I'd want to lay at home all day and slack my butt off, but my dear father refuses to financially support my lifestyle of sloth. Since late-night macs deliveries do not come cheap, naturally I'd have to find myself a job or two.
And boy, did I find myself a job (or two).
I currently am holding two jobs. An office admin day-job, and an overnight manual labour one. Both pay pretty well, at 10/hour and 8/hour respectively. Guess which one I hate more.
The day job's okay, it's menial work but it isn't taxing on anything other than my soul and will to live. My office job is much more stale (is staler a word?); it's just filing and organising papers. If I'm lucky, I get to mix things up a little and maybe photocopy a form or two or two hundred. It's repetitive, if anything. But that's not what I'm here to complain about.
I'm here today to talk about my stupid manual labour job. Words will not do it full justice, but I will try my best.
It's kind of like anti-construction, I'm a deconstruction worker of sorts. My job scope's to remove Christmas decorations and load them onto trucks before disposing of them at some dumping ground. And I'm not talking of tearing down posters or removing fairy lights from railings - I'm talking bringing down all those massive Christmas trees and jingle bells and balls and whatever you see in and around shopping centres. Like the huge ones outside Ion and inside Taka and whatnot. All this while accompanied (and instructed by) a bevy of foreign workers. It's tiring, it's dangerous as hell, and I hate it.
I swear I've almost died more than a few times. One time a crane carrying the metal Christmas tree frame almost hit myself and my colleagues when it swung the frame at us by accident. Another time a hooked pole my Chinese coworker was sporting caught onto my shirt, tore a hole in it and scratched me across the stomach, leaving a temporary scar (and in the middle of Orchard, no less!). Also I've crushed my foot with a wooden board and sustained a long cut on my right thigh. And this is only less than a week in! I've fallen into drains a couple of times too but that's mostly due to my own ineptitude to maintain my balance (read: imma noob :< ).
If anything though the characters I meet provide a lot of insight to the tough life of someone with such a shit job. I work only 8 hours and I'm complaining like hell; the regulars work 18 hours a day and they're still going on, strong as steroid-pumped oxes.
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| Oh schnap |
The stories they tell invoke quite a bit of thinking too. One of my Chinese coworkers was a gangster back in his hometown - he tells me stories about the fights he's been in, the crimes he's committed, and how he's trying to turn over a new leaf by working here and making clean income to support his family and his kids' education back in China. Another coworker, an 18-year old Malaysian guy and one of the few who speak English, left home to try and make it on his own after he graduated from secondary school. He tells me that studying was never his thing, and though he had the opportunities (his family is rich and successful; his two brothers are doctors), he gave up all that to experience the independent life. His money, his own rules, he says. And to think he's been doing this since he was 16 when he first came to Singapore on his own. The others all have their own tales to tell.
All this, and yet they still go on. Maybe I should stop complaining. I have it pretty easy compared to them. I really have to commend them for being able to survive with what's probably the stupidest job in the world.
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| Okay, so maybe mine isn't that stupid after all. |
I should be thankful really, that I don't have to go through all these hardships.
But I still really wish that my dad would pay for my McSpicy suppers.
and we were dancing like we're made of starlight
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