Sunday, April 10, 2022

I’m Not a Lawyer – I’m just a Plumber but I do plumbing for the Judges

One of the highlights of my brief career in the insolvency trade came at the start, when I had to assist with a trial. One of the main characters in the trial was an old man who was the client’s interpreter. This old man looked was what you’d call the example of where the real brains and wealth in Singapore happen to be. He dressed like a typical “Ah Pek” (Old Geezer). Standard uniform was shorts and sandals. However, his knowledge of legal affairs happened to be spot on. He could reel off sections of the legal code and identify fraud in documents in a way that would leave the legal professionals stunned. Upon seeing their stunned expressions, his classic line was “Oh, I’m not a lawyer, I’m just a plumber, but I do a lot of plumbing for judges.”

I am reminded of this old man because he had something that seems to be rather lacking in today’s information age – curiosity. I’ve sat in too many conversations with “educated” people who have displayed an amazing ignorance of the world at large. I think of the Aramco guys I once worked with. They got the shock of their lives when people were asking them which part of Dubai they came from.

This level of ignorance about the world is inexcusable. Even if you missed things out at school, we’re all equipped with smart phones. Short of a total collapse of the internet, you can literally get whatever basic knowledge you need with a simple Google search. Yet, despite all of this, our people remain blissfully ignorant of the world outside their own bauble. The excuse for not knowing basic general knowledge is inevitably, “I’m not a [insert profession or degree]” or “I’ve never been to [insert country] or I’ve never worked with people from [insert country.]”

Having encountered such levels of ignorance, I’m often curious as to how our education system managed to call itself “world-class.” Instead of “liberating” people, our education system has trapped them into little prisms. For example, if you studied law, all you’re supposed to do is law or if you’ve studied engineering, all you’re supposed to know is engineering. This mindset gets even worse lower down the social scale, where if you’re working as a plumber, all you’re supposed to know is plumbing.

In a way, I can understand being devoted to your craft. If you go for surgery for example, you would want your surgeon to be devoted to knowing everything about surgery. However, in our current age of continuous disruption, being stuck in a cookie cutter is suicidal. What you do today can always be outsourced to someone cheaper or to a machine (hence the number of smaller Indian IT firms struggling to rebrand as “product” companies rather than “service” companies.”) This isn’t something that you’d expect from our “internet” generation.

I think back to the old man I used to work with. Sure, he was a plumber but he was a plumber who kept his ears open. When doing plumbing for judges, he listened to legal discussions and would read up on things. Hence, whenever he spoke to lawyers, he spoke to them in a position of strength rather than in a position of “I don’t know what the f** you’re talking but since I need you, I’ll do as you say.”

 


 If this guy listens and reads, he can understand what  … - copyright mrplumber.com

 


 These guys are trying to sell him – copyright Channel NewsAsia

Education needs to move away from giving you a piece of paper that gives you an aid for mental masturbation and towards an awakening of a need to know more. I think of someone who once told me that getting a PhD meant that you can go no higher and compared that with a lecturer who told me that getting a PhD was an awakening to how much she didn’t know about her chosen subject and therefore had to find out more.

Too many of us get caught up with having the paper and not enough of us get excited by the journey we took to get that piece of paper. We got a skill in learning things. The act of listening to people and reading is a skill in itself that needs to be valued more.

This is not to say that there’s no room for established professionals. If I feel there’s something wrong with my body, I consult a doctor rather than trying to self-medicate. However, knowing what I can know about whatever ails me, helps the doctor get the best possible remedy. Look at lawyers who don’t represent themselves whenever they end up being sued or charged in court. There’s a reason for it. The lawyer who hires another lawyer is not less knowledgeable but using his knowledge to complement another lawyer’s knowledge

The importance of education is not so much in the output but in the journey that was taken. Life as a student is not just having papers but the journey to getting knowledge, which equips people for life.

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Maira Gall