The Old Youth Speaks

 I’ve mentioned it in a previous posting and I’ll happily say it again, but of all the “isms” that we have, ageism is probably one of the worst. Racism and Sexism are good at grabbing headlines. It’s been especially so since the current Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania got himself plonked into the Oval Office and we got a range of news headlines relating to those “isms.” Nobody seems interested in “ageism,” particularly when so much of the world’s attention is focused on the two Septuagenarians battling for the Oval Office.

However, as any job seeker will tell you, ageism is particularly rife and here in Singapore. To put it crudely, people after a certain age (In Singapore it’s around 35) are unlikely to get a job if they lose their current one. The situation has gotten so bad that it has taken one of our more senior and popular politicians to get out and announce that “Nobody is too old to be hired.” Yet, the problem persists. Just visit any food joint and you’ll notice that the staff are inevitably over 45. When I grew up in the UK, I understood the job at the fast food joint was what you did as a student so that you had a few extra bucks. Here in the “Land of Asian Values and Filial Piety,” working in a fast food joint is what you do when you’re too old to run around because no one else will hire you.

When I got hired by the liquidator in 2014 (my 40^th birthday) everyone told me that I had to stick onto it because it was the only job, I was likely to ever have. I was 40 and had worked mainly freelance for most of my working life and nobody was rushing to hire someone with my track record. So, I held on for five years in an industry that required me to have the one thing I refused to have – paper qualifications and regulation. In the five years of working in an accounting practice, the only job offer I received was from Burger King, which I ignored because, well they wanted me to work exclusively for them, which would have meant I’d be stuck with them for the rest of my working life.

Sure, I get that employers want young and impressionable fresh graduates that they can mold. Old Farts like me can be expensive. We’ve been round the block a few times and we’re a little less likely to get conned. When I had my first agency job, working 24/7 was all about learning the ropes and part and parcel of laying the ground work if you wanted to succeed in life. At 40, when you’re required to work 24/7 all the time, you start to question if you’re working for someone who is obsessed with being inefficient and hates productivity. The only way you’re likely to accept doing this at 40 and dare I say 50 is because you’re paid a criminal amount of money. At 20, you accept things like “sacrifice” for the company and job as being good for you and your future. At 40, it’s a different story.

Yet, if I take myself as an example, I have to question why old farts like me should become less employable. May be its because Covid-19 and the circuit breaker changed my lifestyle but I am healthier than when I was in my thirties. Just take a look at me eight years ago when I was on my first holiday in Vietnam. In the words of my mother “Your tummy is enormous.”

 

By contrast, I am significantly lighter at 46 than when I was at 38 and I feel better for it. While I had significantly less responsibilities then, I actually feel more energetic and a little more confident about taking on the world. Here’s me at 46.

Incidentally, my situation is not a freaky one. I work in an office where the only other person who could last more than five minutes on an escalator is three weeks older than me. Back when I was in my last agency job (Bang PR in 2005), my main director used to make the point that he was significantly older but at the same time healthier.

So, the question stands – if our aging population (ie people like me) are healthier than ever before, why is it so difficult for us to get a job.

I put it down to employers having a “feudal” mindset. They still want employers who will “fit in” and stay with them for years. They still want employees that can be molded into a certain image and are dependent on the employer to provide a livelihood. I can understand this mindset and it worked well for so long. It’s like the weird obsession with the office and all the gatherings that people have. In this frame of mind, you worry that the person over 40 may not fit into your cog.

While this may have been the case in the industrial revolution, we need to understand that we are no longer in that era. I hate this mindset that in order for the economy to function you need lots of people whom you can work for long hours and for cheap, which was precisely the argument that everyone used when it was suggested that foreign workers should not live in conditions that caused disease.

You have a growing population of over 40s. They have skills and the capability of doing work. Sure, if you can’t give them the same full-time job, outsource things to them. May be its less money but it’s better than nothing at all and you can let them find other paymasters concurrently. You have an army of growing and still capable people. Why can’t you find a way of using them? Surely that would help productivity.

You Take Care of the Results. I Will Take Care of the Politics

 One of the most accurate descriptions of Singapore that I’ve heard came from my former client, Datuk Vinod Sekhar, Founder of the GreenRubber Group. He described Singapore as “Disneyland under Martial Law,” and explained that Singapore was Disneyland, the place that everyone wants to be but it only got that way because we were under martial law.

Fortunately for us, the person overseeing martial law was on balance a fairly wise leader (as a matter of full disclosure, one my uncles was arrested without trial and on ridiculous charges by the said ruler) who on the balance of things produced a fairly benign society. We, the natives think of the said ruler with some fondness of a bygone era. He was like Don Corleone from the Godfather, ruthless when dealing with anyone who crossed his path but he did take care of “his” people. The Old Don and his gang can be seen below:

However, the said Godfather of Singapore got old and died and the leadership that succeeded him was what most of us would call “lacking.” The results of this new leadership, to use the Datuk’s analogy of Singapore being like Disneyland would be – Disneyland is like Singapore – everyone wants to be there except the guys who have to make the place tick.

Our complaints against the “new management” can be summed up as follows:

“Singapore is still under martial law, its just that the rules are increasingly unevenly applied.”

The new manager and his team can be seen below.

While the people from everywhere else would beg to differ, we the natives blame the “new management.” We think of the new management as being as the crazy control freak like the old Don and his gang but this time, we tend to notice that control freakery results in them benefiting at your expense. We, the poor sods, would argue that at least the control freakery of the old don was the competent variety, unlike the current crop which seems to be, well ….a little less than that. Talk to enough of us, especially those of us who are not on the established track and there will be a story of frustration when it comes to dealing with the new management running the old system.

I’m glad that I can write something from my personal experiences (which readers of this posts on the alternative media will undoubtedly crucify me for saying,) is that all is not lost when it comes to new management. There is room for real leaders.

I am currently working on a project where the client is an institution that is part of the establishment. I was in a meeting with the CEO of this client and he asked me what I needed to get the job done. I told him and he listened. Then he told me, don’t worry, send my team a list of what you need and I’ll get it for you. Then it came to another aspect of what we were doing for publicity and one his girls pointed out that there was a possibility of complaints from the public and I concurred and did mention to him that it might put him in a politically awkward situation (having done issues management for a statutory board, one is automatically attuned to how ones actions might put the client in).

At that point the CEO looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, you take care of the results and I will take care of the politics and complaints.” That moment in the meeting has stayed with me because this is precisely what I, as a contractor, needed to hear. Here was a client, respecting me for my skills and then telling me that he would allow me to do what was necessary to achieve the goals and more importantly, he would ensure I would not be troubled by politics.

If you think about it, one of the reasons why very talented people often fail is because they fail in their human relations and politics. I remember my stepfather, Lee, who was a very talented and capable creative director in a multinational. By his own admission, Lee didn’t go as far as he could have gone and by his ow admission it was because he was a lousy politician. I would understand my stepdad’s point when I started out in an agency and came to the understanding that organisations, no matter their size will inevitably have a level of politics. The success of the organization inevitably depends on its ability to keep the politics in control and the success of the individual within any organization depends on what my ex-boss, PN Balji described as “Not playing politics but knowing politics.”

When Dr. Goh Keng Swee, our former Deputy Prime Minister died in 2010, I suddenly realized the truth about the Old Don. Why was he immensely successful as a leader? It was because he respected competence and he kept the politics away from the people doing his work. Yes, Dr. Goh did do the “real” work of institution building but he could only do what he did because the boss the politics off his back.

This was the style of leadership that made Singapore and our leadership only started to show cracks when the man on top or more accurately the man pulling the strings (in his self-made consultant jobs of Senior Minister and Minister Mentor) decided that it was more fun to be a puppet master than a leader who made it possible for competent people to shine.

I had a good meeting and a better day thanks to this CEO. Yes, there was the joys of the business relationship but there was the greater hope that I had for the society at large that I had the experience of dealing with what decent leadership should be about. I pray that there are more of such men like the one I dealt with today because if there are, there is hope for the nation.