Who am I ?

ACCORDING TO agent and interview, I came Malaysia as a site supervisor. I understood myself at least I am not going to work as a general worker. If I love to work non-engineering works, I would have gone to Singapore now. By the time (early 2005) I went to Malaysia, there was no S-pass jobs in Singapore and learned that only two type of work permit named WP and EP. Mostly they, SMEs from Singapore, demanded via agent was only general workers and semi-skill workers like mason, carpenter, welder, fitter, etc. I didn't want to downgrade myself to able work in oversea. Plus that time Singapore's construction was not as stong as 2007-2008. So I decided to go Malaysia with site supervisor post despite it is not my favourite destination to work.

Before I go to Malaysia, I was walking on the moon by calculating my earning after I worked in Malaysia based on agent's given data. I was more than happy with imagine of supporting enough to my family. But I realised my dream have been effectively destroyed just few days after arriving there. It's easier said than done. When they, agent, said it easily and in real world, we need to confront a lot challenging in the new environment. We have no place to complain when we are treated badly or they bully us. First of all what I needed to solve out was salary adjustment as I already written in previous post. After we reached an agreement to RM-1400 fixed salary for my service, I am deeemed to work as an office worker. They never recognize me as a engineer.

At first week, I have no computer to work and I could able to help to my six month senior myanmar engineer who is a bit settle with company format. So I assisted him whenever he asked me to help. At the same time other QS and engineer from the office asked me to do their minor works like photostating, document despatching within office premise, etc. My office is 3 storey terrace house building. The boss rent out ground floor to a local bank (RHB bank). So my office is upper two story and I need to work at lower floor. Engineers and Technical staffs are working at the lower floor and the rest department like account, purchasing, etc are located in upper floor. The office store is also at the 3rd storey.

Early morning we need to carry heavy equipment spare parts from 3rd story to ground floor so that office lorry can distrubute them to a necessary sites. After that I can go back to my workplace and carry on. I would be asked to go and help whenever carrying jobs are come out to this office. When supplier deliver, my senior friend and I would need to carry from GF to 3rd story and put properly in the store. The myanmar workers in-charge is a young chinese man and he never hesitated to ask myanmar workers any time any where any job to do. If somebody resist in his instruction, he'll take action by reporting to lady boss who will fine to us for not obedient. He is not engineer and he don't know what are we doing downstair, sometime we are so busy by the time he called us for lifting and carrying jobs. We have no right to refuse in his calling and we lost our concentration on jobs.

Usually our working time is 8:30am to 6:00pm, but for myanmar workers, the working time start from as early as 7:30am to as late as 10:00pm. Amazing? it was really happened to us and we have to follow it without complain. I can work until 6:30pm at downstair engineering office and go upstair for seeing lady boss. Before we can see her, we have to make other jobs like cleaning the reception area, scrubbing the glass partion and doors, sweeping, even cleaning toilet alternatively, etc. She, lady boss, usually come out of her room and see all upstair staffs incl local workers and give non-stop speech and everybody must in the position of stand up. People are not dare to go toilet when they want to. Her speech is meaningless mostly she'll point out staff's weakpoint and score, blame, abuse, fine, etc. Sometime if she is in happy mode, she'll talk about how much she is rich, how many property she own in KL, how much she paid for her hair dresser, how expensive his son's ice-cream are, etc. All non-sense for us but we have to listen quietly and saying YES, madam.

After she talked, local staffs can go back home and we, myanmar staffs, still need to work under her instruction. Everynight she change office position by shifting tables, cabinet and stationery stands. At the same night she will ask us to position go there and here and come back again. What a stupid idea? I don't know she is trying to do like that. We cannot go back home and also cannot eat dinner that is given by office. Boss instructed kitchen chef not to give dinner until she return home. So we are trying to do fast whatever she asked so that we can eat dinner faster. Being workers, we can't afford to buy outside foods and also can't go back early even if we are afford to do so.

After return hostel, our day long job is not yet finished. We need to continue work at the company own restaurant as a waiter until midnight. Later we, engineer, fought for not doing this night job being a waiter and won. Our fellow citizen workers who are working as office staffs remain doing that as they don't dare to protect it. At weekend, we would be assigned to go boss's bungalow and clean compound and bldg. Also we will need to make all dirty and dusty furniture order and the supervisor later come in and check if our job is in order. For these all extra jobs, we are not deserving any overtime money. I don't know what I am doing here in this company and I am much look like as a prisoner here. That's why I frequently asked myself that

WHO AM I AND WHAT IS MY ASSIGNMENT TO DO?