If one were to look at my “colourful” work history, I
guess you could say that the only clear theme is the fact that I’ve met more
than my fair share of interesting characters. For a person with no “real” work
experience (In the PR industry that means employed by a multinational agency
led by New York or London), I’ve managed to do government-to-government work, handle
listed companies during results announcement time and arranged cross border interviews.
In the course of my work, I’ve worked for the
ambassador of a very prominent country from geopolitically visible part of the
world and arranged interviews for a man who would become the rock-star head of one
of the largest economies in the world. I’ve been in the proximity of people who
have been bought out by larger companies and I’ve even had the privilege of
having a former President of Singapore come to speak to me.
For all my lack of “achievement,” I am very blessed to
have been around so many successful people in my working life. I’m lucky in
that I’ve kept in touch with many of them and remain on their radar, no matter how
distant my presence.
Yet, despite all of the great and good who have
touched my life, I believe that the most important person for me to celebrate
is my friend Porna who now works as a junior sous’ chef in the Shangri-La hotel.
Porna stands out in this hyper-competitive world where
people are trying to show that their pet rats are better than others. He has
found a simple formula for success. He goes to work every day. Does his job and
is nice to everyone he meets.
I met Porna nearly 15-years ago. He was working at a
roadside restaurant on the junction of Serangoon and Deskar (Cripples Red Light
District), cooking dishes. We managed to click and became close. Thanks to him,
I managed to celebrate Dussehra
at the Gurkha camp in Mount Vernon and found an extend family. Leaving the camp
and the Nepali community there always felt like the tearful goodbyes of leaving
family friends in Darjeeling in my school days.
His first
marriage broke down and for a time he was pushed into having to rent a room,
where he slept on the floor. Yet, he continued to find work, worked diligently
and shortly after he got married for the second time, he found a job in the
Orchard Hotel, where he stayed for six years. Worked diligently and was good
with customers and ended up getting “best employee” award twice.
He had a failed
stint trying to start a restaurant for some friends in Guatemala but managed to
return to Singapore and within a year or two of his return, he found himself in
the Shangri La. In the two years, that he has been with the Shangri-la, he’s
been sent to the Shangri-La-Fort and the Shangri-La Mactan in the Philippines as
part of a task force.
If you look at the fact that he’s jumped from cooking at a roadside restaurant in one of the less pretty parts of town to being someone that one of the most prominent hotel chains sends overseas and how he’s gone from sleeping on someone else’s floor to owning his own flat, you could say that he’s living the Singapore success story.
His formula has
been simple. He goes to work and treats everyone he meets with courtesy. He is
generous with his friends and tries to help people. His people skills have
meant that whenever he’s been down, there’s always been someone who has been
willing to hire him. Because he’s willing to work, he consistently in work.
In his stints
at the hotel, he has always been good with customers and so gives his employers
more of a reason to keep him around.
It’s a deceptively
simple formula for success. Not many people can do this simple task of going to
work and being nice to everyone. I’ve known people with more qualifications and
were good at the pushing paper part of their job but somehow couldn’t help but
insult colleagues and customers alike. I know highly intelligent people with enough
qualifications to fill a library and also have a genius for creating complications
to an extent that very little gets done.
My friend is
what you call the living example of how you can come up in life by being a decent
enough person. It’s for this reason that I believe he deserves to do well in
life and in a world of increasingly complicated bitchiness, we need to
celebrate the nice guys who simplify life.
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