The Encore eServices Assault and Exploitation Case exposed: part 2

So much has been said on social media about the slapping video that has gone viral - goodness me, when was the last time a news story from Singapore made it into the news in both in the UK and US?

OK for those of you who are not familiar with the case (where have you been?!) here are the details in a nutshell. This case centred around a video taken by an intern at Encore eServices which captured the manager/boss/supervisor (well it is a tiny company) repeatedly slapping an employee. The boss has seen been identified as Alan Lee Yew Nam. Alan Lee has since offered an apology to the parents of the victim but the parents have made a police report. Apparently, they didn't realize the full extent of how badly the victim was treated or how badly he was paid.

There are many questions now asked by Singaporeans about this case: how did the victim agree to work under such conditions? Why did the victim hide the full extent of his abuse from his own parents? How on earth did SIM continue to send interns to such a dodgy company? What kind of responsibilities does SIM have towards their students when it comes to such internships? What kind of charges could be brought against to Alan Lee - will he be punished?

First, I am going to compare and contrast this to the recent Jerard Lee vs Timetric case to show you what you should and shouldn't do when you do go public about bullying in the workplace. How are the two cases different? Whilst Jerard Lee was the one single-handedly spearheading his media campaign, the as yet unnamed victim in the Encore eServices case has kept a very low profile. Let's analyze the role of the victim in both cases - the victim in the slapping case was originally reluctant to admit that he was the person in the video because "he did not want the incident to affect Alan's family." Contrast this to the way Jerard was mouthing off on social media, making threats to Amit Patel in quite an aggressive manner, being egged on by others on EDMW who used racist, xenophobic language to attack Amit. In being so aggressive, Jerard came across as a difficult to manage, unruly former employee.

Alan Lee was caught on film assaulting his worker. 

If you have decided to play the role of the victim in such a dispute, then stick to the script. Jerard was an incredibly unconvincing victim - upon reading his threats on the EDMW forum, one's first reaction is, "Okay, so where was all this bravado when you encountered Amit in the office? Surely if you can say all these things in the forum, you can defend yourself in an office environment?" Jerard didn't behave like a victim convincingly - in fact, the way he behaved weakened his case considerably because he provided evidence contrary to his claim that he was a victim.

In the slapping case however, whilst you may be dismayed at this guy's behaviour and choices, he is definitely sticking to the script in being extremely meek even when interviewed by the papers. He had every opportunity to say horrible things about his employer who slapped him around and paid him only $500 a month for 3 years - but no, instead he bit his lip and even said positive things about his experience there. Is he really that meek (possibly) or is he cleverly playing the part of the victim who has been exploited and bullied? Either way, it is achieving the desired effect: public sympathy, something Jerard Lee never got.

Media and public interest in his case has been overwhelming. 

Why is he behaving like this? Should he even at this stage have the guts to say something about his former employer? It is not so simple - the journalists have already done plenty to dig up related stories, such as tracking down other former interns who have said plenty of nasty things about that supervisor and the facts of the case speak for themselves. The fact is, the victim doesn't need to say anything - the public have already made up their minds about the firm in question (Encore eServices) and the supervisor involved (Alan Lee).

Originally, I thought that the case might have been settled quietly out of court - surely Alan Lee would have written the victim's parents a blank cheque to keep the story out of the press. But no, it is now too late - we now know intimate details of Alan's life, his parents and wife which have been circulating on the internet. But note that this was a result of netizens digging up these details - the victim divulged very little. Alan's reputation is finished and though I am not sure what impact it may have on his business as his product is so incredibly niche market. If he has a good international network of established clients who have been happy customers, they may choose to ignore this story.

Oh yeah, it is too easy to ignore the plight of those making the product you consume if you are getting a good price for a quality product. Remember the tragedy in Bangladesh last month when over 1000 were killed (most of them garment factory workers) when a building collapsed? Well, one of those factories were supplying to a UK high street fashion retailer Primark. All Primark had to do was to put up a big red sign that said, "SALE!" Ooh and suddenly, a lot of people conveniently forgot about that building collapse as they rushed in to grab themselves a bargain. Would Encore eServices' clients ignore the fact that Alan Lee had been mistreating his staff? Probably. Did Alan think that his clients would continue using his services regardless of what happens next? Quite probably.

Indeed, with so much public anger and animosity directed at Alan Lee now, I wonder what he was thinking when he didn't settle out of court with the victim's parents. Maybe he believed that he could get away with no more than a slap on the wrist (pun intended), like a warning letter from MOM? It sounds incredulous - but if he didn't think that he could get away with it in the first place, he wouldn't have been this abusive in the first place. Perhaps he is still in denial over the whole incident and thus he didn't do anything to protect himself from the media fall out - a bit like an animal staring a car in the headlights in utter shock that moment before it gets run over. Here's a hint - when you don't know what to do, seek advice. When you're in deep shit, call a lawyer and they will tell you what you ought to do next to deal with that shit you're in. If you're in a complex situation, never try to solve it yourself - talk to your smarter and more sensible friends and most importantly, talk to a good lawyer!

In this context, the victim's parents were demanding only $100,000 - that would have nipped this case in the bud and prevented any further investigations. It seems that Alan hasn't paid up (well, they didn't give him much time to consider and if Alan gets persecuted and found guilty of assault, then he could spend two years in jail. Would he rather go to jail for two years than to pay $100,000 to settle this out of court? What was Alan thinking? Maybe he thought he could haggle and bargain, maybe he was afraid that the figure of $100,000 may turn into $500,000. After all, many Singaporeans did think that $100,000 was a rather small amount to demand for an out of court settlement and I agree - they should have figured out how much Alan could afford to pay (how much his business is worth, how much his house is worth etc) and then base that figure on what Alan can afford. After all, they are not suing him solely for lost income (as the victim was only paid about $500 a month for three years) - they are also claiming damages for the physical abuse and what kind of price can you put on that kind of physical and psychological abuse?

How much money should the victim ask for to settle this out of court?

So let's move on to the next question: why did the victim put up with this kind of abuse for three years? Well, I have already talked about this in my previous article on the issue when I analyzed the victim's body language. It is similar to the way battered wives put up with the beatings rather than leave their abusive husbands - they believe that they would be worse off without their husbands or that they will not be able to find a better husband. Likewise in this case, the victim may be very afraid of being unemployed if he left Encore eServices and he was convinced by Alan Lee that he would not be able to find a better job. Well what do you know, the victim has already received some job offers already. I am glad he realized that Encore eServices needed him more than he needed that job.

As an aside, there will be plenty of companies who would totally love to hire someone like the victim - after all, look at the traits he has demonstrated. He works extremely hard, he comes to work even when he is sick, he doesn't dare to question authority and even when things go badly wrong, he doesn't dare to complain. Compare him to someone like Jerard Lee who complained non-stop about the way he was managed - if you were the boss of a small company, who would you rather hire? When can we complain and when should we keep quiet?

When can we complain and when should we keep quiet at work? 

I had to think about that this week - my bosses do not hesitate to scold me when I get things wrong. Just this week, I had to prepare a marketing plan for a Dutch client and I had to redo it about four times. Each time they found something wrong and it was frustrating as they wouldn't tell me exactly what they hated about it - they rejected each copy with short emails like, "it looks all wrong" and "it is a mess". I went to my colleague Sylvie for help and told her what happened. I told her in exasperation, "But I am already trying my best!" She replied, "Yes, but they are not paying you to try your best Alex, they are paying you to get it right - preferably the first time."

You know what? She's right. I had to admit that as much as I would've appreciated more guidance from my bosses in the preparation of that marketing document, she has a point - they're not paying me to teach me stuff. They're paying me to do something I claim I can already do with years of experience in sales and marketing and if I don't deliver, then that's me who is in the wrong. I did think about arguing with my bosses after they rejected my marketing plan yesterday but I remembered what Sylvie said and I bit my tongue - welcome to the harsh reality of the working world.

I was hired to deliver results, not try my best but get it wrong. 

Let's compare this to a scene from my primary school - I had a really ferocious Chinese teacher when I was in primary 3. She would summon you to the blackboard and if you couldn't write the Chinese characters correctly, she would hit you - sometimes with a ruler, sometimes with her hands. If you were very lucky, she may just shout at you and scold you. Hey this was 1985 - teachers behaved very differently back then. We were expected to just memorize chunks of Chinese characters just to make sure we didn't get beaten by her - it was a scary experience when you got asked to come up to the blackboard as you were afraid that even one stroke or dot out of place would result in a beating.

Now was it right for that Chinese teacher to punish her students for not knowing how to write those Chinese characters? No, because it was her job to teach us how to read and write in Chinese and as students, we had the right to expect her to teach us rather than hit us when we didn't know how to write certain characters - the teacher was being paid a salary to teach us after all and we're paying for those Chinese lessons with our school fees. However, nobody is paying my boss to teach me how to draft those marketing plans - he is paying me to write those marketing plans so the onus is on me to get it right, not on him to teach me how to write them correctly. Such is the difference between being a student and being a worker - do most Singaporeans understand that difference when they make that important transition from being to student to entering the workforce?

Oh I had a terrible Chinese teacher back then!

This is why some Singaporeans have a very student-like mentality when they enter the workplace - people like Jerard Lee expected his bosses at Timetric to act like teachers and treat him like a student. Time for a wake up call - the dynamics of the worker-boss relationship is very different from that of a student-teacher relationship. Jerard Lee is one extreme - the victim in this case the another extreme: he didn't question the authority of his boss at all even when he was being physically abused. Again, there's a rather child-like mentality there, when we were sent to school as young children, we were instructed to listen to our teachers and obey them. As Singaporeans, we had cultivated this respect for authority from an early age but this victim was so trusting he didn't even flinch when Alan Lee repeatedly struck him in the face. How did he remain in this naive, trusting, child-like state?  Did the work experience of his internship prepare him adequately for the working world? Evidently not.

This brings me neatly to my next point. I would love to see heads roll at SIM - what the hell were they thinking sending intern after intern to a shitty company like Encore eServices, some crappy one man band company, run by an abusive moron with serious anger management issues? If this is an example of one internship from SIM, I wonder what kind of other terrible, shitty companies SIM are sending their undergrads to? For crying out aloud, why are people going to SIM in the first place when there are respectable universities like NUS and NTU in Singapore for crying out aloud? NUS has a global ranking which is always top 30 - that's top 30 in the whole freaking world. SIM's current ranking is 5429th - good grief. I'll let that ranking speak for itself. Are you going to get good internships from a university with that kind of ranking, or is a stint at a crappy company Encore eServices the best you can expect?

What kind of internship did you have in mind?

Having done my tertiary education in France and the UK, I am not familiar with the Singaporean system so I have a question for my Singaporean readers please. If an internship is a part of your course, then do you get a say in your intership posting? I remember the way I was posted to my unit when I was a soldier during NS, I didn't get a say in what I did or where I went - it was decided for me and off I went when I got that piece of paper. Surely as a fee paying university student, you should have some say in what kind of internship you get? Or don't you? Can you as a student say, "that's a shitty little company, no way. I want to do an internship with someone like Citibank, Nokia, Google or Singapore Airlines." Please let me know how it works because I can't understand why these students accept such shitty internships. I know that I would never accept such a crap internship, would you?

Lastly, what kind of relationship did the victim have with his parents? Could he not have told his parents what was happening at work? It took a relative to show the victim's parents the video before they realized what was going on and he still tried to deny it at first even to his own parents. This is what I mean about how some Asian kids can live under the same roof with their parents but still be so very distant in their relationship. Did they put any pressure on him to get a job and stay employed? How could they not realize just how little he was earning? I find it incredible that they could have been in the dark for all this time about just how badly he was treated at this company. Who do you blame? Are they bad parents for having brought up a son who doesn't dare to even confide in them when things go wrong? Is he a bad son for having kept the truth from his own parents? I don't want to start speculating what the answers to these questions may be - but there are many unanswered questions about this family indeed.

Was the victim wrong to have kept all this from his parents? 

If you are a Singaporean parent reading this - ask yourself, if your child finds himself in such a situation one day, would s/he have the confidence to come to you and say, "mom/dad I am in trouble, please I need your help." Or would s/he be too afraid or ashamed to come to you for help? How can you make sure you earn your child's trust so s/he will not keep something like that from you? What kind of relationship would you like to have with your child? Likewise, if you are a Singaporean child, then ask yourself this - do you have the confidence to go to your parents for help if things go wrong at work? If not, why not? Who would you turn to for help and advice in a difficult situation then?

In my case, I probably will not want to tell my parents anything if things don't go well at work - why? It is not that I am ashamed or anything - heck, I am telling complete strangers on my blog that I have been having a tough week over this marketing plan for my Dutch client. I'm human, I have troubles and problems like everyone else and I am bravely trying my best to cope with the challenges that life throws at me. I might go to someone like my older sister for help for she is extremely resourceful, wise, intelligent and insightful. She has a brilliant career and has been working longer than I have. I love and trust my wonderful sister a lot and know that she would be the right person to talk to for things like that.

"Don't worry mum, I get along with everyone at work. They are nice to me."

But my mother? And my dad? Sigh. Like, where do I even begin with them? They are retired primary school teachers who know little of the big bad world beyond the primary school gates. If I told them my problems, all I will do is make them worried and they won't be able to offer any kind of advice or solution at all - in short, they can't help because they are in no position to even begin to understand my problems. That is why I don't tell them the bad news, I just tell them the good news so they think I am happy and successful. Quite simply, I don't want to worry them. Actually, I don't think my situation is that unique as many of my peers actually feel the same way about telling their parents their problems as well. Maybe the victim in this story felt the same way and didn't want to worry his parents - is that the reason why he kept the truth from them? What do you think? Would you have done the same thing for the same reasons?

As usual, I am most interested to know your thoughts - please do leave a comment below, thanks!