Confessions of a food court cleaner

By keith Posted in under the sun Tagged Comments

Ever wondered what’s the story of every auntie/uncle who clears your leftovers in the food center?
Facebook story http://on.fb.me/XjekDe

Auntie Ah Zhu (Let’s call her Auntie AZ) came to my table at Food Republic, Vivocity , repeatedly wanting to clear my plates I was still working on. By the 3rd time she came over, I realised it was because she wanted to wrap up her work (11pm at that time). She then noticed Josie fiddling with her notepad (kakao notepad giveaway from at an earlier event #startupasia), and remarked, “that’s a beautiful notebook” (in mandarin). I then asked if she wanted one too, and offered mine. She gleefully accepted it like a proud owner, telling us the notepad would be useful for her to take down any new telephone numbers.

photo

I teased playfully, “Auntie, you sure it isn’t for 4D or lottery numbers?”

Auntie AZ surprised us all with her reply, “I am going blind in a year due to diabetes, and I needed a big notepad with my failing eyesight”.

Obviously confused, I asked why she was working out late and doing such heavy chores, instead of resting at home and taking care of her body. Auntie AZ then explained that none of her 3 working and married children are supporting her financially (the occasional $100 bucks every now and then could barely help), and she wanted to save enough so she would be able to care for herself when she would be blind. Her husband is simply too lazy and aloof to depend on, while she felt that she wasn’t a good enough mum when her kids were younger to justify caring for her. (e.g. not paying for their school fees during their polytechnic days, and not being attentive)

DAFUQ? Exactly what came up in my mind instantly! I reminded Auntie AZ she endured 9 months (making it a total of almost 30 months) of harboring them in the belly, and not forgetting 3 painful deliveries. No matter how nasty a mum she had been, her kids can never escape she giving birth to them.

Her guilt as a not-fantastic-mum was at best silly and naive; Mums are the most amazing people in the world. They can wipe the entire angry bird series and unlock level 100+ in candy crush, other than cooking the most delicious cuisines money can’t buy. The only guilt she should feel is her love for sugar, which she giggled in a child-like manner, “i just can’t avoid sweet things!”. I can’t imagine for a single moment how not 1, but all 3 kids can heartlessly ignore a diabetic mum patient who also endured extremely long hours at work putting them through their younger lives. Semi-luckily for Auntie AZ, one of her daughter-in-law was ensuring her husband connects to her occasionally.

Her pay of $1,300 monthly for working 6 days/week and 12 hours daily, after deducting CPF contributions, is hardly enough to sustain her treatments and living expenses. She also lamented that her legs were hurting from pushing the trolley and dragging the pail full of plates. In a slip of tongue, she revealed her suicidal tendencies, but kept positive at the thoughts/sights of her beloved grandkids. Under her breath, Auntie AZ murmured, “they are really cute…” (now I know why my candycrusher mum kept hurrying me for kids and not being so concerned about who the partner is).

But what is truly disappointing, as concluded by my friends Nicole Lim, Josie Lai, Abhinav Vinay Chandran, Azmie Øregano who were with me, is the fact Auntie AZ is not alone. There are many similar, if not more unfortunate, old folks who are fighting to survive each day, collecting cans/papers and cleaning tables, with irresponsible, negligent children who have selfishly decided to cut off ties. I have met this 60+ year old eldery with swollen legs who collects newspapers/ cardboxes along Keong Saik road. She was looking for leftover food in the bins when I was leaving for home. Someone beat me to offering to buy her dinner – I then tried to help carry her load (which is easily 10kg) and walk her home, but she was very egoistic and refused my help – she was happy to just have a chat, and I supposed that’s all I could do.

singapore-elderly(Photo credits to http://guanyinmiao.wordpress.com)

I am typing this at 5am on a Sat morning so I will not forget any details (even after 2 drinks), and not waste a single second moment I got home. I would like to appeal for any advice on government support Auntie AZ can seek, and if anyone can help her. I have her home contact number which I will gladly give you if you PM me, all I asked of is to be tactful when you speak to her. Let her know you are referred to by “Wen Bo or 文博”, whom she met in the food court on Friday night with a bunch of friends, so she knows the context.

If you are pretty helpless like the keyboard warrior me who isn’t familiar with the government support, you could start clearing your own plates and dishes, and make the lives of Auntie AZ and her colleagues much easier in future. The very least you can do is not to mess things up your table too. If you have any friends who have such selfish mentalities like her kids, educate them.

And hey, don’t forget to thank the our cleaner heroes, and maybe engage in a conversation. Being a listening ear is effortless and goes a long way.

20121119.193322_cleaner430
Photo credits to TNP (just for illustration purpose)

Update:
1) A MP has contacted me along with many others to volunteer their help, and TRE has also published it along with TOC and Real Singapore sharing on Facebook. Thanks for playing your part in creating this awareness. There is a total of more than 700 share, and more than 1,000 likes on the Facebook photo + the article.

2) Please don’t go down the silly slippery slope of “if we clean our own trays the cleaners will lose their jobs, so we shouldn’t clear our trays”. We all know Singapore is not about to turn gracious overnight, and you might as well suggest we should all mess up the plates to create more jobs. Don’t be ridiculous, and be smart about this.

Being unique doesn’t make you money

By keith Posted in entrepreneurship, gamification Comments

It was a day packed with over 5 consecutive meetings, as I huffed and puffed towards my final destination, meeting up with the private banker of a tech entrepreneur whose achievement badges include his NASDAQ-listed gaming company. It would be a typical investment pitch, like millions of other pitches I had done. The only difference was pitching to a private banker – a career I was going into until I got mesmerized by the tech world. Let’s call him Paul.

Paul was sharp, astute, and surprised me with his knowledge in the startup tech world. He certainly knew what he was dealing with. I sat intently, answering him patiently and factually whenever he had questions, at least, until the last quarter of the meeting when Paul asked, “So what is exactly unique about your business? There is no stopping anyone in China to copy whatever you have, in minutes”.

Now, a little background about Gametize: We are a gamification platform startup that helps companies engage their audience through game thinking and game design. Our gamification technology lets schools quickly create simple learning games out of their content, or enable e-commerce websites reward loyalty points to their consumers who answer quizzes, predictions, complete photo contests or make repeated purchases. Paul certainly believed that this technology can be replicated easily by a bunch of engineers. I don’t disagree, and this is what I answered:


“Yes, there is nothing unique in the technology. Anyone can copy us and do the same stuff. We did not raise enough to patent, and neither do I believe it is worth the effort to patent.”

Time stood still for a moment, while Paul and the other 2 counterparts looked at me with bemused expressions. I took a deep breath and continued, “But, being unique doesn’t make you money. Execution, network, and a product that truly helps someone with their pain with as little friction, are what make the dough. Facebook wasn’t unique, and so were not Mailchimp, GMarket, Dropbox”.

These brands are all my favorite products which I paid good money for, and none of them were the first in the market. We are already familiar with how there was Friendster before Facebook, K Mart before Walmart, and even Big Boy before Mcdonald’s (credits to @MarkSchreiber07 for sharing these examples). These are some of the most successful brands in the world, but none of them could count as the the pioneers in their own respective industry.

If being unique isn’t a kingmaker, what then makes one? The iPhone I used to demo my app to Paul is arguably the most successful product in the 21st century, but it definitely wasn’t the first touch-based smartphone I have seen. I could use many S-words to describe it – “Special”, “Simple”, “Sexy”, and “Unique” it is not. Yet, its success is not easily replicated by many, mainly Chinese manufacturers who have “shanzai-ed” the device but not come close to Apple (except maybe Xiaomi). Apple’s success boils down to hundreds of reasons (brilliant marketing, brilliant people, brilliant choice of brand, brilliant ______________, etc). In summary, it is the fucking brilliance in execution.

funny-apple

There are MANY reasons why a brilliant execution can happen, and many wonderful outcomes and consequences which will follow. You as an entrepreneur and leader must be able to articulate and cultivate these building blocks. The hustling, the people you know, the culture, the strength of the leader, the management team, a focused vision/mission, and some even say luck (something which I don’t believe in – will blog later about it); juggle them all you must, instead of getting soaked on how fantastic and unique your idea is, because I can guarantee you someone out there has a better idea than you. It will be a tiring, frustrating roller coaster journey where you get interrogated by guys like Paul, but next time you bump into him, you know what to say, and if you’ve got some balls to deliver this #likeaboss, try what I did (in reference to the competition and what’s unique about Gametize):


“These guys don’t have this” (points to my head with a grin).

I’ll leave you with a video where Jason Nazar (founder of DocStoc) shares how to break out of the pack and be unique in execution.