The Characters I Work With

Date: 10/25/10

One of the most important aspects of any job is the simple question 'Can you stand the people you work with?' This will go a long way to determining whether you like your job or not. I inherited quite a cast of different personalities on my job. You have me in all my glory. Formerly there was my roommate (read previous blog out him if you have not), but he has since been transferred to a different project due to lack of enthusiasm and productivity; he needed to see something different. First there is Seelan, the Indian safety officer and one of my closest friends since I've gotten to Malaysia. Cool dude, funny, enjoys having fun. Also 32 yrs old, basically taking care of his niece like his own child. Honestly, in a culture like this, I can't figure out why the dude isn't married; i think it's a combo of confidence issues around women and concentration on some other family issues going on. It's nice that he's a bachelor so we can go out and discuss 'eye candy' but one of my biggest missions is to get him out of his bad habit of driving after drinking. I finally think I broke through to him about it after a somewhat unsafe night we had weeks ago. So i will continue working this with him. I can't help thinking I have an opportunity to change his life for the better and I won't stop monitoring him on this. Great guy though. Next there is Khairul. Boy, boy, boy. He's a Malay clerk of works (i won't try to explain what that means) working for the client of the project rather than the contractor, who I work for. He's 35 yrs old, looks like a teenager because of his size and personality. Although married, he's very vocally girl crazy (at least talking, hopefully not acting on such thoughts) especially for young girls (too young). Because he works for the client, basically the customer in the construction situation, whenever women are mentioned his favorite phrase is "Client first."He is the class clown of our work situation; always talking, usually something that ends with his hyena-like laughter. The jokes are often at my roommate's expense. He has been at odds with his bosses since I arrived on the project and has been looking for a new job. He has been offered two or three, he has one big problem. He adamantly refuses to take a blood test; no matter what. Whether he wants the job or not, he is turning it down immediately if it requires a blood test. As hilarious at he his, the funniest part of all my be his territorial attitude towards me 'stealing' Seelan from him. Wow. Moving on, Zambri is our Malay surveyor. He's one of the bigger Malays I encounter (probably 5'11, 210 or so) but rides a small motor bike like his undersized counterparts. He's a cool guy as long as you don't disturb the hour of sleep he sneaks in at work everyday. Ms. Oon, my greatest ally and also my archnemesis. A useful wealth of info to talk to and simultaneously the most frequent source of headaches on the job. She is the Chinese senior clerk of works for the client. Inspections of all members being built, one of the biggest parts of my job, are performed side-by-side with her. She's very good at her job and very good at knowing what to look for. At the same time, she can be very picky - sometimes overly picky - about things that don't matter. Why do we need to waste time brushing the rust off the the rebar if it's part of the foundation and is about to be casted into concrete and buried underground? This is Malaysia, it rains all the time, the rebar is going to rust; let it go. But I digress…Next you have Mr. Ong (pictured below sleeping AKA hard at work) our older Chinese resident engineer. He don’t talk much, but when he does, you probably won’t like it. Come back from break late, he will get mad and tell on you; right after taking a nap and right before he goes on his 3 pm break at 5:15 himself. Old men. SMH. But all old men are not created equal. I have an adopted Grandfather for my time here, Ah Fatt Lim. He doesn’t speak much English. But he can say “Happy Hour” perfectly. He’s that old man that your parents try to keep you away from until you’re a little older because he’s still acting up for his age. He’s pictured below acting up with a bar girl at a local pub. What a character. CH Tan, my former boss (recently transferred due to butting heads with the clients), is two completely different people wrapped into one. He’s the coolest, most inviting middle aged dude outside of work. He used to show us the good, cheap restaurants, he showed us where to by the ‘legally illegal’ DVDs, etc. But at work, he can catch a quick temper with the best of them. He likes to start barking at us if more pressure is put on him He's pictured below in the doorway. Fook Lee Low is our site supervisor; essentially day-to-day he calls the shots. He doesn’t speak much English but increasingly we can understand each other more and more. He’s the most athletic 53 year old Chinese man the world has ever seen (he’s pictured below 20 feet in the air helping construct a roof with no hard hat). I’ve seen him instinctively hop up on things I have to be careful with myself. The other person unsafely constructing that roof is Hasan Ali, my favorite worker. He’s a 28-year old Bangladeshi who you can tell wants more for himself. Most of the general workers on our site are satisfied living on site in meager accommodations and getting paid pennies to build expensive buildings. Hasan is different. Somehow, with the slim salary our workers get paid, he’s bought a PDA and a laptop and is determined to learn how to use them to make himself better prepared to take another step in his life. I support anybody tryna move forward as long as they're not sellin their soul to do it. And how could I forget our security guard Mazlan. Round as he wants to be, always smiling and standing at the gate with this one leg cocked out stance like he's waiting on the spot light to hit him. The funniest guy I can't understand. The "artwork" on his guard house door is pictured below. Interesting times and people. Better than a site full of stiffs....