I went for an interview the other day with a plywood company. The post that I applied for was Logistics Assistant. It was quite a drive from my house to the place where I will be interviewed which is the main office. The place itself is situated at the Industrial estate at about almost 25 KM from town. My interview was scheduled to be at 2:00 PM.

It was not until 4:00 PM that I got the chance to be interviewed. There were 21 applicants altogether but only I think at about 12 applicants turned up for the interview. I was applicant number 8. After almost 2 hours of shivering in the conference room I was finally called to the director’s office.

There was a young man in the room, I think in about his late 20’s around 27-29 most probably. He introduced himself as Jason and asked me to sit down and get on with the interview.

The first question he asked me was whether I am comfortable with English or Bahasa Melayu. I answered straight away, English. He smiled and said that I am actually the first English speaking candidate of the day. I don’t know whether I should be happy with that or not but I gave him a smile.

I was set to be focused on talking about issues related to logistics as I applied for that particular post. One of the first few question s that he asked me was that, when I heard the word SY Plywood, what kind of a job that I expect or what kind of working environment that I have in mind. So I told him, since this is a plywood company and I applied for a job in the logistics department I’d expected that I would be working both on site which is in the factory and also in the office.

I told him that my job would be something involving transportations, shipping, scheduling and some part of it would be keeping an eye on the machineries as in keeping stocks of what type of spare parts we have and those that we don’t have. I was trying my very best to answer the question even though to  be honest I have no experience in handling logistics as in working per say. The only experience that I have which was close might be a little bit far from close was when I was appointed as the technical and special tasks exco for my University Camp.

Then he said:

“What if I were to put you in the engineering department?”

I thought, is he joking? I don’t come from an engineering school and not that I have any engineering background either. The closest that I have to that might be when I was in my secondary school taking KHB (Kemahiran Hidup Bersepadu) which I did miserably well enough to get A.

“I’m sorry sir but I don’t even have an engineering background”

He smiled and answered

“My friend, a degree is just a kick start for your career. It’s for a little bit of acceleration to looks for jobs. I tell you one thing, if I were to put you and mechanical engineering student in the factory right now, both of you will start at 0, I can assure you that none of you will be able to handle it. So what I’m saying is it doesn’t really matter. You don’t have a background, fine we will train you. It’s whether you want to do it or not”

Well, it might sound convincing or not so convincingly voiced but at least he got saying these little things in my head that I’ll think about it. But one thing that really makes me saying I have to think twice about this job is the working hours.

Working Hours:

6:30 AM – Morning Briefing
7:30 AM – Start work
12:00 PM – Lunch Break
7:30 PM – Finish Work

It’s freaking 13 hours!

Annual Leaves:

14 Days after 1 year of slavery service

Off Days:

2 DAYS in a MONTH!

Shit, I don’t want to die so young.


Slave of a different colour?

Dee: That’s human rights violation, work like a dog, get paid really low and tell you what, it does sounds like a very typical china man company. If you get any other job offers after few months, cabut la. I also don’t work like that. Welcome to the world of slavery in advance! Ha ha ha!

Chee beh ..

And I’d like each and everyone to remember this day as it marked the 1st annivarsary of our dear friend Eric John was call to the Lord :

In Loving Memory of Eric John (1984-2006)

Eric was a hero. He was a Brother. He was a liberal. He was a patriot. He was a friend. And He always will be. With Eric’s death we have lost someone we hold dear. What He has left behind we will hold dearer still. May God bless his soul.

Amen