An engineer who was retrenched in 2007 had to resort to
scavenging for rubbish to make a living and support his family of
7.
53-year-old Mr Koh is an engineering graduate from NUS with
honours. After working for some years, he finally landed himself a
top job in a big company in 1993. Subsequently, he worked there for
the next 14 years till 2007 when he was laid off. Although the
company wrote him a good testimonial, it wasn’t easy for him to
find another job. After he was laid off, there was a change in his
outlook and he began to centre his life around his family more than
his work.
He has 4 daughters, ages from 5 to 9. His mother lives with him.
Together with his wife and himself, he has to support a family of
7. So, why did Mr Koh decide to get into rag and bone (“karung
guni”) business after he was laid off? As jobs were hard to come by
especially for people at his age, he said that he wanted to get
into eco-friendly business.
“Some of the thrown-away electrical appliances only have minor
problems. It’s a waste to see them being thrown away. After I
repair them and clean them up, they are as good as new.”
In fact, the fridge, kettle, fan, etc in his house were all
salvaged from the rubbish dumps. He has been picking rubbish for
the last 3 years. Every morning, he will get up before the sun is
up. Wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, he will be the first to
go to the dump sites to look for good items to pick.
“I
start work at 5am every morning. I will go to the rubbish chutes
and HDB corridors to look for discarded items. I have to often
endure cold stares from some of the residents.”
He recounted that sometimes, some people who saw him pushing a
cart of discarded items would immediately cover their noses and
avoid him. Others would throw sarcastic remarks at him.
“They thought I’m an illiterate who goes around picking disused
items. I’m a university graduate!”
As to how much Mr Koh is earning from his rag and bone trade, he
declined to say. He only said that he makes enough to support his
family.
Before Mr Koh was retrenched, he disclosed that he was making
$8,000 a month with bonus up to 5 months. He said that few months
before he was being laid off, he whistle-blew on certain procedures
in the company for being not proper. He felt that this might be the
reason he was laid off.
“On the day I was laid off, it was raining and only 1 person
from the company came out to see me off. It was pretty gloomy.”
Mr Koh recounted another incident. On one of the mornings, he
was pushing his cart of loaded “junks” in a HDB estate at Toh Guan
Rd. He stepped away to get his bike for a moment. When he returned,
the whole cart and “junks” disappeared. At the time, there was a
Bangla cleaner around. Mr Koh saw the Bangla cleaner came out from
the utility room. The Bangla denied seeing his cart. When Mr Koh
wanted to enter the utility room to check, the Bangla told him
there was no key. So, Mr Koh had no choice but to call the police.
The police came and asked to see the supervisor. The supervisor
came and opened the door to the utility room. Mr Koh’s “missing”
cart together with the items were found inside the room.
The supervisor after questioning the Bangla cleaner, took out
$100 and gave it to Mr Koh, hoping that Mr Koh would let things
rest. Mr Koh said, “After being busy for one whole morning, I was
insulted by this. I feel very frustrated.”
Source: Temasek Review.
What is the point of having a NUS degree when u are over 40 yrs
in Singapore.
Your co can anytime replace u with a cheaper, better and faster
foreigner.
