Chapter 4: Respect and Responsibility

I stepped out of the cab and walked into the lobby area of the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. It used to be a rather quiet and unheard of hotel, and then in 1998 it was bought over by Millennium & Copthorne Hotels plc. With the super power of renovation, marketing and most importantly, rebranding, this previously four stars hotel is resurrected. Now it is one of the largest five-star conference accommodation properties in Singapore.

I took the lift up to the Conference Centre, where the conference was held. The sponsoring companies had set up spectacular exhibition spiders at their booths to impress the conference participants. Wow, JM had a plasma TV on to showcase their products. Impressive. Most companies had brochures and advertorials at their booths; one even had little dolphin soft toys for giving away. I walked down the corridor flanked with booths and finally reached our company booth. We had brochures and financial reports on our table as well. Except that something vital was missing from this booth. The person manning the booth was missing.

I looked at my watch. The conference will be starting in ten minutes’ time. Quickly, I took out my mobile phone and was about to dial when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Hey, you’re here!”

It was Choi with a cup of coffee-like liquid on one hand and a document bag on the other.

“Why isn’t there anyone manning the booth?”
“Why don’t you make a guess on who’s supposed to be standing by this booth since half an hour ago?”

I suddenly had a very bad feeling. It seemed like somebody had made a bad choice in selecting the person responsible for the first shift.

“It’s Sally, isn’t it?”
“Yes! Who else could be as irresponsible as our young and promising fresh grad?” said Choi wryly.
“Geez, who put her at first shift?”
“I think it’s Ju,” said Choi as he sipped his coffee. “Why don’t you go grab some coffee and sandwiches around that corner, while I man the booth?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ve already taken my breakfast.”

I took a copy of the financial reports and read it. Among the charts and tables created by Nicky, there was one article that was written by KZ. As a man of one, not few, word, KZ’s articles were always unequivocal and undisputed.

In the next fifteen minutes, more participants arrived at the Conference Centre, received their name tags from the registration booth, took some brochures and reports from the sponsoring companies’ booths, grabbed a cup of coffee or tea and went into the conference room.

At nine o’clock, the conference room door closed. At ten minutes past nine, Sally arrived at the booth.

“Do you know what’s the time now?” Choi berated.
“Why? I’m only ten minutes late what,” rebuked Sally. “I guess the conference had only just started right?”
“But those participants were here early for breakfast and that was the best time to showcase our products to them!”
“I thought the Marketing people were supposed to come early to set up the booth and arrange the brochures nicely on the table?”
“Yes, the Marketing folks did all that, but they’re not obliged to man the booth! Do you know that nobody was manning the booth when I arrived?”
“It’s okay what. The participants can just come by and take whatever brochures and reports that they wanted what.”

I could see Choi’s exasperated face turning into a red balloon that was about to burst. And Sally’s “I don’t care what you said, but I’m not wrong” attitude was not helping the situation. People at the nearby booths were already staring over to our direction.

“Hey, why don’t the two of you sort things out outside while I man the booth?” I interrupted.
“No need to. I’ll only be wasting my breath since our young friend here doesn’t feel that she has done anything wrong,” Choi chastised.

Sally looked at Choi, then at me, and sighed. “It’s no big deal right? Why make such a big hoo haa over it? Okay, I’m sorry that I was slightly late. Okay?”

I stayed at the booth till ten o’clock, when I had to rush back to office for a meeting. Choi left with me as well. Sally was left behind to sit at the booth. She flipped through a brochure boringly and waited for the participants to break for lunch.

In the cab, I could feel that Choi was still miffed with what happened.

“I don’t understand why our company employed such a person!”
“Let’s forget about it. You know Sally’s never punctual.” I consoled.
“I really can’t stand these fresh grads from our local universities. They like to think that they’re so smart and the word ‘respect’ doesn’t mean anything to them at all.”
“Hey, Sally doesn’t represent all fresh grads,” I reminded.
“Beng, I’ve been working long enough. These snobs are everywhere. They like to think that their local university degrees worth hundreds time more than our foreign university degrees, and we are holding a higher position than them simply because we had worked longer in the company.”

Choi snorted and folded his arms. Reflecting upon what he had just said, I too agreed that these fresh graduates from our local universities needed to be taught the meaning of ‘respect’. In fact, previously I had overheard the vendor complaining to Ju about Sally’s rude attitude.

“And there’s this thing I can’t stand about these young punks! They think that they’re always right. You chide them for doing one thing wrong and they’ll give you ten reasons why it’s not their fault!”

The moment we stepped into the office, Rose asked Choi for his product report which was two weeks late. Choi apologized, promised that he will finish by the end of the day and rushed to his desk. Gosh, he should not have gone to the conference since he had got more important things to do. But then, that was our Choi. He just likes to do things in his own priorities, which were usually in the wrong sequence.

After an exhaustive meeting and a quick lunch, I went back to the office, when I saw another commotion happening. An upset Ju was questioning Sally who was back from the conference.

“You mean you just come back like that?” snarled Ju.
“My shift ends by lunch time what.”
“But you should have waited for the Project Financing guy before leaving the booth!”
“But how do I know what time he’ll be there? I can’t wait forever right? I haven’t even taken my lunch!” argued Sally.
“So nobody’s manning the booth now?”
“Erm… nobody when I left.”

The agitated Ju walked away from the argument and tried to dial somebody from her desk phone. Thinking that she was off the hook, Sally walked out of the office, probably to have lunch. Ju spoke to somebody softly on the phone, looking initially flustered, eventually calmed down and finally relieved. After Ju put down her phone, she came over to my desk.

“Sigh… why did our company employ such a person?”
Why did this sentence sound some familiar?

“Has the problem been solved?” I asked.
“Yes, when I called Sam from the Project Financing, he said that his guys were already on the way there and told me not to worry. But still, I’ll go over and take a look later.”
“Did Choi tell you anything about what happened this morning?”
“Yes,” she let off another deep sigh. “Shouldn’t have planned her for the first shift.”
“Maybe she was not aware that she had to be there half an hour before the conference starts?”
“How can it be? I just briefed her on the timing yesterday!”
“Oh…”
“Well, don’t you find Sally quite an irresponsible worker?”
“Maybe it’s because she’s still young and this is her first job?”
“Beng, when I was on my first job after I graduated, I was a more responsible worker than this.”

Yeh, Ju was right. I remembered when I was on my first job, I was a paranoid freak. I triple checked every job that I did because I did not want my manager to blame me for any stupid or careless mistakes. Whenever I was given a task, I made sure I monitored it end to end. Then, I was even younger than Sally.

How did these kids become so self-centered and arrogant? Why are they so different from how we used to be when we were young? What happened along the way? Could it be the new education system? When academic development is more important and more focused than character development? Or could it be their parents who thought that the best way to raise their children is to pamper them and give them anything and everything they desire?

“Ding”
My MSN Messenger popped out. I had got a new message.

“Hi, wat were Ju and Sally quarrelling about just now? Wat did Sally do wrong at the conference?”

It was Dawn.