I was 18 in 1997, I came home half completed my high school in England because my father was bankrupted. He was a contractor bankrupted because the licensee, Taib’s uncle defaulted on paying royalty to the Government. Pocketed all the money my father gave.
Together with 6 of my friends we went to Komat in Sama Jaya to look for jobs as they only required MCE; to help out the family.
The HR lady was an Iban, on our turn she refused to give us application forms and demanded our qualifications. Without even understanding us, we were turned away. On further enquiry from us, she said, the 250 posts were all filled. It was 10.25am and the application counter just opened at 9.30am. Asked the guard to show us out.
Komat repeated publication for the posts for another week. We went back again and again were rejected. This time she asked us to look for jobs in China.
My uncle promptly help the six of us to look for jobs from his contacts. Ironically, we all ended up in Shenzhen China, working in a micro circuitboard plant.
...
Today my company has been operating in Penang for 6 months. We are employing 200 people.
I was conducting interviews for senior staff for the jobs. One of the people that came in for the interview was the same Iban lady from Komat 10+ years ago. The lady who turned me away. The lady who told me I was not eligible for the job. The lady who told me the posts were filled when yet to select the first applicant of 250 and the lady who asked me to go to China to look for a job.
I had the satisfaction to tell her all these if I wanted to. Instead I listened to all her talk about how great she had done in her former employment and now she was out on a huge VSS. How well she will do for me with her experience and how much she would like to work for a Chinese boss. She said she is the daugther of an influential bumiputra man and her husband is doing well in business. I let her rave on with her diatribe.
Finally, when she realised she the one doing all the talking and I was not even asking questions, she stopped.
Finally I said, I know her. She was shocked, for now I was properly suited up and not in T-shirt and jeans like the first time we met.
I simply said I like to thank her for asking me to go back to China to look for work. I did, I made it and what she is seeing today and the brochure I placed infront of her is in fact the SUCCESS from disgust and disappointment of being a Malaysian Chinese!!
...
It was also an excellent example of how an apparent setback in life could be a blessing in disguise! I am sure there are many more such success stories resulting from our unfair system of administration.
The more the government favours certain people, the less fit they become; those discriminated against would come out tougher and get going when the going gets tough.
It is probably the law of nature, and can be seen even in family situations.
2 comments:
I enjoy this article. Reminds me of my own personal experience when I first came back from University of Alberta. Hope you don't mind if I publish your article in my blog as a background reminder of my own experience. I also want my readers to log in your interesting blog of rich experiences.
Cheers to more wonderful articles!
Choo Choo
Thanks Choo Choo, for the compliments. Nice to know that there are some who enjoy what I posted. The article as you would probably know, comes from Lim Kit Siang's blog as a letter from Justin Hong.
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