I am working at a warehouse as a temporary 1 month stocktaking assistant, and the job is anything but desirable. You can forget about air-conditioning, sometimes I don’t even get a fan. Today, I ate literal dust in a small, dim, secluded walkway without the slightest hint of ventilation, my skin flaring up with rashes and my jeans hugging my legs with sweat. For $50 a day.
At the beginning, there were 30 part-timers. After 3 weeks, there are 6 of us left. Call me what you like, but I refused to quit. I’ve lost 2kg since the start.
Today during lunch, I sat down opposite one of my better liked full-time staffs. I asked her what she was doing.
“Same old. But today I don’t get to do it in aircon, so I’m very hot.”
“Don’t you get tired of doing the same thing every day?”
“Yes, I do. But I don’t have a university degree. You’re studying in NTU right? After you graduate, you’ll find work with a starting salary higher than my current one even though I’ve already been working for 35 years. I have a daughter, she’s doing quite well and earning 6k a month. I could retire and rely on her for money, but she needs to take care of her children so I don’t want to financially burden her yet. Anyway, I’m still healthy even though I’m getting old. When I was your age, it was quite impressive to graduate with even a secondary school degree. Nowadays, if you don’t have a university degree people look down on you.”
“How long has your daughter been married?”
“She married early when she was 18. Initially I was so sceptical because they met online. But I’ve learnt that you can’t restrict your children on the things they really want in life. I’m lucky that she was smart enough to graduate with a university degree. I’m lucky that she’s found someone to marry. If she doesn’t want a university degree, or if she doesn’t want to marry, I’d let her anyway. As a parent, the proudest moment is to see your child succeed. But you should never let your desire for a parental pride hinder what your child really wants. If your child wants to do something you don’t support, then if you love your child you will learn to bend and accommodate. To parent is to guide and nurture, not to guard and restrict. I’m lucky that my child took the route I would have wished for her to. But even if she didn’t, I’ll accept it regardless.”
And this is why I’m staying on in this job, even though I have a thousand reasons to quit.
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