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Miserable
Workers Part 1 of 3
14 APR 08
After
years of droning in Secondary School learning about Parameswara,
3 years of blood-sucking Art College and 2 and half years of time-wasting
NS, I was psyche to join the workforce and finally earn some MONEY!
The first thing I noticed when rummaging through the classifieds
is the number of racist ads. You don’t know how it feels when
you get so excited about a job because you met all the requirements
but to your dismay, you read a line that says “Mandarin Speaking
only.” I know this is a smoke screen but I will not elaborate
on that. |
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But
anyway, after going for a couple interviews and a month or so,
I got a job as a Visualiser at Ubi Ave. The job requires me to
come up with ideas and draw them ideas on a piece of paper, color
using Copic markers and show them to customers. It was a dream
job and I’m glad I got it.
By
this dream was fast becoming a nightmare because by day one I
was already going home as late as 7pm. And yes, without OT pay.
I thought that perhaps, it’s a peak period and it will be
over soon.. but it was the same every freaking day. And to drive
morale really low, only the Design Department gotta stay late.
Other workers, from sales, to production can go home on time.
My senior designer did mentioned to my boss about how exhausted
the team was and told him to solve this lack of manpower issue.
His response…
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Another
annoying thing that he did was to appease us by buying bread
and buns for dinner/supper/snacks. Mind you, this guy drives
a luxury car but can’t afford to give us a courtesy dinner
at $3.50 each. He would take some minutes proclaiming how good
the Gardenia bread is while we are working before he left for
the night. I know.. Ngiao would be an understatement.
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Soon
the workload got so bad that all of the designers have to sleep
in the office. Now I know how child labourers feels like. The
head designer would fall back in and out of sleep as he was
trying to design a banner for Deepavali. Another guy was drooling
on his desk, smudging his perspective drawing at the same time.
I would just cry myself to sleep on sofa that smell like feet.
Oh
well, I was naïve back then because it was my first job.
I will NOT stand for such working conditions anymore now and
I suggest you don’t too. I stayed for 3 months and the
straw that break the camels back was when, one morning, as I
was ready to grab my toothbrush and head to the Company’s
toilet, a guy from Sales told me whether I heard the news. I
said..
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Yup,
it was Sept 11 and I could only see the images of the planes hitting
the building only later that night on Sept 12. That was a wake
up call for me. Here we were, all cooped up in a dingy factory
office trying to draw stick figures for some customer and we are
totally oblivious of what is happening outside. Aliens could have
invaded Singapore and we will be last to know. A huge fire might
have engulfed the whole of Boon Lay and we will be the last to
know. An army of intergalactic army ants.. well you get what I
mean. |
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With
that, I tendered my resignation and I’m glad. But soon without
elaborating much, I had the opportunity to work as a graphic designer
in the US. In my next blog entry, I will share with you my experience
working there and how the US Ang moh system treat its workers.
This
is gonna get interesting,
Evil Bunny |
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