Me and Foreign Secretaries

MY COMPANY OFFICE has 2 floors in which the lady boss works on upper deck and her MD husband who is also engineer works in lower floor. The lady boss is more powerful but she is not a key player in the company. She used to come office after 5:00pm and worked untill 8:00pm/ 10:00pm depend on her mood. Some days she'll come and talk non-sense and go back without working. But she is the queen of the office and all the staffs need to pay super respect to her despite everybody hate her. She is unfair lady and her victims include even her very own husband. Let me highlight on this matter upon secretary post

Actually they both are very good-looking couple. MD is so hard working man and this lady boss always busy with ridiculous matters. As I told above, they are working at the different levels and they both have their individual secretary. She appoint young and smart man as her secretary and personal assistant. This guy gets a good salary and works very minor works. His main duty is driving her wherever she wants to go. She gives him a room in her bungalow and let him stay there and take care her 24 hours. I don't know how MD feels when he sees a young man ever accompanied his wife on most of the day.

On the other hand, she appoint a female secretary for her MD husband. I had seen so many secretary during my service in that company. Despite secretary changes oftenly, one thing never change in her replacement. It's her husband secretary must be urgly enough, very old enough, other quilifications are minor only. She'ld employ if these two major factor occupy to new applicants. But our MD never complain to that and the secretary coming in are not ordinary woman. We also suffered from that irregular secretaries because one of my job is feeding data to MD especially at the tender stage. So I need to deal with these aging female secretary compulsarily.

Unfortunately my first ever neighbour colleague was MD's secretary because I was asked to sit beside her as temporarily. I haven't got enough jobs to do at my earlier days on office and what I can do on working time is just helping my senior and studying their format and drawings. Since first day she critized me upon
1) the way I wear at office [I wear belt bag and put my important documents in it. She hate to see me and won't hesitate to comment it. One day she told me
sec: hey guy, you don't wear these urgly bag.
me: why?
sec: this is office, not site
me: but I can't afford to leave all my important documents at room.
sec: I don't care but remember this is not fish market
me: ok, I'll keep in in my drawer if you don't want to see it

2) the way I speak English
sec: your English is so bad
me : humm
sec: you can't understand simple English and how would you do here?
me: you also don't understand what I speak, so the same lah
sec: how did u get degree with this lousy English?
me: R u thinking ur English is so good?
sec: yes mine is standard
me: we speak second language and nobody is perfect
sec: I was English teacher before this job
me: smiling and try to do something by quietly

3) the way I turn the pages of office file
sec: hey don't make noisy office
me: what did I do wrong?
sec: your turning pages is so noisy
me: aww, then ur ear must be so good
sec: don't complain me
me: imm,,,smiling and quiet

4) the way I work with computer
sec: hey can u make it quietly?
me: how and why ?
sec: your fingers hitting keyboard so wild
me: then..
sec: so noisy,,this is office, not fish market
me: it's not my false, it happen bcz of bad keyboard
sec: shut up, ur mouth
me: hmmmmm

5) the way I speak mother language
sec: why are you both speaking ur language?
us: why not? you also speak Chinese when u see other chinese person
sec: this is chinese company and we can speak Chinese legally
us: so,,we have to speak chinese as well?
sec: speak English unless u speak chinese
us: immmmm,,,,(u bitch,,,,,,,,,,telling in minds)

After this lady, another secretary came to office and she got fired after few days. She is good at works and ok with other colleagues. The major drawback he made is coming to the office by her own Mercedes car. The HR manager who is sister of lady boss don't want to see other staffs doing better then they does. So few days later she sack her and bring in another one. The third one was KG level with computer and she need to ask me how to make a good report. And I teach her whenever she asked me. She sometime bring curry for us and even gave us some old dress of her bf. We have made a good relationship and HR manager noticed that. Then she called me and asked me to stay away with her and end of that month she also was fired. I am so sorry to learn her losing job. The fourth secretary was from my part-time QS company. She was a share holder and keeping of the boss. So she is proud enough and don't want to tell properly with workers including me. But I was employed as a part-time QS and I worked for her company only 1 1/2 days a week on sat and sunday. I had seen several secretaries and I had learnt a lot from them both in bad and good. Now I'm now working in Singapore and of course my company has a secretary. Believe it or not,,I have querrelling with her once for bully me. I don't want to do that but it is a must to protect my interest. If I quiet, they'll continue me bullying. How about you?

HAVE YOU SEEN A GOOD SECRETARY AT YOUR WORKPLACE?

Salary Erosion

BEFORE I went to Malaysia for oversea job, I was walking on the moon by calculating my oversea job earning. Agent would come out by saying as I can get at least RM-1350 + OT if I work on site and RM-1800 fix salary if I am needed to work at office. So she calculated my monthly wages by assuming at least RM-1800 and exchange rate Ks-200/RM.
WOW so much money it was,

the expected salary = 1800 x 200 = 360,000 Ks

what a good salary for a Myanmar engineer who currently earn only 50,000 Ks per month? She also highlighted that I could earn more if I can work on site because sometime OT money is as much as salary. I was so happy with the prospect of supporting my family well that time. But it went wrong totally after I arrived to KL and nobody take responsibility for that but myself. I paid 1,350,000 Ks to agent for this oversea job and it was so much to my family. But there is no way to go out of my land for foreign job.

My foreign employer selected me to work at the office and I thought my salary would be RM-1800 as my agent said before. But they really can offer to me as my basic salary was only RM-450 during probation period. As I had said on previous post, I fought for my salary and fortunately I got RM-1400 finally. The problem is this salary is not net amount I can enjoy because there are so many hidden cutter to my wages. Actually I must say it my daily wages because it come out twice a month and we cannot deserve any leaves. So our wages were counted based on how many we worked. According to them, "No Working No Money" as well as "No punch No Money". Some days we forgot to punch our time card and at the end of month, Account dept will cut our salary for not punching.

OK let me calculate my income for your knowledge;
My salary = 1400
Less keep money = 600 (they cut this until RM-2500 per year)
Less PUB bill = 4
Net salary = 796
Net salary by Ks = 796 x 200 = 159,200 Ks

There would be other annual fees to be cut from our salary are;

Levy fees: 1200
Process fees: 50
work permit fees: 60
Visa fees: 19.50
keep money : 750
medical fees: 300 x 2 (In fact, we need to check up only once a year, but they cut for twice)
service charge: 300

So at the end of the month, we are so disappointing with a thin wages pack. Sometime we need to wait two month to send back our wages to our family because we have to make sure send back money is not less than agent's minimum transfer amount. We are supposed to get our wages pack twice a month on mid and end of the month. But 1st half usually come after 25 of the month and 2nd half come after 10 days of the month. It's mean company keep our money as long as 10 days and above. But we need to restrain our mind and we became a super-patient workers amidst counterparts of other countries. If you have never been working in Malaysia, then you'll never know how good employers are in Singapore. You might think that you owe a lot to S'pore for covering you and shielding your right. For me is seeing both sides of hell and paradise makes me understand the value of life and people. Let's hope for a better tomorrow together with a good society that can distribute all people equal chance.

My EST passed

TODAY I am informed that I have passed their English Screening Test by BCA through email. The email mention as follow:

Dear Course Participants,

We are pleased to inform that you have passed your English Screening Test.

A place in the above course has been reserved for you. Please proceed to make the payment of $4066.00 for the Specialist Diploma in Building Cost Management course by 20 November 2009.

We would appreciate it if you could send us a crossed-cheque made payable to “BCA Academy” to reach us by end of this week.

Please be advised that the above candidate(s) will be liable for withdrawal from the course if payment is not made by then.

You will also receive a letter by mail regarding your course details by end of this week.

Thank you.

Of course everybody wants to pass all exams in life and I am happy to know my result. Meantime I am confusing with one time payment (S$4066.00) rather than two separate according to their course brochure. Anyway I noted how many people were passed this exam and found as follow:

Number of student sitting exam : 22 (13 Myanmar + 9 Others)
Number of passed students : 10 (6 Myanmar + 4 Others)

So % of winning rate is 45% and I am not sure if they'll start with these 10 people for a course. Anyway I am one step closer to fulfill my dream. Thanks everybody concerning in this process especially my wife for her supporting role. I hope I can successfully finish this course within 1 year time without any major problem and gain a deeper knowledge in Quantity Surveying field. And I'll pursue a better career life ahead in favor of this specialist diploma course for Building Cost Management. I can't wait to make my further study and find new classmates. May all person able to pursue in what they dream.

The dorm I lived in KL

I RATE MY ACCOMMODATION as a dormitory rather than hostel. There are so many reasons for why I could say so. I needed to shift my dormitory several times within my 3 years working period in KL. We are much look like a toy for our employer rather than a employee. They don't respect and take care enough our facilities as well as utilities despite agent mentioned them on the terms of the contract. On the other hand, we don't understand the basis right of employee and lack of relevant firm to file our complains. Anyway I had passed that bitter days right now and I am currently writing that post to reflect how bad is it being a migrant workers.

I was given a temporary shelter at the double-decker container by the time I land Malaysia in my very first day. I was introduced & welcomed with the dirty & messy standard of construction worker's camp.I tried to passed that night by cleaning my place and sleeping on the old newspapers. It was never easy to sleep soundly when the environment's air pollution is extremely bad and mosquito are tasting blood of new comer. But luckily I was escaped from that condition after one night time because I was selected to go office the next morning by Manager.

Being office staff, I was given a room in the flat nearby office. So I positioned my thing in the room and quickly see around. There is no bed, no cabinet, no wardrobe, no counter-table, and so many no....... I don't know it is the standard accommodation for a foreign worker. I comforted by saying myself that I'm not coming here for vacation, just come for work and save money. So I have to overcome this kind of obstacle and try to settle in that situation. Few days later, I noticed that other flat-mates have a better rooms and better furniture like bed and table. May be I am neglected for that because I am too much junior and fresher. But I want all my senior Myanmar colleagues know that junior also human being and I am not a general worker. Am I proud enough to say so? If your answer is "yes" then I have to counter that it's our people's weakest point in hesitating manner to claim whatever we are supposed to get in life. Let it be since we had been used to this kind of situation in our mother land and probably our brain has been trained to survive in the broken places. Alright let me have some explanation to make you clearer.

My room has no window and there isn't no fan as well. So ventilation is so bad and we can't sleep in the night. You know Malaysia is situated on the equator zone and the weather is so hot. But I braved myself that I came from upper burmese where day temperature is higher than any other places in Myanmar. Again I hope to change my room sooner or later. But it really took me several months until some illegal workers return Myanmar for their correction process. My bed room is my dinning room and dressing room as well. I don't have so much place to refresh myself. TV lah? funny enough,,,no entertainment in the hostel. But there is one room in which Thailand National stay. His room has so many electronic appliance and he's very kinded person and sometime he allowed us to watch. What a pity people are we?

Another thing makes me itchy are staying together with the illegal workers who are diagnosed as a Hipa-B. As you have known about this disease, it is highly dangerous disease to spread nearby people and easy to infect. So I rush to clinic to get a dose to prevent possible infection despite the cost is expensive. In the kitchen, we have only one set of utensil and they are actually owned by our senior colleagues who had returned home and left their property. They are not provided by our beloving company. But we find it hard to deal when the time come to prepare foods. Being a low paid workers, we can't afford to buy outside foods and usually we all cook at hostel kitchen. Sometime we enjoy foods that are sent by our beloving families.

There are two bath rooms that combine with toilet. It is not good enough for a people of 20 around at the early morning before going to work. But we managed to overcome these situation. We all need to pay RM-4 per month for water & electric bills. The rest balance would be paid by employer. Later our employer claimed to pay 50% of bills while they keep cutting RM-4.00 from our salaries. So we, engineers, protect not to follow their order to pay half bill. Other flatmates are not dare to refuse employer's instruction and they paid whatever employer demand. When we resisted to comply their order, the lady boss asked us not to stay at hostel and she'ld say she don't care wherever we are going to stay. We respond by saying that we don't want to work here anymore and please send us back to our country. We keep this sentence whenever she treated us badly. We realised that she doesn't afford to send us back because we, all engineers, are working so hard and performing a key area in preparing tender, claims, certificate with monthly basic. So we dare to protest upon their unfair matters.

When we still resist to pay that, she'll fine us RM5, 10, 15, etc and still refuse she'll order chief to cut foods for us and we'll need to prepare foods ourselves or buy outside foods. If we still managing to dare that, she won't hesitate to cut water and electricity by not paying bill to authority in time. When the bills are not paid, the authority is going to cut water & electricity until it is served. When water & electricity cut, we have no water at hostel to cook and even to take a bath or wash our faces early morning. But we don't mind it and we'll bring our tooth-brush and past to office and wash our face and brush our teeth at office. We go to nearby community club to take a bath by giving RM-1.00 for using swimming pool. For laundry service, we go another dorm where our fellow citizens are staying in. Later we got bed and they are double decker bed and we enjoyed to use them. The most disappointing thing was lady boss place one Burmese traitor at the hostel and he'ld report whatever we do in hostel.

More than enough to experience a good place at oversea? We are trying to happy despite the place is look like a hell by visiting our friends place who are working in the other company and other towns. We are not happy in our very own company and dorm. We worked under pressure at office and we live under watchful eyes at dormitory. How can we find a proper and peaceful life in such places? Anyway I am grateful my previous employer for making me a mature person and giving me a tough life training within 3 years time. Luckily I am able to work in Singapore right now and all the matter above are disappeared as a dream. I look forward I won't encounter such condition in my life again.

IN FACT, OVERSEA ARE NOT A PARADISE AS WE THINK BEFORE WE ACTUALLY GO THERE.

United Myanmar

AFTER CONFIRMING my salary with RM-1400, my senior started to change his attitude onward me, instead he should happy with the prospect of his salary rise. All my senior Myanmar colleagues guessed that I can't get my salary beyond RM-1000 regardless of any post and educational background. I was so upset to hear their -ive comments and finally I fought for my salary and got RM-1400. It's mean my salary is more than my senior who is still earning RM-1100 including RM100 keep money. I noticed that he treated me totally different in daily process.
Being junior, I was struggling to familiar with the company format at earlier days. So I have a lot area to learn from him and he also explained me whatever he can until my salary confirmed. After that he'ld decline my curious questions by saying you are better than me and earn better. So you don't need to learn so much and learn it by yourself if you found something unfamiliar. Actually he is about 4 year younger than me also engineering diploma holder with non-civil subject. So technically I am stronger than he is and I have got enough experience to work independently. But I insist that I still need to learn from him in order to smooth my work. For instance, I don't know how to take letter ref:, QS ref:, quantity taking-off by the aid of computer, how to use photostat machine, fax machine, etc. I understood how his mind suffer from learning that his junior got better salary. So I keep quiet and I tried to ask other country men colleagues when I needed to clarify.
Two month later, his salary increased to RM-1200 and following month he earned the same amount of what I earned. In fact he can't expect this salary increasement unless I arrive this company. But he never mentioned his thanks for this advantage. Next month another myanmar engineer came to our office and they united as a group and we gradually keep silent and didn't speak each other unless it is necessary. 5 months later another 2 Myanmar engineer and 1 draft man joined us and make a small Myanmar continent at the office. So there are altogether 5 engineers and 1 draftman who are working together and dinning together at the lunch time and dinner time.
At our first year, we got a staff foods for twice a day during week days. Second year food supply reduced to only once a day. Final year we are not getting any foods from office and we never get any food allowance for that. As a result, we need to prepare our foods at our hostel and there was only stove and one frying pan at the hostel. So we need to share all utensil as a common tools and unfortunately our working time is exactly the same and cooking time also fall on the same period. So every evening, we are fighting for the gas stove and pan by going back early hostel and will cook without hesitating the follower. In this case, there are 4 groups for only six person office staffs.
What a disappointing experience is it? We came from the same country and struggling in the bad company by going on the same boat. Should we help each other rather than fight each other? Should we make it one group and cook it happily? Why seperate so many group for only six person? The answer is we are not united and our rival became bigger day after day. At one point we don't want to see each other. It makes our bad employer happy bcz the lady boss wanted to see us ununited. Let me share one case here as it is coincident with united title,
At our hostel, there was a Myanmar female staff who is also working at the office with different level. She also need to cook for her meal and one day she dropped the kitchen knife and it broken to 2 pieces. She, amazingly, placed back the knife and no replace with new one. Since it is only one knife everybody use in kitchen and people are keeping use these spoil knife without buying new one. So I decided to buy new one by sharing the price and proposed to all groups. There are five group in which some group are individually group. After getting approval, one group in which two people comprise demanded to pay by individual rather than group. I rejected their proposal and I insist to quit from that plan if they don't agree with group sharing. I mean is every group must pay one share regardless of how many people included. Finally we cannot make it deal and failed to buy new knife. I bought a new knife by myself for my group while they buy their knife themselves. It' funny people will bring back after cooking and our cool relationship became chilly.
We are such a kind of people, we failed to make strengh by uniting each other while we all are working away from our home land. I think this is a major different between our citizens and other citizens. Other country men are very united in oversea so that they can able to protect each other from other's bulliness. I also not innocent and my mind became dirty so as to reflect my surrounding people. Actually the price of knife is less than RM-5 and nobody wanted to donate in favor of everybody's convenience.
How do I dare to say we are a buddhist men?
How other country men judge us if they had seen our case?
It is embarrasing manner and I felt ashamed now when I consider that days. Now all of us are currently working in Singapore after finishing our 3 years contract with Malaysia employer. At some point, we were willing to kill each other for a few Ringgit Malaysia.
Is it crazy enough we are?
But it happened to us once upon a time in KL, Malaysia. Now these all are left as our history.