SI at GBP 0.29/share
- 20,000 shares of CMOU.SI at USB 0.335/share (we buy up)
We want to acquire more shares in businesses that pay dividends to pave our way out of corporate life if we choose to do. Meanwhile, my wife is pursuing her side hustle and seeing that there’s room to convert it into a full-time business. I am excited for her! Onwards with our FIRE journey! You should embark on this journey to pursue Financial Independence maybe without Retire Early.
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