DOCUMENTED WORLD – My Journey

It all started in a small village in Salor, Kelantan.  By 1947 we all walk 2 miles down a dusty road to attend  our first year in  school.  Sometimes you ride pillion and on other days there is a trisha. But there never was a motor vehicle for us to ride on until we were in Std 2 when an occassional bus would take villagers to Kota Bharu town 6 miles away. The buses were not unlike the jeepneys of Manila; entrance and exit was through a rear step.  Life start at 0500 in the morning darkness, and we move about assisted by kerosene lamps.  Toilet is a basic trap in the ground affair and there is always ample supply of water .  There were 5 wells in our village of 20 houses; all 3-generation houses.  They have since grown to 100 or more houses. Fuel to boil morning coffe was derived from rubber woods,  stockpiled under the house.  Rambutan wood piles were reserved for  barbeques and burning irons.  Coconut shells madeupf the rest of fuel  materials.

We were all well shod with clogs when moving from house to well. You dare go barefooted only in the day.  Only the uninitiated move about at night barefooted in the night.  At school outdoor activities include attending to the needs of flower  and vegetable plots allocate to your team. We were given  weekly guided tours around  our school to watch birds butterflies and identify newly planted vegetation flower bearing or otherwise.  As for social groups, we have friends who joined the boy scouts, cubs or girl guides; these groups regularly attend picnic activities in the woods  just outside the school perimeter fence. 

In year 5 we  most of us moved to an Engllish school whilst the rest stayed on to complete Darjah 7 of the Malay School, the launching pad for work-life.  There was no std 8, and 9 which is the equivalent of present-day forms 4and 5.  Our first and second year in the English school was termed as Special Class 1 and 2, and our third year found us in Form 1 . This is when we merged with those that started primary school beginning Primary 1 and ending Primary 6.  It is interesting to mention that our first year in English school is all about spelling, writing, reading, and singing. The teaching of the foundation of grammar was based on a 15 page Oxford English Course Book 1. The story evolves around aman, a pan , a Gopal Singh, a Chong Beng and a Haji Hassan. The setting is around a house and a kitchen, the writer knowing very well that there are houses and kitchens everywhere. There was no mention of bicycles and cars, and electric posts as not every body then was  associated with  those items.

The journey through secondary school marked the beginning of a more interesting journey.  Here we learned about detention classes on Saturdays. No problem on attendance. Every student is within cycling distance from their homes.

The journey through secondary school takes me from  Form 1  to Form 5.  In the process, we all participated in many extra curricular team groups such as Cadet Corps, Boy Scouts,  Geography Club, Photography Club, Nature Study Club, and History  Club.  All the clubs were sponsored by the school, with an appropriate teacher nominated to guide the club members. I remember the Photography Club help members to buy cameras (about RM20.00 each), and after a short half hour club outing, the films were sent to town to be developed as negatives.  Then we members print our own pictures using the schools photographic development room.  The clubs teach us something we thought was strange. The Secretary must maintain the members register;  the treasurer  records moneys received and spent.  All these records are kept in a fresh 20 page school exercise book.  The clubmaster and even the Headmaster checks these books regularly.  All documents such as meeting agendas, minutes of a meeting are never more than one handwritten  page each. { Perhaps it was here too a few students learned to smoke in the toilet.  Their first cigarette was during one of the cycling trips to the beach about 5 miles away.}

Our best picnic programme was to Pulau Perhentian, and another more prestigious outing was to Kuala Lumpur with a free ticket and in School Cadet Uniform.  This was on the occasion of The Declaration of Independence on 31 August 1957. 

By end 1959 school days were over .  I taught as a temporary teacher for 5 months before reporting to UTM Kuala Lumpur in June 1960 for an Engineering course.

This marked a sudden changeover from a guided life at home to a hotel life, but not for long. Within a month or so I learned to guide myself. We did things that do not require much money to be spent.  There were societies to keep us busy outside study hours.  There was our Students union, and other affiliated clubs such as body building club, sports club, and music club. We organized concerts and soon inevitably, various anniversary dinner and dance sessions.  Now life outside lecture theatres and library sessions, was in full swing.  As a club officer in a sports and social club I had some exposures in organizing inter hostel competitions .  And Hari Raya CNY, Deepavali and Christmas soon became serious affairs that require detailed planning; otherwise  there would not be enough girls to dance with. By the beginning  of year 2 many students were already dating.  [You could see from their faces  that one or two fellow students had been jilted.  One coud hear stories of near fist fights] .  In the meantime academic studies fared well, what with midnight candles after lights off.

The engineering study  lands us in practical engineering work at various engineering bodies. I chose to be trained at Radio Malaysia (now RTM) and every year we spent 2 months practical training at RTM Kuala Lumpur.  This provides a good exposure to work ethics, and actual  work environment.  We mixed with all including work mates who run businesses . (Soon I got to bid for shares in a mining company.)  It was at RTM that I first learned that government engineers are capable of building up a complete audio/telecommunication system,  from  a bare building to a completed operational  studio system. Before a bare room is ready, stores were ordered from all over the world from companies such as AMPEX, Phillips etc.  Cables were laid, racks and consoles were fabricated, and soon preamplifiers, amplifiers, routers and switches were slotted in. Microphones and lights soon follow suit. Our in house carpenters soon pad all rooms with sound proof material, and hardly 3 months later  the sound studios were broadcasting programmes.   And  this facility will not be handed over to users until the “as is drawing” is ready and the commissioning protocol has been carried out and the agreed performance  criteria has been met .  The contract document stipulates for this.  One could see the face of the Project Manager when work is completed and handed over to the users.  This is a major lesson  in contract management that I learned .

These sound broadcasts were channeled  by normal telephone lines to transmitters in Kajang,  Ipoh, Penang, Kota Bharu, and  Singapore. The control room in Ipoh further channels the programmes to Kota Bharu by further use of telephone  lines . Back in Kuala Lumpur, as a back up,  RTM too set up a transmitter at the top floor of the Studio for direct transmission by microwave to her own transmitter in Kajang.  This was my first exposure to telecommunication networking  in the year 1960-1963. You manually plug in your earphone to those towns  in your network and you can converse or record anything;  and each of these control  centres are able to connect any caller to any studio room in its  particular RTM station.   (there were written rules on usage of these lines though, otherwisw there will be misuse of free long distance calls).  These intertown  telephone lines were rented from Telekom Malaysia, just as present day Telcos rent lines (or channels of multiples of thousand lines) from Telecom Malaysia. Nothing has changed much in the technical and commercial  concept of renting  government telephone lines.

       After one year full time in telecommunication environment, I answered a call  by the Government for more people to join the  military.  I joined the Army and soon by 1965 found myself in Tawau amongst  a few thousand commonwealth forces.  Henceforth beginning in Tawau I spent 10 years in practical engineering in a number of works facilities around the country,  and after a spell in post graduate studies in USA in 1975, I turned to the new job of regional control of the maintenance of army equipment.  . The I moved on to my second 10 years in engineering   My first headquarters for this new job was in Kuching.  Those years in hands on engineering gave me much exposure to  resource management ,  that includes  audit and training of skilled resources, and management of funds and  stores. 

(Basically it is budgeting with a full engineering picture of your equipmen fleet,   their life expectancy, the need to repair or renew and how much money are you willing to spend or your boss was willing to give you)(Trained personnel tend to help the Army save money through less downtime).

 Soon my second 10 years was spent in various Headquarters to be in a various teams to juggle resources and training/retraining.  Training is always number one priority in the Army or any Army for that matter.  This second 10 years was the most hectic.  You sit on various technical investigation planning boards, even on Boards of Enquiry (a legally formal body) . I myself have to go for more training locally and in UK for latest approach to design philosophy,  maintainability, productivity. We call this the middle management period.  And the third 10 years found me sitting in Ministry of Defence doing contract specifications, consultancy as well as policies.  The  3 x 10-year working span really document itself as ready for other jobs  (even though the Army thinks  it was  time to retire after 30 years service.)

By 1992 I landed with a civilian job, and a Military pension to keep me moving.

 First five years I found myself selling steel casings,  marine survey services,  cathodic Protection services,  and off-shore vessel hire services to oil drilling companies in Malaysia and Vietnam.  The oil companies taught me a good lesson in contract execution.  In a tender system bidding  amongst oil companies, bidders  are required to additionally  state in not more than half page, the most one page,  as to who by persons name and company name were likely to execute any and all parts of the orks/services within the   contract bidded , giving phone numbers and office/residence addresses, bankers name, shipping names and mill or factory names. Beautiful, I call this.  All these are read back to you  at the point of contract award.

In the next 5 years I moved to a new business line – to ICT and line communication, in short “telephony” . This is in fact related to my first job, that of sound and telecommunication engineering .By this time I ran my own business. I did my own supplier survey, then product design ,  cost it to include contingencies , and fought for a good commissioning protocol.  All these preparatory documents  were put to the  business committee, to be  endorsed and filed.  You refer  to it if contract execution  costs run into trouble. After works were delivered  Delivery Note/Invoice were signed by both parties to certify  works and services were delivered satisfactorily. This delivery note is the most important legal document

And  now  my third 5 year plus of veteran life is spent towards  Toastmasters programmes.  It is a journey within the greater journey.  Ever so often you refer to notice and Agendas. But most important of all you meet people in order toget things done.  The right way. The way that was agreed upon. Otherwise we will lose direction and nothing is achieved