The Joys of Workers Who Don't Speak English

Date: 10/2/10

“Morning Boss” this is how I am greeted by my workers on the jobsite when I enter every morning. Being mostly Indonesian and Bangladeshi (and full of vibrant personality), this is as far as some of their English vocabularies stretch. So during the day, trying to give them specific directions for what I need them to do becomes quite a difficult yet entertaining task. Hand gestures always help so I could imagine I may look a little silly from 50 feet away if you see me making hand motions but don’t know what I am talking about. Our Safety Supervisor, my main man Seelan, speaks very good Bahasa Malay and English, so sometimes (especially on time-sensitive issues), he gets drafted as my temporary translator for purposes of clarity. It already feels a little strange from time to time giving orders for manual labor to men who are on average 10 years older than me or so; the language barrier makes it that much more interesting. But luckily, the combination of me being one of the only member of the management staff that’s not scared to get their hands dirty and do something themselves and being the “big Black guy” has bought me a tremendous level of respect with my workers. I’ve rolled up the sleeves of my Polo to move something myself instead of disturbing a worker from another task and seen a worker come running 100 feet to come tell me “No boss, I will do.” It was a good feeling.. Hasan, a 28 year old Bangladeshi who’s the leader of the Kongsikong (a Mandarin term which essentially means general construction worker) has become my go-to guy because he understands a little bit of English on top of being genrally dependable, proactive, and informative. But that is the case with my Kongsikong. My site supervisor Fook Lee, a Chinese man about my parents age (who’s remarkably athletic for his age I’ve come to find watching him climb and navigate to the least accessible points on site) understands English okay because he watches American movies; however, he does not speak English well at all. I ask questions, about EVERYTHING. I want to learn about EVERYTHING because I plan to be the big man on the job one day and when I have young, handsome, educated college grad asking me questions about why I do the things I do on site, I need to be able to answer. With Fook Lee, trying to have a productive conversation with him is hit or miss. Sometimes I can decipher what he means and learn something, other times I just end up leaving unfulfilled. I don’t’ even get frustrated any more, I just know it’s part of the game. The most interesting events as far as language barrier are our inspections. Inspections of every building member before it’s concreted are done by Ms. Oon, the bilingual clerk or works for the project owner, and myself. Fook Lee often comes along though. There are times where she and I will disagree and be arguing with something in English and Fook Lee will lean to her a little later and ask in Malay “what was that about?” Then other times she and Fook Lee will argue in Malay and then I have to lean in and ask for clarification in English. After a year of this site dynamic, communicating with worker in English when I return to the States should be a piece of cake. Off to bed, need to get some rest and enjoy Sunday, my only day off each week. Selamat malam…