You have to hand it to cab drivers throughout the world for
providing some of the most interesting bits of wisdom at the least expected of
moments. Yesterday (19 September, 2012), I met a cab driver with a story to
tell.
Cab drivers in Singapore are usually older men who ended up
driving taxis as a last resort. Speak to enough of them and you’ll find that
they’ve been retrenched from elsewhere and had no other way of making a living.
This is probably the only job in Singapore that is restricted for the natives.
My driver was different. He was four years younger than me. He
was educated (diploma in mechanical engineering from Singapore Polytechnic),
and he chose to go into taxi driving –
this was a chap who had a job in a German engineering company and then quit
once they offered him a supervisors role.
Unlike the majority of cab drivers, this chap liked his job
except for the fact that it killed he chances with the chicks. He pointed out
that he would meet girls, get chatting and the moment he revealed he was a cab
driver they’d refuse to speak to him. His point was, “I don’t see what’s wrong
with being a taxi driver. It’s an honest living.”
This point struck home. In the last decade that I’ve lived
in Singapore, I’ve often found that you are what you do for a living. It’s not
enough to make an honest living. You’re supposed to do something that is ‘worthy’
of what everyone else expects you to do.
I remember returning to Singapore after university and
selling antiques at five bucks an hour. It wasn’t great but it was cash in hand
every day and money that I earned and didn’t take from Dad.
After a while Dad had to say, “Much as I respect you wanting
to work, I’d rather you focus on building your career.” It didn’t take long for me to realize what he
meant. The market place is brutal. Within six-months of graduation, one should
have ones foot in an industry – which means either working for the government
or a respectable company.
I had to learn some harsh truths about job hunting. To be it
was a numbers game until Gerard Lim; former General Manager of Leo Burnett’s
Singapore explained things. He pointed out that I would “Never” be considered
for jobs in things like “tele-marketing” (though I did have a stint in a call
centre). I thought it was because I had “no experience.” He told me it was
because I was “too good.” As a graduate, particularly one from a prestigious
college, nobody would stay in such a job for long and so there was no point
hiring me.
As far as the world was concerned, I was something because I
had a degree and I was therefore expected to do only a certain type of job.
This in turn meant that I would only mix with a certain social circle and
builds my life from there.
My peers in the agency game or even from the army and
university have lived the lives that their jobs and education expected them to
live. Every PR agency professional I’ve worked with moved from a smaller agency
to a bigger one and a few have gone into the client side. They have lots of
friends from the profession and even married within the profession.
In many ways, the Western world is more relaxed about what
you do for a living and social mobility is more fluid. This is especially true
of the “artistic” world. Every waiter in Los Angeles is an aspiring screen
writer or actor who is merely doing a job to pay bills until the big break
arrives. Harrison Ford (he of Han Solo and Indiana Jones fame) was a carpenter
before he got his big break (Han Solo).
When I was going through long spells of unemployment, my
mother would lament that I lived in Singapore and not in the West, where I
could do a simple job while looking for a “career.” My sister, who lives in London,
was perhaps luckier than me in this respect. She’s worked in a shop as a shop
assistant for several years to help pay her bills while she did her art work.
However, even the Western world isn’t exempt from imposing expectations.
My sister tells me that “Middle Class” mothers loath her. The reason is simple
– she speaks with a “posh” accent which gives away the fact that she’s got a
‘public’ (to non Brits, that’s private and exclusive) school and a decent
university background. To the Middle Class, someone who speaks like her should
not be working in a shop.
So, where does this leave us? Well, the only thing one can
do is to accept that certain things will always be a certain way. It will take
time for people to change their views on certain issues. In Singapore it’s
particularly tough; thanks to a culture that demands everyone’s devotion to
material success.
However, things will
have to change – the population is getting greyer and jobs (particularly the
nice cushy ones) are getting scarcer. So
just as people can expect to change careers within a lifetime, they also have
to be prepared to take ‘ordinary’ jobs from time-to-time, just to pay the bills.
Both employers and employees need to see this and adjust
their thinking and actions towards this fact. People like me with ‘unusual’ job
histories might have a future. I remember telling Frank Young co-founder of the
Weekender that I didn’t think I was employable. He argued that I was VERY
employable; I merely had to focus on the things I did (G2G, litigation, GE, UL,
3M and Alcon) and not where I had been (one-man-show and SME).
People like me should be encouraged by the advertising
industry, where you had legends like David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy &
Mather, who worked as a chef and farmer before he entered the profession at the
‘old’ age of 38. Unfortunately, the industry has become ‘standardised’ and
people with job histories like Ogilvy usually lose out to fresh ‘communications
graduates.’ This needs to change. Employers need to become creative at milking
the value of people with ‘unusual’ job histories instead of chucking them aside
in favour of people they think they can mold.
Employees or perspective job seekers need to accept that ‘any’
job has value provided one takes it positively and understands that one can
pick up skills in menial jobs that will prove useful in later life.
I remember Gucharandan Das arguing that too employers
expected new employees to have skills. His argument was, “You hire based on
attitude and train for skills.” A person who has done menial work can be a
person with the right attitude.
There’s also a case for developing and accepting that people
will need to be independent. I think of my Uncle Nick (Mum’s cousin-in-law) who
once had a high flying job in the City. He believes that having worked in all
sorts of jobs gave him confidence that he’ll always be able to make a living
and so was not beholden to employers and was therefore able to be more
professional for his employers.
It’s such a shame that many of us have this mental block
when it comes to appreciating the value of work. A person is not defined by his
job. A job can make a person and it can say a lot about a person. Some people
are more ambitious than others. However, the worth of a person and job shouldn’t
be defined by a monetary value. I think of the cab driver who can’t get a date.
To me, he’s found the secret to happiness. I suspect he’s under
divine protection – someone out there is weeding away the type of girls that
are too shallow for him.
