Merepek

No. 1 remarked how fast time flies, that it has been already 5 months since he started work and that he felt it somehow passes faster than when he was in university. Just couldn’t agree more with him. Counting my fingers and toes and more, wuahhh…. I have been on the grind for close to 3 decades already!

My first job after leaving school was at one of the electronic factories in the Free Trade Zone in Penang. I had applied for an office position but those factories hardly hire out; for clerical and admin support, they would normally offer to their production floor staff first. So, I went through that way too. I went in as a Quality Control staff earning a daily wage of RM5.30 per day and worked on 2-weekly 3 rotating shifts, 6 days a week. The ‘graveyard’ shift from 11.00pm to 7.00am paid an extra of RM1.50 per night. On that measly rate of pay, I could still save RM50 per month. I was at this job for a short 3 months before I was offered a regular hour office position and I if I remember well, my pay then was RM300 per month. I stayed for 3 years.

Then I decided to uproot and went over to East Malaysia. I resigned from my first job and it was the first time I was leaving the comforts of my own home for a totally unfamiliar environment. The first time I was taking a flight and all alone and I remembered I almost succumbed to cold feet at the Bayan Lepas airport on that fateful morning and now, in retrospect, am I glad that my head ruled. It was one of the best times of my working life….a time I recall with much fondness…….

I had joined a small company selling heavy-vehicle spare parts which offered double my last salary, with lodging and meals fully taken care of too. It was a typical 'china-apek' outfit and my boss had his 2 brothers and their 70-year old father as well as 2 other young male shop assistants-cum-delivery boys to help run the business. I was the only female employed to help maintain the books for my ‘chinaman’ boss who had little formal education and could only write and sign his name. The first time I met my boss, I kinda felt intimidated. He looked like a big time 'taikor'. With a thick gold doggie-chain round his neck, two diamond and jade rings on his fingers, a diamond-studded solid gold Rolex on his wrist, gold fountain pen in his shirt pocket and flicking his gold Dupont lighter every few minutes…errm..this is one man you wouldn’t want to mess with.

From a big Finance Department in an American high-tech facility to a cramped and tiny office in a small shophouse; from a vibrant Penang to a sleepy hollow of a cowboy town; from Penang where our singsong Hokkien is predominant to a community where Hakka , Mandarin, Kadazan-Dusun and the localized Malay dialect rules; from Penang, a food haven to a place where even the belacan looks and smells different. I have never felt that lost before and the worse is when the weekends came around, when for the first couple of months, I would find myself close to tears. From Penang where I had spent my weekends at the movies or at the nightspots; to a dusty little 2-street town where the only cinema was a stuffy, close to broken-down wooden shack with bugs-infested seats where it was the norm to bring in a small jar of Tiger Balm to soothe itching bums and oh ya, a pair of Wellingtons would come in handy too, during a downpour halfway through a movie. And how I missed wearing my nice office clothes and 3-inch heels and open-toed slippers. After a few times accidentally tearing my dresses and kicking my toes against big pieces of vehicle spare parts stacked on the floor in the cramped shop, I had to contend with wearing jeans/pants with T-shirts and sneakers. Practicality ruled.

I learned to communicate in the local lingo. I teased my tastebuds to accept the local cooking and occupied my weekend mornings putting wok to fire in attempts to satiate my nyonya cravings. After one nasty episode of sore bums from bug-bites, I got a few friends to share the cost of rental of Betamax video tapes @RM5 per piece, and how we spend night after night watching Hong Kong movies such as ‘Man In The Net’ and ‘Shanghai Bund’. And of course, games of luck and chance were never short of players….games aplenty from the old deck of cards; to mahjong; to impromptu bets on a box of matchsticks; to a crudely drawn chart of ‘fish, flower, prawn and king-crab and a spin of a die with corresponding pictures….yes, it’s a game the locals called ‘belangkas’. And there were the occasional weekend illegal cock fights normally held at the fringes of the jungle and once a while there would be raids by the police and then you would find a motley crowd of suspects together with noisy crowing cockerels spilling out from the tiny compound of the local Balai Polis.
Once, I followed a few friends to watch a cock-fight and half-way through one of the most interesting matches, someone naughty played a prank and shouted, “Polissss!....Polisss…..” sending all and sundry scampering like frightened squirrels.

I settled in soon enough and slowly but surely, I began to feel comfortable and safe in this small town where practically everybody knows everybody. Twenty-five years ago, when the banks in West Malaysia had cashiers sitting behind counters with high clear plastic dividers, the only bank in this tiny interior town was already practicing the open concept. There were no robberies, no snatch thefts, no burglaries and I used to carry bundles of my office’s daily takings to the bank; no problems at all. It’s not uncommon to see others carry bundles of cash carelessly wrapped in old newspapers and plonked it at the cashiers…nobody batted an eyelid. Never seen anyone using a credit card there. And when the towkays decide on a game of cards, it was either cash or cheques and I have helped my boss cash in as well as pay out some not so small amounts too. And of course, when cash is low, land titles and vehicle registration cards would be readily accepted too.


After 2 years, home beckoned – I flew back and landed in KL. Not a very good time, because the country was in the throes of the economic recession. I managed to get a job and as the recession worsened, I had to settle for a pay cut…small, but nonetheless painful. Seven years and two changes of employers later, I quit my job to become a full-time mother. It was bad decision because I could not cope. I missed working outside but I did not miss my office-bound job. I then dived straight in to a totally different line…something that I have zilch experience in - marketing and sales and I have since stayed for more than 15 years. To say that it was smooth-sailing, I’d be lying. It was, and still is tough but then who ever said that anything worthwhile doing is going to be easy? I am blessed and it’s not too bad a grind actually.