Things you don't learn in the classroom
10 October 2004 8:49 pm
Second entry of the day.
Here's the proper entry.
After my GCE 'A' levels, which is the national exam that you take in the last year of junior college in Singapore and the stepping stone to university, I spent a month and a half in Germany with my aunt. It was a vacation as well as a retreat from troubles back home, which I will not elaborate on here. I returned in mid-January, feeling a little lost. Where were all my friends?
They had all gotten temp jobs while I was away. The Psychic was doing admin work at the airport, some people were tutoring kids, others worked in fast food restaurants. It didn't take long before I got bored with my own company and decided to get a temp job myself.
It wasn't easy to find one. Apparently all the temp jobs were already taken, presumably by the kids who didn't go away for a vacation right after 'A' levels. It took me weeks before a Japanese department store decided to hire me as a sales assistant in the ladies' shoes department. I was paid a pittance. $550 a month. (Moral of the story: Never work in a Japanese department store. They make you work long hours and pay peanuts.)
This experience was truly educational. I used to think that sales assistants had an easy job, all they did all day was stand around waiting for customers to ask for help. This was not exactly untrue. What was untrue was that being on your feet for 12 hours a day was easy. It was fucking tiring. But worst of all it was boring. I understood then why the salesgirls were always chatting with each other. If they didn't they would have killed themselves or each other just to break the monotony of the job. I came to look forward to customers. I didn't mind if they asked for their sizes for 10 different pairs of shoes and then walked away without buying anything. I didn't mind that I had to climb up ladders in the store room searching for their sizes. It meant that there was something useful to do. Once I even ventured to speak French to a customer whom I assumed was French from his accent. I wasn't trying to show off. I was just goddamn bored and needed to do something different. He bought the shoes eventually, so my smattering of French recalled from lessons taken 2 years before that must have paid off.
I liked my colleagues. They were nice people. There was a girl, Nancy, who was apparently a gang member when she was in secondary school. She had that "don't fuck with me" look but she was friendly and fun to be with. Once she even recommended a lipstick colour for me. It was her way of saying we were cool. There were two other girls I remembered, though their names elude me now. They were hardworking girls, and easy to talk to. One of them wanted to be a model, although to be honest, I didn't think she would make the cut. She was pretty, but not in a covergirl kind of way. I felt sorry for them in a way. I was temping while waiting for my 'A' level results, and then for acceptance into university. They were working for a living. Their aim was to eventually become a sales promoter, where you earned through commission. I doubt if all of them stayed long enough to be one. I know the last time I saw Nancy she was working in another shoe store, a smaller one in town, as a promoter. At least she made it somewhere. I hope they're happy wherever they are now.
That experience made me see how important my 'A' level results were to me. I just couldn't, absolutely couldn't see myself earning $550 a month for a living. No fucking way. If I didn't do well enough in the 'A' levels, I would have to sit for the damn exams again, and not fuck up. In the event, I didn't do too well, but well enough to get a teaching bursary and be funded throughout my university years. I'm eternally grateful to God for that blessing.
Most importantly, I learned to be humble. I learned to appreciate sales people. I learned that people change, even ex-gang members, and that they all want a better life for themselves. It was an important lesson for an 18-year-old who had been surrounded by middle class peers from good schools all her life. It is a lesson I hope my own students will learn. I hope they try going out there to earn some money after the 'O' levels, even if they're rich. At least for a few months. It will make them appreciate how hard it is to earn money and how important it is for them to be educated, in this country, this world, this century. It is a lesson I cannot teach in class.
I didn't stay long in that job. A friend of mine saved me. She tipped me off about a temp position as an accounts assistant at the shipping company where she was working, and I applied and got it. That paid $800 a month, a significant increase from my old salary. With overtime I earned $950 once out of the 3 months I was there. I continued to temp during my school vacations when I was in uni, this time to earn extra cash for my own expenses and not so much because I was bored. (I love Hewlett-Packard. They pay a lot, everyone's on a first-name basis, and no one treats you like the temp.) My first temping experience, however, remains the most memorable.
Older entries
Ramadan - 08 October 2006
Where I Have Been - 03 October 2006
Baby Talk - 10 August 2006
6 Weeks of Separation - 16 July 2006
Unacceptable Rudeness - 21 June 2006