It was a fine afternoon on the fourth floor in one of the towers of Singapore’s largest banks.

Like any other work day, it was the constant sound of keyboards clicking away that mostly permeated the office. The floor’s occupant, a majority of which were external partners working on projects for the financial institution, could be occasionally heard talking in near whispers. Every now and then the phones would ring, their sound intentionally rendered as soft hums, followed by more whispering when they get picked up. Guests coming out of the elevators, speaking in loud voices as they get carried away by their ongoing conversations, were sure to catch everyone’s attention.

So you can imagine it was quite a scene when, at two in the afternoon, a small, previously invisible, bespectacled lady erupted from her quiet little corner.

“What?!?!”

The single word uttered slightly louder than the normal conversational voice made everyone turn their heads to discover she was speaking to someone on the phone.

“What do you mean I’m unfair?”

This came out even louder. The sound of keystrokes from the rest of the room had stopped completely. All eyes and ears were now glued to her.

“Of course I’m unfair! Life is unfair!” shouted the iron lady before slamming down the phone down as if to punctuate her statement.

It would be weeks before my colleagues and I would stop using her last sentence as our default answer to questions that began with why.

Sometimes the words of people long gone echo in our heads not to scare or torment us but to remind us of something truly important. In my case, after losing them in the deepest recesses of my memory for over a decade, my grandfather’s word of wisdom would come to me in a flash of inspiration when I needed it. It would since reverberate in my mind every so often.

My grandfather was a brilliant man. For a profession he chose one that shaped futures. He was a university professor and dean, teaching and training eventual educators for over 40 years. His colleagues and students spoke very highly of him.

As a young boy I was taught to fear him. I only had to get a taste of his leather belt on my buttocks once to know he meant serious business. (The occasional welt served as a good memory pill for certain things like needing to be called only once when dinner is ready). With this fear, came respect, which over time grew into admiration once I got to observe how he got things done.

He excelled at everything I saw him do. A good carpenter, he built sturdy stools and spacious cabinets with his traditional hammer and saw, and consistently found time to lend me a hand with my school carpentry projects. As his own mechanic, he changed his car’s oil by his lonesome, coated the chassis with asphalt paint, and took pride at having a visibly clean engine. He even kept a journal exclusively for his trusty Volkswagen.

Apparently, he was also good at things I didn’t get a chance to witness him do firsthand. But proof of his brilliance weren’t difficult to find. Early in his days as a professor, he worked part-time as a silversmith to augment his income, and judging from the remnants of his work — earrings, necklaces and bracelets, they wouldn’t be that difficult to sell. (After his death, my grandmother proved this point too easily). His class cards from his postgraduate studies demonstrated he was a good student, recording high marks from a top university in the country. Plastered on our wall was a diploma for a radio electronics course that for years had me thinking he actually went to California; turns out he completed the study via correspondence.

One Saturday night, when I was about 9 or 10, while my brother and I were watching MacGyver on TV, I noticed my grandfather scribbling on his pad during commercial breaks. After the show was over, he revealed to us what he had quickly worked on, and to our eyes it was an accurate, even beautiful, sketch of our faces. I could not draw a matchstick if my life depended on it, so I was quick to admire his output. But the expression on his face didn’t hide his dissatisfaction with his own work. It took years for me to figure out the significance of that dissatisfied look.

I would hear my grandfather express disapproval whenever he saw work that he wasn’t happy with, one that he discerned was done haphazardly and wasn’t given the effort it deserved. This could be a student’s rushed paper, a riprapping job by hired hands that wasn’t exactly stellar, or even a bad road-paving project by the local government. At each of those instances, he would say “footwork”, along with the shake of the head.

He never really bothered to explain to me what he meant. He probably just assumed I would get it. And boy did I get it, especially after being on the receiving end of his criticism a number of times. Hearing him say that single word (“footwork”) was enough for me to feel guilty about either being too lazy or not giving the appropriate time it took to get a task done properly. Somehow I came to understand from his repeated use of an expression most unique that handwork was meant to be beautiful and the only way to be excused for churning out ugly work was if you say you used your feet instead. It was his way of criticizing substandard output and saying that anything worth doing was worth doing well.

What I appreciated about the way he voiced out that word either as a plain observation or private criticism was that it wasn’t borne out of a superiority complex or condescending nature. It never struck me to mean “you’re dumb” or “you’re no good”. It always sounded to me like, “you can do better than that” or even “is that the best you can do?”.

Not only did I occasionally fail to rise to the challenge, but I also turned out to be a poor keeper of personal histories. Somehow I had almost forgotten my grandfather even uttered that word. That is, until one day while I was talking in front of a group of students and the topic veered towards mediocrity. It came to me unexpectedly, ferociously. Footwork! I had to share it. According to a friend I was with, it was the best thing I had said during the two-hour talk. From then on, that single word would echo in my head every so often.

Why did he excel so much at things he put his mind on? Surely, he wasn’t good at everything? For one thing, he didn’t play the guitar like my mother did. I never got beaten by him in chess because we never played a single game. I didn’t even get the chance to determine if he was secretly competitive, like my mother and I am. And he can’t be instantly good at all those things I saw him do, right? For sure, he had talent. But no one could be a competent mechanic overnight. No hobbyist could finish in a day that correspondence course he completed. One can’t play the harmonica proficiently in a matter of minutes.

At any rate, what he chose to do, he did so very well. And maybe that was part of his secret: he didn’t set out to do a lot but opted to focus on a number of things and made sure he was good at them. That last part might as well be part of his secret too. He was committed and had the discipline to excel.

Looking back, it seems like his magic formula had always been in plain sight for me to see if only I were willing to pay attention enough. For instance, my mother already mentioned to me that my grandfather used to bring a tape recorder with him when he attended lectures in his masteral studies. Why it never occurred to me to utilize a similar method of immortalizing my college lectures, I don’t know. Then, he had a number of books about car mechanics and issues of Popular Electronics, and devoted hours reading them. He always seemed to be gaining time: he was constantly reading, typing, writing, checking papers, solving crossword puzzles or doing something engaging or productive. Moreover, he was never afraid to get his hands dirty to apply what he had learned, spending many occasions doing so. He would tear his engine apart midmorning and always managed to put it back together before dinner. He would smell of kerosene during Sunday lunches because he used the solvent to clean his greasy hands, the scent stubbornly clinging despite repeated washings. (Up to now, that odor would always turn back the clock for me to when he was still alive.) Also, he kept a routine and almost never deviated from it. Part of it was going to bed at 10 p.m. and waking up between 4-4:30 a.m. He’d read himself to sleep, and before breakfast he’d already manage to clean his car and shine our shoes, among other things.

By no means was he perfect. He used to smoke he said to me once, but he kicked the habit in an instant when he determined it was the appropriate time. “Sheer willpower” was his answer when I asked him how he did it. His marriage with my grandmother was also in trouble for some time but he managed to fix it after deciding it was “the right thing to do.” He was flawed as any of us could be, but how he turned things around, stood by his principles and applied the high standards he kept for himself made him all the more admirable in my eyes.

I was about 8 when I was bitten by a neighbor’s dog. I kept crying even when the initial shock and pain were long gone. “Don’t be such a baby, you’re not gonna die,” my grandfather said to me. I stopped almost immediately because he allayed my secret fear that he somehow discovered. I was 30 when I learned that doctors found a tumor in his colon. I started crying even before knowing all the details. “You’ll get well,” I texted him one day, “I’m still going to take you on a trip to Singapore.” He replied, “It’s up to the Lord now.” Somehow, his response gave me peace of mind.

He suffered quietly, in his own dignified way, in the months following the tumor’s discovery. He lived 9 months and 77 years.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. – Ecclesiastes 9:10

Is job security or the stability of tenure a thing of the past?

Thursday Doomsday

Fresh from the news of the coordinated bombings and attacks on Mumbai, it was no ordinary Thursday for a large bank’s IT group, who, apart from having to bear the terrible news, considered it a day of reckoning, one that would determine their fate at work.

Among the employees of that group in the Merlion City are Kate and Lei, both women and contractual employees. They worked in different departments but held office on the same floor of the same building. Both are foreign workers, hail from the same country, and are permanent residents of Singapore.

Apart from these similarities, their backgrounds and circumstances vary greatly. Kate is single, not marrying anytime soon, but does not wish to retain that status forever. She sends two of her nieces to school back at home. She pays for their tuition, lab fees, books and allowances, and would very much like to keep her job. Lei is married and is pregnant with her first baby for a little over a month. Although she is not entirely convinced that they —husband and wife— are financially ready to have a child, she accepts her destiny wholeheartedly and prepares herself as much as she can for the lifelong vocation of motherhood. At these very early stages of her pregnancy, she finds the changes in her body difficult to cope up with and has taken several leaves of absence from work since the doctor confirmed her condition. She’s been wishing to get fired, not wanting to file her resignation because she’ll have to pay an entire month’s worth of wages for not fulfilling a year’s service, a condition stipulated in her contract.

On that fateful day, Lei was given a wake-up call at 7:30 a.m. by her agency, a term she has gotten used to calling her employer which proclaimed itself as an IT solutions and services provider in its website the first time she visited. She was requested to “come down to the office for something important”. She asked if she could just go some other day because she was on MC (medical certificate: the shortened form has become synonymous with medical leave). The other person on the line stressed it was really important and she had to come right away. At that moment, finally, it hit her.

Kate got her call at around 8:30 a.m. She immediately knew when her phone rang. And so she showered, got dressed, skipped breakfast and went straight to the agency’s office, one bus ride and fourteen MRT stations away.

Kate was a bit surprised to find a lot of other people when she arrived. With their office attires, they looked like they were waiting to be interviewed. Except that some of them had their laptops in tow and most everyone wore a grim expression on their face. Kate wondered how many of them were not even aware of the reason they were there.

Just then, the lady who was responsible for recruiting her came through the door.  “Hi Kate! What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to get retrenched. But how nice of you to ask,” Kate kept to herself what would have been her answer. Instead, she smiled back and waved.

Kate sighed with relief when the recruiter went on her way to wherever she was supposed to. Kate had to wait for a while before it was finally her turn.

“Hi Kate!” An HR associate greeted her cheerfully, motioning her to come into the meeting room. “How are you today?”

Kate only managed to smile.

“Hi! How are you,” said the HR Vice-President who was already waiting in the conference room.

“I’m fine,” replied Kate after she realized the lady seemed to be waiting for a reply. She found the situation awkward and amusing, but not without a trace of irony.

“The reason why we called you is to tell you, that unfortunately, it’s your last day on the job…” The vice-president went about telling her that it wasn’t because of her performance or anything she might have done or failed to do, that it was a difficult decision that the client was forced to make.  She was told that to help her tide over, she was going to be given another month’s worth of salary while she looked for a new job, on her own, without the agency’s help. She was asked to sign some papers and to surrender her company ID and security badges. The whole thing took less than ten minutes.

Later that afternoon, Lei’s turn came. It wasn’t that different from Kate’s experience. Only that in Lei’s circumstance, she felt happy. How could she not? Apart from getting her wish, they were paying her an extra month including all the leaves she had taken during the last month, both official and unofficial.

Permanent Redefined

Mike got his first job in Singapore as a consultant through a body shop disguised as a consulting firm. He left his previous job of six years back at home.

“I’m offering you a permanent job, you got that?” said the man Mike spoke to on the phone. “Lower your asking salary a bit.”

Mike went to work in the consulting firm’s office, supporting an IT service for a large multinational company (MNC) whose headquarters in Asia is in Singapore.

Three months later, the MNC decided to move its support operations to India. “So much for job security,” Mike thought, but he must have been the only person in the office who was secretly happy to be losing his job. It was the worst he ever had to endure but he couldn’t resign without paying a huge penalty. He had no qualms about the consulting firm not finding him another “project” despite his permanent status. Besides, he was given two months notice, which was more than enough for him to find a new job.

Fortunately, he did find new employment. Since then, he would go on interviews from time to time, checking out what good opportunities might come his way.

On one such interview, Sumi, a contractual employee of another large bank who was authorized to hire people needed for a particular project, played the role of the interviewer.

“How’s your employment right now? I mean, is it contractual or permanent?” Sumi asked.

“Permanent.”

“Oh. The job I’m offering you is contractual. Are you interested?”

Mike reluctantly said yes.

“But you know the difference between a permanent and a contractual employee here in Singapore, right?” Sumi asked, sensing Mike’s hesitation.

Mike gave a chuckle. Although he’d never really thought about it before, he knew where Sumi was going.

“None.  There’s no real difference.” Sumi said, answering his own question.

Mike realized that in more ways than one, Sumi was right, finally realizing the irony in his previous experience.

Body Shop

Landing in a permanent job doesn’t eliminate the possibility of getting fired or retrenched. It’s even worse for people who get deceived into taking a seemingly permanent job. Some are hired into permanent positions by companies similar to that of Kate’s and Mike’s who have managed to redefine the word permanent. Such companies advertise as consulting firms or IT services & solutions providers and conveniently exclude manpower services from their websites as part of what they offer. People like Kate who end up working for them usually become permanent employees of the firm while managing to be contractual employees of other firms, the latter being the former’s clients. The same case is true for people like Mike who get assigned to “projects”. Some of these falsely advertising companies go as far as providing job offer letters stating that the employment being offered is permanent, only to make applicants —later on when it’s usually too late for them to back out— sign a employment contracts stipulating that their employment is co-terminus with the contracts between the company and its clients where the applicants are to be assigned. Applicants like Mike are left no choice but to capitulate, having traveled all the way from their home countries,  having already invested time and money and having quit their original jobs. And when these employees’ contractual employment become terminated, rather than helping them find a new workplace, their permanent employer would no sooner make them sign a release waiver saying that the company’s obligation with them has ended. The term body shop has been used to refer to this type of companies. For employees of such companies, the term has become synonymous with exploitation and deception. There is no such thing as job security with these body shops.

While it was his egg paintings displayed atop a bamboo table that initially caught our attention and lured us towards him and eventually inside his small shop, it was an acrylic painting that captivated my imagination. The artwork depicted seven maidens in a forest, two of them taking a bath in a stream.

“This is a nice painting,” I remarked.

“Oh. That is the story of Raja Pala and the seven maidens. Do you know the story?”

“The one where he hides one of the maiden’s wings?” I answered Pak Wayan’s question with a question, making a guess based on the clues I saw in the painting and a story I heard from a writer two years ago. It was my first time to hear the name Raja Pala.

“Yes. Then they bore a child…”

“And later she went back to heaven after she got her wings back?” I asked, cutting him off again. It dawned on me that the story I heard wasn’t exactly original.

“Ahh… Yes!” Wayan Rana replied with a smile, obviously pleased that I seemed to know the story.

The story, as recounted by the Balinese, goes like the following.  Raja Pala was a clever hunter who discovered Dedari, the secret place of heavenly maidens. While the maidens were taking a bath in a stream, he steals one of their magical gowns, the one belonging to Sulasih. Without her magical gown, Sulasih couldn’t fly back to heaven with her friends.  Raja Pala successfully carries out his plan to convince Sulasih to agree to bear him a child that she has to take care for seven years before he returned her magical gown. Indeed, after bearing a son, Durma, and taking care of him for seven years, Sulasih got to return to heaven. Raja Pala gave up hunting and became a holy man.

“How much for this painting?” I asked, seriously considering buying it.

Wayan gave me his price, explaining that this was far cheaper than the amount it was sold for in a gallery in Ubud, where many of his works were also displayed. Knowing that we were also interested with the egg paintings, Wayan offered us a good price if we bought one of them together with the Raja Pala. He lowered the price further when we said we couldn’t take the carved mahogany frame because we already had too much luggage to carry back home.

The price was really good, I thought, considering that it took him nine days to finish an acrylic painting, one and a half days for a small egg and three days for a big egg painting.

“The traditional paintings take a longer time to finish than the abstract ones.” Wayan explained.

“I see. I prefer the traditional ones,” I said.  It was true. I heard someone say he preferred abstract paintings because the real world could already be captured in photographs — a sentiment I didn’t share.  As I gave the Raja Pala a second look, I knew I was happily saying goodbye to my original thought of having a lush landscape for my first painting purchase.

“I also prefer to make traditional paintings than abstract. Do you also paint?”

“No. As an artist, I’m a writer, at best,” I replied, wondering if he saw the connection between a painter and a writer like I did.

How we were going to bring home the painting undamaged without the frame, was the next question. But Wayan had a ready answer, said he’d put the painting between two pieces of plywood before wrapping it.

With his permission, we took pictures of some of his works. Then, reading our mind, he offered to be photographed, and I had the feeling he had done this more than once. We were more than happy to indulge and in fact, we had already taken pictures of some of the people we met in Bali – waiters, hotel staff, market vendors, the kid who sold us silver, the animal handler at the Bali Elephant Camp, our driver, and many others.

Next, I sat beside him first and had our picture taken. That was for my private album. Then I stood up to take his picture, specifically for this post.

“Where are you from?” Pak Wayan asked.

We told him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen your currency before,” Wayan stated matter-of-factly, his curiosity as an artist, obvious.

I rummaged through my wallet and took a note, offering it to him the way we were taught to present our business cards. He looked at it with great interest, scrutinizing the details front and back.

“Do you know the equivalent in rupiah?” Wayan asked.

I replied as I put my wallet back into my pocket.

Wayan, with the keen eye of a painter, noticed this.

“Oh. Are you giving me this…?”, he asked, even though he extended his hand towards us, returning the money.

“Yes. Please keep it.”  I smiled and made a halting motion with my hand.

“Thank you. You are very kind,” Wayan replied, reciprocating the smile as he bowed his head slightly. I could sense his sincerity in every syllable and movement.

As we walked away from Wayan Rana with our prized artworks in our bags, we noticed the obvious void from where the painting we bought used to hang. We knew it would soon be filled again. But we also knew that other than the exchange of money and goods, the tiny joys we had bartered and the new strands of memories we had weaved left something indelible in our hearts and minds.

We wished him more voids on his wall and bulging pockets in the days to come, and a heart bloated with glee all the days of his life.

I had the opportunity to listen to a talk delivered by a writer, one who had a popular newspaper column that ran for over 20 years. She told a number of interesting and inspiring stories as she imparted lesson after lesson to the audience. One particular story, one supposedly conceived for children, stood out for me not just because of the plot but more so of its moral according to the speaker. Let me share the story, plot unchanged, in my own words.

***

Once upon a time, there were four angels who resided in the heavens that wished to visit the earth. It was strictly forbidden for them to do so, but no reason had ever been given as to why. For weeks and weeks, the sisters begged permission from their father to allow them go. Wanting to make his daughters happy, the father finally relented one day despite the risks that only he knew. His blessing came with a few inviolable conditions, of course — they had to travel to earth during night, leave back for home before the sun rose, and most important, never speak to anyone of their journey other than themselves.
The sisters chose a lake in what appeared to be an uninhabited jungle and set their wings for the journey as soon as the skies turned dark.

When they landed, they stood silently, looking around and observing, making sure that no man was nowhere near. A bit of time passed and then they exchanged knowing glances, then smiles. The angels raced to take off their wings and clothing, and tossed them without care by the shore. Then they jumped with obvious excitement into the cold, pristine water!

The mere became their new paradise for several hours. The sisters laughed, giggled and shouted in glee. Feeling the cold, tickling liquid on their skin for the first time gave them a sensation they could have never imagined. They splashed water at each other, dove in and rose out of the lake, and chased one another around the shore. To them, such an experience should be repeated, but at that moment, they just didn’t want it to end.

Hearing the noises the angels made, a man who had been living alone by the woods soon made his way towards them. His isolation had made him grown accustomed to the eerie silence of the night except for the occasional sounds made by the nocturnal animals, but his curiosity was instantly aroused by the joyous chorus coming from the distance. His excitement grew with every step he took and as he drew nearer, found himself exerting increased effort not to make any sudden noise. When he was as close to them as he dared, he watched with equal delight as the angels jumped, clapped and danced in ecstasy.

Seeing their naked bodies glow under the moon in a certain way, the man concluded that the women weren’t from any place he’d ever been. He observed all of them were beautiful, but found himself extremely attracted to the smallest of them. A mischievous plan swiftly brewed in his mind. So, he kept still, forced himself to stay awake, and waited for his chance.

When they held hands, formed a circle and started chanting with their eyes closed, the man didn’t waste any time. He quickly tiptoed his way towards where they had laid their clothing and took off with the smallest pair of wings he could find.

Soon, the time came for the angels to leave for the sun was almost out. The eldest of the sisters lead the rest in heading for the shore. She picked up her clothes and wings, and wore them. Each of the sisters did exactly the same, except for the youngest who was surprised not to find her wings were she had laid them!

After a frantic and fruitless search, the angels had to make the difficult choice of leaving their youngest sister behind. Without wings, the angel was like any other woman. The man’s plan came to perfection as he successfully lured her straight into his arms. He offered her clothing, then food and then shelter. He reserved his grandest offering for last — promising love and care for the rest of his life.

Ten years went by rapidly.

One fated day, the mortalized angel was deep in thought about her sisters as she looked out the window at the anomalous overcast sky that hung above. Her husband was away for the occasional hunt and their children, a boy and girl, were out playing in the fields.

How surprised she was when her children came barging through the door earlier than usual. She barely comprehended what they were saying but she understood enough to know they wanted to show her something that piqued their curiosity. She let her children drag her into the barn.

When she saw the trap door for the first time in a decade, she knew. Her children gazed at their mother for the last time as she flew higher and higher until they could see her no more.

***

The writer said that the moral of the story was that kids should not to mess around with things that don’t belong to them. The mother wouldn’t have left if not because of her children, she concluded.