My Boss & Me

When I take a long time
I am slow.
When my boss takes long time
He is thorough.
When I don't do it
I am lazy.
When my boss doesn't do it
He is too busy.
When I do something without being told
I am trying to be smart.
When my boss does the same
That is initiative.
When I please my boss
I am apple - polishing
When my boss pleases his boss
He's co-operating.

I am always thankful to my old boss, Mr. Chan Fong Ann, who took me in as an Executive Field Manager for Pukin Estate in Keratong, Pahang, in July 1978 and made me a “Planter”.

Here I wish to recall a few incidences whereby I had learned some valuable lessons from him.

Lesson No. 1 * Who is smarter? *

When Mr. Chan appeared in the witness stand of the Muar High Court for the case of claiming crop damages by fire spread from a neigbouring estate, he chose to speak through a Mandarin interpreter.

The defending lawyer somehow sensed that my boss could understand English and he was irritated,” Mr. Chan, I put it to you that you are a liar. You can speak English!”

My boss just turned his head to the interpreter,” Ta shuo shen mok? (What is he saying?)”

Lesson No. 2 * A Born Linguist *

My old friend, Mr. Song BS of May & Bayer, asked me when he came to Pukin Estate, “Is your boss, Mr. Chan, a UK graduate?”

“What makes you think so?” I answered him with a question.

“When I called him, he spoke with an Oxford accent!” Song told me.

In actual fact, Mr. Chan was such a born linguist that he spoke fluent English, Malay, Mandarin, Hokkien, Teow Chew and Hakka, his own dialect. I was told that he did not receive much education during his younger days.

So expat planters in Indonesia, we need to master Bahasa Indonesia.

Lesson No. 3 * Quit smoking *

When I decided to quit smoking in 1981, Mr. Chan helped me to push away cigarettes offered to me by other smokers. He used to remind them,” Don’t be a devil. The doctor told Loh to give up smoking. Can’t you see that he has been coughing badly these days?”

The success of quitting smoking is not only the strong will to stop buying cigarettes, but also the power to reject the evil temptation when cigarettes were offered by others. Thank you, boss.

One Indonesian Manager told me that he had stopped buying cigarettes but he ended up as a Sumitro (Suka minta rokok), always asking cigarettes from others.

SS Quek, my Senior Assistant in Swee Lam Estate in 1990-91, quit smoking successfully but he ended up being addicted to “Hacks” sweets. I just told Pak Jalailuddin of Kebun Plasma Wilayah Pall 8 of PT BSS not to replace cigarettes with “gula – gula”. I noticed that he popped in a sweet every now and then and he carried a pocket full of sweets with him.