INFLUENCES, IMPACTS & LESSONS FROM MY BOSSES OF THE PAST

This post is actually a retrospective journey back in time, to the day when I had stepped foot naively into the corporate world, where I had eventually spent twenty-four years of my prime.

In a way, looking retroactively, it was more of a personal journey of learning & growth.

In those ensuing years, & judging from a career standpoint, I reckon I have had a pretty good time. More specifically, I have had great bosses to guide me, as well as some difficult ones to wrestle with in some respects.

I can't say my almost quarter-century career path had been a roller coaster ride, although I certainly have had my fair share of learning experiences.

So, it is with gratitude & fondness to all my bosses of the past that I am embarking on writing this post, with the view of drawing out some valuable lessons to share with readers.

My first boss was Mr Hans Rey, Managing Director of the Singapore Representative Office of Buhler Brothers Engineering Works, from Uzwil, Switzerland. The office was then located at the former Diethelm & Co. aluminium factory on Alexandra Road.

That was the late sixties, roughly between mid-'67 & mid-'69, since I had spent two solid years with them. I was then employed as a mechanical draftsman.

Mr Rey was naturally a Swiss, relatively tall, with a tanned but debonair disposition.

I can always imagine him vividly as the guy with the cheeky grin on his face, almost looking like Paul Anka in the greying years, but not so balding.

I found him to be rather open-minded & pragmatic, since he had recruited me, knowing very well that I did not have any industrial working experience.

All I had was my previous academic/practical track record from the Technical Institute in Kuala Lumpur, plus my first full-year results at the Singapore Polytechnic. Fortunately, I also had a strong recommendation letter from Mr Nagalingam, my Polytechnic lecturer in technical design & drafting.

What impressed me most was that Mr Rey was willing to allow me to take off one day a week with pay to attend my subsequent day-release classes in the Singapore Polytechnic.

My two full years at Buhler Brothers were great, at least from the learning standpoint. As it was my first job, I was naturally very eager to learn new things & take up challenges.

I had three other drafting colleagues. Together, we reported to Chief Draftsman Mr Thomsen, also a Swiss. He in turn has two other Swiss colleagues, Mr Sackman & Mr Haelen, who called themselves Project Managers.

From day one, I was already assigned to serious design & drafting jobs from big clients, Prima Flour Mills & Sin Heng Chan Feedmills.

From the standpoint of design & drafting, I had moved from penciled drawings to inked drawings, which were a different ball game, as the latter required meticulous planning & instrument preparation.

Even the design & drawing boards were far more sophisticated than those I had been exposed to in the technical institute &/or polytechnic.

Working with Swiss nationals was a real eye opener for me, at least from a cultural standpoint.

It was my first professional contact with Europeans, even though I was brought up in an English missionary school in Yong Peng, Johor.

Of course, at that time I already knew Switzerland as a country famed for its elegant time-pieces, beautifully crafted cuckoo clocks & delicious white-milk chocolate.

What I didn't know was that the country was a manufacturer of precision production machines.

Buhler Brothers was then considered the #1 [Miag from West Germany was then #2] in the field of machines for flour & feed mills.

Working under Swiss professionals also happened to be great learning experience for me.

They were always hard-working, very punctual in coming to work or meeting clients, very serious in their communications & precise in their instructions (i.e. no cock & bull stories!), follow the rules (to the tilt!), & last but not least, very neat & organised in their work ethic.

As a result, my drafting colleagues & I often had to make sure that all our project assignment schedules were completed on time to meet the bosses' expectations.

Also, surprisingly, the Swiss bosses were quite reserved & private, & as such they didn't mix around with the locals.

I have visited Switzerland, a land-locked mountainous country, several times subsequently.

I recall that their train, bus & airline schedules always seemed to run on time, almost like clock-work.

The streets were clean. In fact, every where - train or bus stations, restaurants, pub & shopping malls - was squeaky clean.

I was reminded by my tour guide that I would find Swiss people eating chocolate with wrappers still in their hands, until they could find a dustbin. In Singapore, the wrappers will be thrown everywhere on the floor.

To my chagrin, I noted that, during short stays in the country, the Swiss people were obviously sticklers to rules.

I remember that my tour guide had warned members of the tour group to avoid using the bathrooms or toilets after 10pm at night, because the flushing was likely to create annoyance to the neighbours!

Come to think of it, I reckon the Swiss penchant for rules probably has to do with its long & strong tradition of political & military neutrality, as well as its strict laws & regulations supporting discretion & the respect of privacy.

As a whole, from my personal & professional interactions with my previous bosses, & from my many visits to the beautiful country, I find Swiss people generally hospitable & understanding.

To all my subsequent bosses, office colleagues, business associates & social buddies, I am well known as a stickler to punctuality.

Has my initial work experience with the Swiss rubbed off on to my personality? I really don't know.

At this juncture, I like to relate an interesting anecdote to illustrate a point.

Last year, my wife & I organised a holiday trip from Singapore to Vietnam for members of my Wednesday Club, which I have already covered in quite detail under several earlier posts [under Adventures in Vietnam 2007]. A total of 7 couples, including my wife & myself.

Among the group, there was a nice lady, wife of one of my club buddies, who had the unsavoury reputation for being perpetually late for all kinds of appointments, formal as well as informal.

Throughout the seven days in Vietnam, to my amazement & also to the group, she was really punctual to the dot.

I reckon somebody must have warned her, since I also have the natural propensity to tell people off in their faces, especially when they cross my path from the wrong side.

[to be continued in the Next Post]