The Enemy Among Us

Right after our return from Chinese New Years holiday, we noticed we had an extra crew member at sight. He's a seemingly nice older Pakistani man with a constant smirk on his face and who is always way too dressed up for the fact that we live on a construction site; usually a dress shirt, slate grey vest, and slacks to go with our obligatory hard hat and work boots. It's a shame I found out his purpose at our site and therefore we could never be friends. When we come to work in the morning, at the return times from each tea break, and anywhere near time to leave, he would be standing near the front gate watching us. Over the course of the day, you see him randomly walking and watching - never writing, reading, or interacting - only watching. You guessed it, he is the corporate spy. No other scope of work, just spying. He was replaced at another site so that he could come to ours and snitch about anyone's tardiness, early leaving, or anything else he may think is noteworthy in a bad way. As one of the ppl who depends on others entirely for my transportation, I'm one of those who is screwed by this. My boss or supervisor usually picks me and my Filipino co-worker up in the mornings. We are supposed to be there at 8 am sharp, we usually arrive between 8:15 and 8:30 am. Guess who's face is waiting at the gate every time? The same two gentlemen who usually provide me rides, my project manager and senior supervisor, don't want to arrive at their homes any later than they usually do. This means that if they are used to making it home at 6:30 pm or so, and taking us home takes them about 25 minutes out of their way, they want to leave earlier to compensate for the time spent. So of course, that means the same slightly smiling face sees me leave before 6 pm every day too. No good can come from him being at my job. And therefore, I've deemed him "the enemy among us"

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....

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…

A Tale of Bonding

Date: 8/13/10

I hope I don’t’ jinx it, but I really like the people I work with. Sure I still have a lot of trouble understanding what a few of them are saying (and don’t stand a chance in one case), but everyone is personable and upbeat in and out of the office. The day started to steal my mood early as the training session on quality management ended up taking over 3 grueling hours; how long does it take to say “You need a system that makes you learn how to do it right, do it right, check to make sure you did it right, make sure the customer believes you’re doing it right, and write down if you did it right for future reference”? See, that wasn’t even a full three lines of typing. Not to mention the tedious task of intelligently and thoroughly answering the question “If you’re American, you weren’t scared to come here? I thought Americans hate Muslims.” It’s always a bit tricky because I have less undue fear and more awareness about propagated issues (such as the “all Muslims want are jihadists and want to blow up American: bullshit) than the average American, which also has to be explained when I’m giving my opinion. But my coworkers lifted my spirits at the wonderful and cheap Chinese/Malaysian restaurant we’ve already become regulars at. I had a filling buffet over a bed of rice for $5.50 Malaysian ringgits (about $1.75 USD). Then I get back to the office and get the news that the office is doing karaoke night tonight. Although I’m not a huge karaoke fan back home, this is something I simply cannot miss for several reasons. So after work and a trip to the accurately named superstore “Giant” to pick up some supplies, we head out to Neway Karaoke Box. I thought it would be something like the US, where it’s a restaurant or bar and they’re having karaoke night where people get on stage and sing their hearts out. Wrong. This is a karaoke establishment. You get your own wildly decorated and furnished room with a large karaoke machine with a big screen for music videos and lyrics. Check the pics below. The machine must hold millions of songs, as I know it holds tens of thousands of different artists. The waiters and waitresses come up and take your drink orders. Any point after 7:30 pm, the official opening chow time of Ramadan, you can walk downstairs and partake of the buffet and sushi bar and take it back to your room. Once again, another wonderful meal did not cost me a dime. I’m not even Muslim, but Ramadan is treating me wonderfully. I guess I expected karaoke to just be the ever-energetic women at the office and some of the younger guys. Wrong again. EVERYBODY came. Young, old, outgoing shy, Malay, Chinese, entry-level intern, company driver, and the business owner; Everyone came, everyone ate and drank, everyone sang and everyone had a marvelous time for all 4.5 hours we were there. My British coworker and roommate also arrived straight from the airport to partake in the fun; a little nerdy, but he seems cool too. It was almost magical. The unity in the office is amazing so far. Granted, all I’ve done is study the plans and specs so far and I’ve yet to be in a situation where a coworker and me don’t see eye to eye on something. But even so, I’m getting a great feeling about the staff I’ll be working with. So, today was positive. The walk to work felt shorter. It was overcast and a little rainy, curbing the heat some. Some vital supplies were purchased at a decently low cost. Today was another good day. Still need these phone, electronics, Internet, and access cards situations resolved though. But the ball has been put in motion. Selamat malam KL, cheers and hopefully seeing the jobsite tomorrow is worth all the hype. Stay tuned…