Why I got so frustrated with what my sister said

Okay guys let me get this off my chest, my sister said something so stupid that I just have to rant about it here and it is a mix of poor social skills and sheer ignorance on the topic. I tried hard to explain this to my sister without 'scolding' her for being so wrong so let me share with you what she said and why I feel so strongly about it. It all began with her telling me that my nephew has found a part time job whilst waiting for his enlistment, as you know, Chinese new year is coming soon and a vital part of the Chinese new year festivities is enjoying all kinds of tasty snacks - when you visit your friends and extended family during Chinese new year, you would almost certainly be offered some traditional snacks; companies that sell such snacks do a lot of business in the few weeks in the run up to Chinese new year. So my nephew is working in a Chinese biscuit factory where he is a packer - each pack of biscuits is relatively small, but many packets go into a big box and when a supermarket makes an order, they would receive those big boxes. Thus my nephew's job is straightforward - you simply take the individual packets of biscuits and pack them into the big box, then seal the big box. What my sister said then shocked me, she said that she encouraged my nephew to find new ways to do his job, to increase the efficiency of the process such as by looking at whether or not the division of labour in the factory is efficient or if each worker is placed in the right part of the supply chain. I wanted to scream at her, is this some kind of sick joke?!

Okay, why did I get so angry with my sister? Why was what she said so offensive and stupid? My nephew is an 18 year old kid working along side a lot of poor working class people who have no choice but to do this kind of work to try to make ends meet. He doesn't need the money, his family is very rich but this is the only kind of part time work he can find whilst waiting to start his national service. He is hired as cheap labour to do manual labour, he isn't brought in as some kind of ergonomics consultant to help the company operate more efficiently. He is the joint youngest person working there and virtually all of his colleagues are older than him - what makes my sister think that he is in any position to tell the rest how to do their jobs better? If he made any attempt to do that, it would be an extremely arrogant act that will offend many. I can just imagine some angry, older worker shouting at him, "you think you're so smart, you've done A levels and that gives you the right to come in here and tell us how to work? We'll teach you a lesson." In fact, that's the kind of behaviour that will only make you a target for bullying and needs to be avoided! Why the hell is my sister treating his job as if it is some kind of project at school where he has to impress the teacher by demonstrating that he is engaging his brain in the process and solving problems? He is doing a real job, a working-class low-paid job involving manual labour and his employer is most definitely not a teacher who is interested in mentoring him in the world of business. Hell no, the employer is probably just someone who just wants all their workers to work hard and not ask too many stupid questions.

I have used this phrase before: 轮不到你开口 - it means in Chinese "it is not your turn to speak" but it refers to a situation when it is best to keep your mouth shut as you would be speaking out of turn and saying anything at all would be a very bad idea as nobody cares what you have to say. I think that in such a situation, the best way to behave is to be very humble, polite and respectful to everyone else in the biscuit factory and recognize that you're in a 轮不到你开口 situation. The best case scenario is for my nephew to go in there and make some friends, get a taste of working life and see just how tough life can be for some working class adults out there who depend on this kind of jobs to make ends meet. The worst case scenario however, is for my nephew to go in there like a bull in a china shop as the youngest person on the team trying to tell the bosses how to do their jobs. Why is my sister asking him to treat this like some kind of school project where he is expected to speak up and contribute? Is she totally oblivious to what kind of environment he is working in? Has she never crossed paths with working class folks before? What was she thinking giving my nephew that kind of advice? It would be wise to analyse what kind of response my nephew would get before speaking up in this kind of environment and it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he is in a 轮不到你开口 environment and thus he really shouldn't say anything. My nephew is normally quite shy anyway so I am hoping that his shyness would prevent him from opening his mouth in such a 轮不到你开口 environment - I hope he would not say anything inappropriate there. 

I know that my sister has never crossed paths with working class people before - she went from university into the working world and has never ever been in a work environment where she has had to deal with working class people. In contrast, I've served national service so I know exactly what it is like to live and work with working class people in Singapore. I can just imagine my sister introducing her middle class friends to my nephew and they would probably be really nice to my nephew for a simple reason: they don't feel threatened by him at all and in fact, they might automatically take on a nurturing role and say things like like, "my husband works as an aeronautical engineer and if you want to seriously consider a career that area of engineering, you should come over for dinner sometime and talk to him about it and maybe he could arrange for you to get some work experience in his company as well." So what makes my sister think that working class adults are going to be equally nice? They would probably resent a rich kid who is doing a job like that because he is just bored rather than because he is desperately trying to make ends meet and put food on the table for his family. He is a stark reminder of how just unequal Singaporean society is and I wouldn't count on them being kind to him at all. Heck, I wasn't even from a rich family when I was in the army but I had to really go out of my way to hide the fact that I was bound for a top British university on a scholarship because that would have simply made the target of bullying. Well thankfully - I do speak Hokkien rather fluently and hence I used that skill to my advantage in that situation.

So I am wondering: is my older sister (who is in her 50s for crying out aloud) really that naive about the harsh reality of working class people who face this 轮不到你开口 situation at work? Does she actually believe that all working class people can just put their hands up at their place of work, just like a child in a primary school and get their bosses to listen to their ideas, suggestions and feedback? Is my sister really that extremely naive because she has never ever done a working class job in her life before? Does she even have a single working class friend? The fact is many working class people end up in such terrible jobs because they lack the formal education and training to access better jobs, that's why the end up in very boring, mundane jobs which require hardly any skill at all and they do the same simple, repetitive task over and over again. I've had this discussion with my reader Amanda actually: she was wondering if jobs like that could be replaced by robots in the long run and I said that it really depends on whether or not there's a ready supply of unskilled labour willing to do such jobs for very little money - if that is the case, then the employer has little incentive to invest heavily in expensive machinery to replace that unskilled workforce. Thus people who do end up in such awful jobs are aware that they are at the very bottom of the food chain and recognize that they are in a 轮不到你开口 situation - thus they are never in any position to make any decision; they are conditioned to follow the instructions given to them by their managers; why is my sister so very ignorant about the harsh reality that working class people have to face at work? 

But let me try to look at it from a different angle: is my sister simply trying to play the role of the kind teacher? Allow me to take you back to my primary school - there was a really fat boy in class, let's call him Ah Pui (not his real name, that's Hokkien for 'fatty'). Whenever we played any kind of team sports like football or basketball, the PE teacher would put Ah Pui in a very strong team and make Ah Pui's team play a weak team, so Ah Pui is almost guaranteed victory every time he participates in such sports. I can see what the PE teacher is doing - he wanted to make sure that Ah Pui enjoys himself and has a taste of victory when he does PE, so his experience of sports is a positive one and he would look forward to exercising. However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out exactly what is going on; Ah Pui was simply a part of the winning team, his contribution to the victory is often negligible. There were times when he wouldn't even touch the football or basketball throughout the game and still be declared the winner. Our PE teacher was nice like that, he could have simply gave up on Ah Pui and thought, "yeah that fat kid probably hates sports anyway and he gets tired so quickly, so he can just sit on the bench and watch the other children play." But instead, our PE teacher went out of his way to involve Ah Pui and that was a kind gesture. Is my sister merely behaving like that kind PE teacher by saying, "let's not look down on working class people doing this kind of manual labour, we ought to give them a chance to express themselves. I'm sure that with a bit of encouragement and nurturing, they too would be able to come up with great ideas."

This also reminds me something else from my primary school - there was this girl, let's call her Jenny (not her real name). I think she definitely had some kind of learning disability as she really struggled with even the most basic tasks. I had this really kind teacher Mrs Soh who realized that Jenny needed help and encouragement - no amount of scolding or punishment was going to turn Jenny into a brilliant student. So for example, during English classes, Mrs Soh would go out of her way to involve Jenny and let me give you an example, if we were learning about the past tense. Mrs Soh would ask Jenny, "where did you go last weekend?" Jenny would reply, "I go to my grandmother house." Mrs Soh would then correct her, "Okay, you can say, I went to my grandmother's house or I went to visit my grandmother. Well done Jenny, very good!" If I gave an incorrect answer like that, Mrs Soh would surely chastise me for confusing the present and the past tenses but with Jenny, oh Mrs Soh was just happy to get her participating in the class regardless of whether or not Jenny gave any correct answers - this was because if Jenny was simply left to her own devices, she would stare blankly into space and not learn anything in the class thus Mrs Soh was desperately trying to engage Jenny in the lesson. My sister is assuming that the manager where my nephew is working is as encouraging and kind as Mrs Soh - oh dear. For crying out aloud, Mrs Soh is a primary school teacher tasked with educating Jenny whilst the biscuit factory is a profit making business, not a primary school. The employers at the factory are not there to educate or nurture the workers at all - that is not their responsibility! So what are the chances of my nephew's manager being as kind and caring as Mrs Soh? 

So if my sister was running a biscuit factory, she might be the kind of super nice boss who would go round the factory floor and make sure every single member of staff feels appreciated - she would look them in the eye and say, "I really value your contribution, you're an important member of the team. Thank you so much for all your hard work." I'm sure such nice bosses do exist of course but my sister doesn't run a biscuit factory - no, she manages a team in a very corporate environment where none of her colleagues are doing that kind of working class menial labour type jobs. If she wanted to be the world's kindest and nicest boss, well then she has to open a business which hires people who are struggling to find decent jobs: from ex-convicts to the disabled to refugees and give them a really conducive work environment. But is she doing that? No, she isn't - instead, she is merely making the assumption that other employers out there would share her charitable and benevolent principles. So that's the point when I simply had to challenge her and say, "on what basis are you making this assumption? Do you have any evidence to prove that my nephew's employer is willing to abide by your charitable and benevolent principles?" No, in fact, she has absolutely no evidence or basis to make that assumption at all. So even if we assume that my sister is a really kind and nice person, she is giving my nephew advice on the assumption that his boss and colleagues are as kind as she is - that's a dangerous assumption to make because she has never ever met my nephew's boss nor his colleagues, so the only basis she has to make that assumption is some terribly misguided faith in the goodness of mankind and obviously - I don't share her optimism at all!

Okay, I shall stop here as I really feel bad criticizing my sister like that - my conclusion is that whilst she is undoubtedly motivated by kindness, she is also woefully ignorant and even illogical to make such assumptions. I am very protective of my nephew of course and I feel that his family has the responsibility to guide him, rather than send him out into the world with such bad advice. I suppose if my sister had said something stupid or ignorant in a completely different context, I would have probably kept my thoughts to myself and just ignored it but because this involved my nephew, I reacted like this. After all, my nephew is about to start his national service very soon and I do think such experiences are very useful in preparing him for the new environment he would have to adapt to, but geez as his family, we ought to prepare him for the harsh reality that people are not always going to be kind to him. But what do you think? Have I been way too harsh on my sister? Should my nephew try to speak up in the biscuit factory or should he simply keep his head down and his mouth shut? And if my sister is being way too optimistic, have I gone too far in the other direction in assuming the very worst of those people my nephew is working with? What do you think might happen if my nephew speaks up at work then? Or perhaps, I am just angry that unlike me, my sister has never ever had to deal with really difficult working class people before and thus she doesn't share my pessimism? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.