Essay on Malaysia: Common Types of Personalities in Malaysian Offices (Part 1)

  

   

                                         Picture of an Office Makcik

     I have worked in several different offices in Malaysia over an extended period of time. I soon realized there are a number of  'personality types' that would appear without fail in Malaysia's Offices. Let's have a look at three such personalities.

1) The Office-Makcik

     The office personality everyone loves, and whom one will always find in any Malaysian office, is the Office-Makcik. Typically the office accountant, the Office-Makcik often handled the division’s accounts. Most of her work comprised of the voluminous paperwork required for the payment of the office staff, and the accounts payable for the division. One would expect her to be exhausted by the end of the day when she returned home to her family, but the Office-Makcik is truly an amazing lady. Every now and then, she will march into the office, early in the morning, with freshly cooked Mee Goreng, or Nasi Goreng, in a big tub, still warm from the wok, a most welcome breakfast to help jump-start the day. I do confess I have had a good amount of the Office- Makcik's breakfast treats, even asking her when her next breakfast delivery would be. The Office-Makcik also made the best sambal, and always wore a bright smile that would light up even the gloomiest of days and cheer up the stoniest of hearts.

     Being in  her early to late forties, the Office-Makcik belonged to a slower, gentler time. She did not possess the attitude of entitlement the current generation of Malaysian youngsters possessed, that the whole world owed them a living. The Office-Makcik always carried a calm and steady demeanor, kind eyes and a quick smile. She came to work in a ‘Hijab’ and a matching flowery gown. Sadly, the Office-Macik was a diminishing breed.  She was like the mother I never had, providing a kind word whenever I was feeling down, and she baked tasty peanut biscuits during Hari Raya. She volunteered for projects everyone else avoided, such as organizing the division’s annual staff retreat each year, and was encouraging to new-comers.

2) The Office-Whore

     The ‘Office-Whore’ is a kampong girl from a remote town or village. She desires the glamour and the promise of the good life in Kuala Lumpur, but is clueless how to get it. The Office-Whore is in most cases personal assistant to the division-manager of the office, and shows up for work in sleeveless, low-cut blouses, and tight-fitting work pants. She enjoys standing close to males, teasing them with glimpses of her ample cleavage, and whiffs of her cheap perfume, the kind ditzy Malay girls wore in private to tease their husbands. She also enjoyed bending over desks to show off her assets every excuse she got, swinging her hips from side to side as she made her way round the office in six-inch heels, to flaunt her buttocks and lacey panties. 

     The Office-Whore acts in such a promiscuous manner because she hated her ‘day-job’, and tricked gullible males to complete her tasks for her. She most likely freelanced during the weekends as a personal trainer at the local health and fitness center. As a rookie trainer, she could only manage middle-aged clients with a large middle-section, greasy faces, and stubby fat hands.

     Some times, the Office-Whore might be married. You just got to pity the poor stupid BOY who married the Office-Whore. You just got to pity the poor stupid BOY’s family. The lascivious daughter-in-law they unwittingly accepted into their household. But that poor stupid BOY did not care about the Office-Whore's cheap demeanor in the office. His appreciation for her was purely physical. The Office-Whore flirted with greasy Datuks and Tan Sris whenever her husband was not around. Poor stupid BOY. And poor Datuks and Tan Sris. She was taking them all for a ride, although the current husband might tire of her grasping ways and divorce her. Or the Office-Whore might hook-up with some moneyed contractor who procured fat government contracts through back-door means. She was a gold-digger through and through.

     Too bad the foolish BOY who married the Office-Whore had no clue. The poor stupid BOY’s head was most likely buried in the diatribe of government propaganda in the ‘Star’ Newspaper like his Malay peers, during lull periods at the customer service desk of a prominent fitness club, old obese men struggling on whirring treadmills nearby. Meanwhile, the Office-Whore was flirting with old obese man elsewhere, ambushing them outside the male-changing rooms of another fitness club, blasting them with her cheap perfume, and flashing them with the look of a pole-dancer at a sleazy bar. Her aim? To hand out the freshly minted business-cards qualifying her as a certified personal trainer.

     Acting promiscuous was as natural to the Office-Whore as breathing, so it is highly recommended to avoid the Office-Whore like the cheap Ramly burger she was, that other men already took many bites out of. The kind of stale, greasy burgers sold at night, on the roadside next to busy car-parks, infused with poisonous car exhaust and cheap margarine. 

    One can't help but feel pity for the poor, stupid BOY who married an Office-whore. He is so naive, and intoxicated by her scent he has no clue about the slutty way the Office-Whore behaves with her colleagues in the office, or the staff, or members in the gym. Perhaps he did not care. After all, she has nice assets. Word on the street is the poor stupid BOY knocked the Office-Whore up and got her pregnant, and so now, for better or worse, he is straddled with her. Haha. The poor fool. 

     Ultimately, one should feel more sympathy for the Office-Whore. The professional gossipers in the office-pantry will claim she survived a law degree from IUTM, a juicy piece of news later confirmed by the janitor of the office, who let it be known, his daughter attended the same college as the Office-Whore.

     Perhaps it was not a problem with the person, but with the Malaysian education system. With the mass commercialization of education in Malaysia, private universities popped up like mushrooms on cow-dung after the rain, and any Datuk with too much money could start an institute of higher learning in Malaysia and ‘make a contribution’ to the human capital development of the nation. Anyone who obtained what could be passed off as decent grades in Malaysia could, without too much of a mental struggle, graduate in law, receive an MBA, or become a bean-counter. For those who are unable to apply their hard-earned knowledge in a proper professional position, they could always apply themselves to be teachers and lecturers, or… reluctant gym trainers.

3) The Fat Emo

     The ‘Fat Emo.’ is in most cases, the division’s HR officer, in charge of writing up Job Descriptions, putting up job vacancies in the papers and online, scheduling interviews, and researching pay-scales. Though he was smart enough to give the Office-Whore a wide berth, I believe the Office-Whore is more of a man than the Fat Emo ever was. At least she is not as sensitive as the Fat Emo, who took everything as a slight or insult. A simple inquiry on his health after a diarrhea attack could be interpreted as a snide comment about his weight, as he is plump, with rolls of fat around his waist and hips, and a face with droopy cheeks like a bloodhound.

     While the Fat Emo may be a conscientious worker, and performed his tasks to an acceptable standard, he did not take well to ‘constructive criticism’. The Fat Emo will rage incessantly about how ‘people did not see the hours of work he put in’ whenever he is given advice to improve the quality of his work. Perhaps the worst thing about the Fat Emo is how he enjoyed watching late night films online, and entered the office the next morning red-eyed, and lethargic, which on many occasions caused him to make blunders in his work. For instance, one morning, as the Fat Emo was so groggy, he carelessly typed in a Freelance job would pay 8000 Ringgit, when the job actually paid 800 Ringgit. He must have taken three zeros for two. It was embarrassing for his boss, the division manager, to answer the hoard of inquiries from hopeful freelancers if the job really paid 8000 Ringgit.

     On another occasion, after watching late night EPL football at his neighborhood Mamak stall, the Fat Emo staggered into the office with a foggy head, and mixed up a HR interview that caused the division manager to miss her flight. The worst thing was, he showed no signs of remorse, and sullenly argued the company over-worked him. The Fat Emo was a sad reflection of the traits plaguing many of the current generation of Malaysian youth: Over-sensitivity, the in-ability to accept criticism, and an out-sized ego for their qualifications.

     During an annual performance review, should the division manager asked where the Fat Emo saw himself five years into the future, and suggested he should consider pursuing an MBA to further his career potential, the Fat Emo will reply  he was finished with studying, and he just wanted to do his job and collect his pay. It was a given fact that every time the HR department organized an enrichment course for leadership, time-management, effective communication and such, one would never see the Fat Emo in attendance.

Interactions between these three personality types: 

     Naturally, the Office-Makcik will be highly disapproving of the Office-Whore, and critical of her dressing and her promiscuous ways. On her part the Office-Whore will roll her eyes at the Office-Macik, thinking her to be old-fashioned, and finding the treats that the Office-Makcik brought to the office too greasy and fattening. The Office-Makcik will form a clique with the hijab-wearing young girls of the office, and the Office-Whore...well she might be alone most of the time, or be friends with the other younger girls of the office who preferred Western style office clothes. Or more likely, being the bitch she is, nobody wanted to talk to her, so the only one the Office-Whore can be friends with, is another social outcast, the office's residential 'Fluffy-Headed Homo', another office personality type I shall cover in part two of this essay. 

     The Fat Emo will be best friends with the Office-Makcik, and the Office-Makcik will constantly chastise the Fat Emo for eating too much, or for dozing off during office hours. The Office-Makcik will speak up for the Fat Emo, whenever the division-manager rants about the Fat Emo's sub-par performance and poor attitude in the privacy of her office. That's just the way the Office-Makcik is. Motherly in every sense of the word. 

That concludes Part 1 of my essay. Stay tuned for part two, where I cover three more common types of Office Personalities in Malaysia