It's OK to be a Good Guy

My mother once said that my younger brother and I would never be terribly successful with women because we were both nice guys – the type of guys who girls wanted as friends rather than as lovers. In a certain way, my mother was right. Girls, inevitably saw me as a good friend rather than as a “hot” sex machine and my twenties were fairly disappointing in the girl department. When friends told me “Move in” I didn’t know how to – it remains a psychological anathema for me to touch a woman unless she touches me first. I only realized I was attractive to the opposite sex in my 40s when someone insinuated that I was “hunky” (the compliment came from someone who gives me tummy tickling feelings and she said it in a tummy tickling way).

My lack of success with the opposite sex, probably carried over into part of my professional career. As a “nice” person, I didn’t know how to tell people to “piss off” and I always felt that I needed the other side to give me what they thought I deserved rather than what I believed I deserved. It took nearly a decade of freelancing for me to overcome the nice guy instincts of asking for what I want. I guess you could say that I fell into Green Day’s wisdom of “Nice Guys Finish Last.”

However, I’ve just had an interesting lesson in being a good person, which was administered by a group of “foreign workers” from India and Bangladesh, whom I met a few years back when I was part of the liquidation team that closed down the company they were working for. The guys had hung on for five months and the company did not have the means to pay their wages.

The process of getting them paid turned out to be a very long and arduous one. While the company in question had receivables (money coming in), there were unforeseen issues that we had to handle and so on. Whenever they called, I didn’t know when we’d be able to declare a dividend to them.

So, I ended up dipping into my own pocket to help a few of them. While this wasn’t money I had, I reasoned that it was money I could earn more easily than they could. I also reasoned that since I had perpetually been blessed by the Indian community, it was time for me to give back.

In a way, I had to prepare for the fact that I was probably not going to see the money back. Paying laborers from the Indian Subcontinent badly is part of the game in our local construction scene and many of them borrow money at usurious interest rates just to get here to get a job.

I also found that “my” people were a little upset with me for risking my money on the proverbial darkies of South Asia. One of them advised me, “Don’t you know – Bangladeshi workers are not very trust worthy.” – The person in question had mentioned that the views were formed for working in a law firm and seeing construction workers fake injuries to cheat the insurance companies (given the amount of money that construction workers and make and how much insurance companies take from you and how little they give out when you need the money – I’m inclined to say good for the worker).

In fairness to my own kind, I remember meeting one of my creditors, who is the senior manager from a finance house telling me privately, “How much can you pay me – 10 cents on the dollar. I tell my finance team to write off the debt – you should pay it to the guys who need it - the workers.”

In a funny way, this was supposed to be a year when I am supposed to do OK on the financial front. In a funny way, I have in as much as I’ve caught up on bills and paying down debts. I just didn’t expect the source of it to be from these fellows that I helped.

The two that owed me the most paid the fastest. One of them transferred the money he owed instantly and showed me the receipt. Not only did I get the money back, he actually showed me his gratitude via WhatsApp.

The largest debtor actually called me up and was worried I was going to waste money on taxi fares chasing him. I saw him off at the airport and he paid me in cash and then insisted on buying dinner. Interestingly enough, prior to receiving his money, he actually sent me a friend request on Facebook. This is a character who wanted to take photos with me and shared them with the rest of the guys.

I write this because we live in an age where its easy to turn on the less fortunate from other parts of the world. I think of my ex-wife who claimed that she was in danger of getting rapped if she walked by a group of workers or I think of another Singaporean born Indian fellow who claimed to get scared going to Little India on the weekend because it would get very crowded with – Indians.

I find people in multicultural and multiracial Singapore defending Donald Trump whenever he makes xenophobic remarks about “rapist from Mexico” or “banning Muslims” from migrating into the USA.

I don’t understand these sentiments. My experiences with people from the poorer parts of the world has generally been positive. My Indian and Filipino colleagues in the restaurant have looked out for me. My new found friends from the construction industry had every reason to hate me and screw me up but in the end, they were the ones who showed me that it is more than OK to be a good guy.