EP 4: My First Income From Work During School Vacation

LIVE TO SPARK WITH ERICA TEO EE TIEN

Hello and welcome to this episode. The younger generation these days have an abundance of options on how to make money while still studying. Enabling technology such as smartphones and apps that can do live streaming has opened up a whole new landscape of making money during their spare times such as school holidays or before they enroll into an institute of higher education. Some teenagers even went on to become budding entrepreneurs, setting up their own online shops selling slimes, crystals and interesting knick knacks catering to the interest of their own age-group. I even saw on the news of a handful of successful young people who has gone on to chalk up seven thousand dollars of sales in a month doing their online sales business. They are really amazing in that aspect, creating their own income of doing what they like.

Back when I was a teenager, work during the school holidays mostly referred to temp jobs, doing mundane admin tasks or ad-hoc seasonal work such as gift wrapping services during the Christmas shopping season, distributing flyers at the Central Business District during week days lunch hours or even being a cashier at the local supermarket chain. It generally meant an hourly rate of about $6 or $7 per hour as an administrative assistant in a temporary job in an airconditioned office.

I recalled spending a relatively short time in my job search and I consider myself very blessed to find my first formal six months job at Singapore Polytechnic while I was waiting for University admission. It was for a temporary Publicity officer role at one of the engineering departments. The formal staff in that position had left after she studied part time to earn her higher accreditation and there was a void while they were looking for someone permanent. The environment was something familiar with what I was exposed to in school, with lecturers, admin staff, a school directors somewhat like the Principal of the school. It was considered safe, not too complicated and people who worked there behaved in a civil manner and were there to share knowledge. I inherited the office desk and space in which the former staff had shared with a senior lecturer who was away at lectures most of the time. This meant that as an eighteen year old temporary staff, I actually had the whole private office to myself mostly. There was loads of privacy during the working hours and it was impressive I had a desktop computer for work. This was such a far cry from the desktop I had at home which I had paid a friend to put together by buying computer parts. My challenge came from having to use an email for the first time. In my earlier episode I had shared about how I was a believer of learning and picking up skills. I was thankful I had enrolled into a basic class to learn how to use microsoft office and other basic computer programmes. It was still challenging because a course is a short duration to get you started, but applying it in real life for work is an entirely different concept for an eighteen year old that was very unfamiliar with using a computer. For example, attempting to login with my account and sign-in password using the Control, Alternate and Delete keys on the keyboard. I remember when I prepared my left index and middle fingers as well as my right index finger I will time my hands to press down the three keys at the same time, instead of holding down both the Control and Alternate keys and then tapping the Delete key. I probably look like Mr Bean trying to bring up the login window rather than a sophisticated skilled staff at the computer. Luckily all these embarrassing tactics were behind a closed door with no witness.

Having a proper internet connection soon opened doors for me to get acquainted with my machine at work. Instead of dialing up the internet using a slow telephone line at home and having to wait for the dial tone to get connected and praying it stays connected, the internet connection at work was instantaneous and stable. Quickly getting over my fear, I started to pick up internet games like Yahoo mahjong and it was through these fun activities that I started to build up my confidence in using the computer. My ex-boyfriend then was enlisted into National Service, I had plenty of free time and freedom after working hours. Occasionally I stayed back late just to play games and chit chat online. I learnt how to speak to strangers onlines over internet games and generally had fun making friends with people from overseas. Having never traveled out of the country except to my grandmother’s place in Malaysia, hearing people talk to me from Houston and Toronto, while reading their description of what it is kind of like over there was so interesting.

I made friends with the other administrative staff in the office and it was fun to have other adults to talk to besides my own parents. Every year the department holds an exhibition to showcase some of the school’s projects to industry partners. It was an eye-opening experience to have a chance to peep into the exhibition and see robotics projects, giant colourful banners and posters explaining their innovative ideas and prototypes that demonstrated how ideas were applied that the industry could adopt. Its totally different from the wordy textbooks, lecture notes and tutorials I was used to in college. Here I was seeing almost real-life application of knowledge, competitions that the end product could demonstrate how they might be used to influence the world. I helped out here and there with the exhibition, like calling up sponsors to confirm their attendance, coordinated for door gifts to be given to participants and placing orders for momentos.

During the exam periods, staff were also stressed doing marking. I often hear the frustrations of the senior lecturer who shared my same office space. He would sigh loudly marking a beig ZERO on scripts when some students only wrote their name and hand-in blank exam answer sheet. I think as an educator it pained him to see students who gave up without trying. They have come so far into their education after ten years to reach this institute of higher education but they gave up, either they did not study or they lost interest or focus on what they were doing. The students may have their own reasons but it was a pity they did not choose to press on. Perhaps as you are listening in to this, you may say: but hey, this is the student’s choice entirely. There is no need to get emotional. But I think I see the kindness in educators, their desire to share knowledge and nurture the next generation. But when they see students who do not reciprocate their good intentions by giving up on their studies, I guess it was a human thing for any educator to feel disappointed.

When my six-months tenure was up, I was sad to leave but at the same time looking forward to my new start at the local university. I was very surprised and touched when the staff department came together and bought a little Seiko stainless steel watch that needs to be manually winded as a farewell gift for me. Even till today, I still kept this watch because it reminded me of my first workplace where I learnt learning can take place in a very different structure and way. I actually thought I was benefiting more from this work because the experience broadened my mind and gave me exposure to what applying your knowledge in the real world might mean other than regurgitating my textbook knowledge during the exams.

So to you who are listening to my podcast, if you happen to be in the midst of doing something to upgrade your skills or pick up new knowledge that may totally not be down your alley all your working life but may feel like giving it up at this moment, I will like to urge you to take a pause. Take moments to ask yourself: wh...