Lesson in humility or lesson in humiliation?

I do not know what prompted me to remember the incident that happened in 1983 this morning. It is something that still bothers me. It was my first job, in a cable manufacturing company. I reported to the CFO, a Chinese, Foo was his name, I think and he was all what you may imagine to be for an Accountant - bespectacled, thin and pale, hair parted by the side of the head. On that particular day, my first day of work as an Accounts Executive, I sat by my desk. He asked to see me and I stepped into his office. "I can see that you are quite artistic", he said, although he could not possibly see that as I had not done anything tangible that could lead to a person thinking that I was artistic. I presumed he was being sarcastic.

"Here is what I want you to do", he said. "You see those brass plates out there on the desks of the senior officers? I will ask my secretary to bring those plates for you to polish", he said.

So, on the very first day of my work, in an office where clerical staff reported to me, I sat on the chair with a polishing cloth and a Brasso, to polish the brass name plates of the senior officers. The question here is, was the CFO trying to give me a lesson in humility? Or was he trying to give me a lesson in humiliation? I am more skewed towards the latter. The spectacle of me cleaning the brass plates, obviously affected the clerical staff, so that I could feel I lost their respect. Having two professional degrees did not seem to jive with the janitor's work of polishing brass plates. I took the task without complaints, without being vocal about it. Perhaps, the CFO wanted to break my ego, whatever that was that he noticed. I do not remember I have an ego. But being awarded the best student in Accounting in the Commonwealth certainly would have provided the platform for such. Since that fateful day, I could not manage my staff well. They could not get that polishing out of their minds.

I worked for a month before tendering my resignation. My resignation attracted the attention of the CEO, a British engineer. He was respectful and called me into his office for a discussion. He wanted to know why a person like me would want to resign. So I told him of what the CFO had asked me to do on my first day of work and his recurring sarcasms from day to day. The CEO openly acknowledged the fact that the CFO was a racist. There had been complaints of him from other Malay employees.  

It was not a lesson in humility after all. The CEO asked me to reconsider but I gently refused, citing all other reasons like difficulties in travelling to work and all. Such is the Malay way of turning down an offer. In a way, my decision to leave was pretty good. I made the right choice despite losing the potential income in the company. It was a small company. The CFO found it exhilarating when the company made the first million. That was how small it was. I got a better job as Group Budget Accountant in a listed company and a better income. Still, I could not forget that Foo, the racist CFO. I still harbour that bitterness, a bitterness that could only be quelled if I can only pee on his grave. Further down the road, I have met a few more of those like Foo. I took these things in stride, going beyond the skin to the individual. There will always be people like Foo. But then there will always be other people who are not racists. Like my old friend who died recently, the late CK Loh. CK Loh shared his experience with me one day. He lost a maintenance contract with a Chinese customer because the customer insisted that he remove the Malay employees from his IT company. Loh stood by his principles but lost the contract. That was a significant thing to do. 


My brother Sam told me one day. If we do not know a person, we are likely to judge the person according to our influenced perception of him as a person of another race. And he or she is likely to do the same to you. However, if we get to know each other and become friends, we are likely to forget the bigotry.

Whatever it was, my life is certainly better than Foo. For I do not have what his small mind has.