Me and YNR: What actually happened and why.

Three years ago I was working with a "friend" whom I will call here "Baldy" for the apparent reason. Baldy was doing business by means of his own company which I shall call "YNR". It was Baldy himself who called me and offered me a job when I was in dire straits after resigning from TNB (which will be another story) several years before that. I had known Baldy since the 1990s when we were working together in the same section at one of TNB's power stations. When Baldy offered me the job, I didn't suspect anything since I knew Baldy to be a friendly and helpful colleague when we were working for TNB. That's what I thought!

It was a wonderful seven months of doing work for YNR including a one-month stint in the interior of Sarawak, which was my first ever trip to the Borneo state. Baldy was initially very nice to me and was ever ready to guide me in my work. During the first couple of months when I didn't have a car, Baldy picked me up from my house whenever I needed to go to his office for work, and he sent me back after work. Baldy treated me to dinner on many occasions, and even allowed me to catch  forty winks in the office whenever I felt sleepy. I never suspected that all his good deeds to me would come with a heavy price.

Baldy said to me that he would like me to work with him for the long term. He even said that if I were to leave his company of my own accord, he would like to see me leave as a successful man. Frankly, I thought I had found the perfect job. I didn't suspect at all that Baldy was such a big, ugly liar and manipulator!

I was very happy with the job so much so that I was willing to spend late hours—many a time going home between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m.; even almost "subuh" a couple of times—at the office to complete a project that had been delayed for nearly two years before my time. Believe it or not, initially Baldy set the duration for completion of the project at ten ridiculous days from the day he handed it to me! When you think about it, if it was at all possible to finish the project in ten days, why was it delayed for two years? Baldy was kind of pushing me to complete my work as soon as possible—I just said to him, "I'm only human!" Anyway, when we disagreed on something, we sort of agreed to disagree. Finally, I managed to complete my part of the project in three months of working into the wee hours that included weekends.

I guess that I was taken in by Baldy's goodness so that I confided in him about my private life including a run-in with a brother-in-law of mine. I told him about some of my weaknesses too! I was even willing to run errands for Baldy without any question. While in Sarawak, I drove alone from Batang Ai to Kuching and back—an eight-hour trip—to send off a trainer and pick up another. I even drove to collect photocopies of training materials from a shop in Sri Aman which was about an hour's drive from Batang Ai. On one occasion, I helped Baldy change his house's defective main water valve upon his request. And yet another time, I assisted Baldy to change YNR office's defective door lock even as his wife belittled our effort!

The trouble stemmed from a used car that a Baldy's teacher "friend" (or relative?) sold to me. The car was already sixteen years old when I bought it on installment with an exorbitant interest rate of ten percent! I didn't mind the high interest rate since I needed a car badly. Now, take note of the next sentence because that's where the trouble started! When I took possession of the car, Baldy's "friend" said to me that if I had trouble paying an installment, I just had to pay a partial payment and make up for the short payment the following month! I am the type of person who remembers the essence of another person's word when we agree on something or when that person promises me something.

The car's problems started right after I received it from Baldy's "friend". The very first problem was that the odometer was not functioning! How was I going to know how far the car had traveled in order to anticipate future problems and also to schedule the servicing? Next the fuel indicator remained stuck at "E" when I filled the fuel tank. When I changed the odometer, I had to change the whole dashboard as well since the plastic already crumbled during removal. Subsequently, the other parts that I had to change were the shock absorbers, engine mountings, a fan motor, water pump, gearbox seals, radiator hoses etc., and even the radiator itself since it already rusted inside—it made me wonder about the internal condition of the engine! Finally, I'm compelled to mention that every bone in my body would shake when I had to slam the trunk cover multiple times every time to get it shut.

Upon returning from Sarawak, I found myself in a situation where I had to use my salary for some extra expenses on top of the usual bills and debts that I was paying. Remembering Baldy's friend's "word" about making partial payment for the car, I texted the "friend" to ask for permission to pay half of the installment for that month and promising that I would make up for the deficit the following month. To my dismay, the "friend" replied that after consulting his "boss", he could not allow me to make a partial payment. Disgusted by the "friend's" about-face, I texted back to mention all the problems with the car but promising that I would pay the installments in full for that month and for subsequent months without fail. At the end of my message, I just retorted, "Apa punya lintah daa!" meaning "What a leech!". Immediately, my handphone was ringing incessantly with calls from the "friend" but I didn't answer a single call!

The "friend" must have gone running to Baldy and his wife like a dog running to its master with its tail between the legs because the next day Baldy called me to his office and—without giving me a chance to explain what actually had transpired between me and the "friend"—asked me to leave his company. Before that, I told Baldy that I would settle the spat that I had with the "friend" myself but Baldy wouldn't have any of it. He said to me that I was not able to change and he even related it to the run-in that I had with my brother-in-law. I knew then that he was keeping the personal things that I had told him as a trump card for throwing me out of his business. When I asked him how I was going to put food on the table for my family, Baldy cheekily said that he was not concerned about it—it was my problem and mine alone. And before he revealed his true colors, Baldy even had the cheek to request me to hand over the little part of his project that I was working on to him.

Baldy played the judge, jury and executioner on my life—a tad short of playing god. Baldy once said to me that his company was back in the black after getting payment for the long overdue project. So, it appears that he used and exploited me to get his business out of financial troubles. But I realized that Baldy did not make the decision to get rid of me alone. I knew that his wife had a hand in his decision. He even mentioned to me that his wife didn't like me right from the first day that I worked with him but...

If Baldy was truly honest about helping me, why didn't he first advise me about what I had said to the "friend" and then attempt to reconcile us especially since he knew the "story" of my life. "Firing" me at the first chance after my spat with the "friend" embodied Baldy's dishonesty and exploiting way of doing business. He used me and he abused my trust in him!

Finally I would like to say to Baldy if you're reading this posting, "You can go and f**k your business and your wife! You can keep my bonus and any compensation that I asked from you. Instead, one day I will pay you the balance of the price of the jalopy that your "friend" sold me. At the end of the day, I wish, I hope and I pray that you and your devil of a wife will pay a higher price either in this life or in the hereafter for what you did to me!"

The Trojans: An experiment in friendship or the harsh realities of so-called friendships.

The Trojans, in my sense of the word, refers to a group of Lembaga Letrik Negara (LLN or National Electricity Board) scholars who attended the Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) in Troy, New York, U.S.A. in the early 1980s. We were among the first batch of LLN-sponsored students who were sent to pursue engineering degrees at U.S. colleges. Brighton in the U.K. had been the "traditional" place where LLN sent its students for engineering degrees before LLN turned its sight to the U.S. Another Malaysian student (not LLN scholar) later joined the LLN students at HVCC but I still included him among the Trojans.

Being the first few Malays to attend a college in New York where the temperature could plummet to sub-zero degrees made the Trojans form a close-knit family-like relationship or friendship while studying at HVCC. Most of us lived together in a rented house during the early period of our stay in the U.S. Two of us (including me) had to stay in a separate house because of insufficient space in the first house. However we maintained a close contact by frequently visiting the larger group and having get-togethers whenever we could aside from bumping into each other and attending the same classes at the college. 

The Trojans were blessed with getting acquainted with a few senior Malaysian students (and their families) who were already pursuing (higher) degrees at nearby colleges at the time the Trojans landed in the U.S. Again, it was a close-knit friendship fostered by many social gatherings, visits and a picnic in the woods.

As events turned out, one of the Trojans, AL, had to leave the U.S. in the first or second year without completing his studies because of an offense that he allegedly committed in Troy.  I did not see him again for nearly 30 years since he left the U.S. As for the rest of the Trojans, after three or four semesters of pre-college education at HVCC, they went their separate ways to attend the proper colleges or universities in the U.S.A. for first degrees in Mechanical Engineering. I went to the UM-Columbia (UMC) with my housemate right from the beginning, RE. Another Trojan, GH, later joined us at UMC and we lived together in a rented house near UMC. One Trojan, KS, went to the UW-Madison while the rest (AS, AT, SK and RY) attended the SUNY in Buffalo, New York. The non-LLN student, AA, went to the UW-Milwaukee.

Toward the end of our studies at UMC, hostility developed between me and RE and GH when it seemed to me that they were ignoring or bypassing me when making decisions that concerned the house where we lived (and paid rent) together especially when they wanted to bring in a new housemate without asking me. RE and GH also appeared to be doing things together without asking me to join them. I must admit that I was not much of an outdoor person then nor was I easy to make friends but there has to be an unwritten and unspoken social contract among people who live together under one roof; and the social contract has to be respected by everybody under that roof when making decisions that could affect each person concerned.

From my point of view, it looked like the buds of bigotry and perhaps, cronyism too, were already growing in the heads of the Trojans back then in the U.S. On the other hand, I was no angel either because I was harboring envy in my mind for years because my housemate had a lot of "girlfriends" with whom he was often "crooning" late at night when I was trying to sleep. He even "stole" a junior student whom I had the heart for. My housemate also had a way of currying favor with the seniors and the rest of the Trojans because of his talkative and cajoling nature and a charming personality. I was and still am the aloof and emotional type—my personality and physique would simply put other people off after a few words of conversation. But hey, I'm only a human being created by God according to his "mysterious ways"! So don't blame me for my negative attitude toward life.

Upon returning from the U.S., RE, GH and me kept seeing each other frequently for several years when we were posted to the same power plant. RE later went to further his studies for a Masters degree and resigned from TNB to join another large corporation soon after getting his degree. I met AS and AT several times during the course of our jobs since we all had to work for LLN (which later became TNB) upon completing our studies. I must have met RY only a couple of times back here in Malaysia. I bumped into KS only once before he went to further his studies up to the doctorate level and quit LLN to become a lecturer at UKM. It was only last year when I met KS again when he came to a dinner to which I treated several of the Trojans. I probably saw SK a couple of times during the course of work and I did not meet AA and AL again until my "troubles" (it reminds me of the television series "Haven") began.

My "troubles" started after I resigned from TNB, the company where I worked for more than two decades after completing my studies in the U.S. During the whole period that I was with TNB, I worked at only one location i.e. the Kapar Power Plant. For nearly half of that period, I was assigned to shift work. While RE and GH were made to experience shift work at the beginning of their careers in TNB, I was sent to "suffer" shift work years later after RE and GH came out of shift work. I was clocking in for work at midnights when RE left the power plant to pursue further studies. When RE left, it was a low point in my life because I would have wanted to go for further studies too if I was qualified and had self-confidence. Nobody can imagine the depressive feeling that I had when my ex-housemate and ex-college mate of more than four years was going to "enjoy" life overseas (again) with his family while I was "rotting away" in shift work. I guess the "troubles" were already budding right then.

It must be depression that I had during those years of working in shifts to the extent of having suicidal thoughts. I knew that I was being "abandoned" by the power plant and TNB managements but my low self-esteem prevented me from escaping the "cocoon" that had built itself around myself over the years. After seven years of doing shift work, I was taken out and assigned to handle a new phase of the power plant. However, after a disastrous period of handling the new job, I was sent back to do shift work. It was during the second time in shift work that I started thinking of quitting my job even without a proper backup plan. Finally I threw caution to the wind and resigned from TNB eight years ago; and the "troubles" started.

The "troubles" were actually my inability to find a new job or to start a business because of my low self-confidence, lack of skills, and awkwardness when dealing with people. A bad memory and a less than average physique had something to do with it. Because I did not have a large network of friends, I had to rely on the Trojans, especially RE, in order to get jobs. Even then, my jobs after TNB did not last long—the last job was gone after being stabbed in the back by a former colleague in TNB. A couple of years after resigning from TNB, I had to "beg" for loans from my Trojan friends and relatives in order to put food on the table for my family. I was not asking for handouts but I really could not bring myself to earn a living.

During the troubled period of my life, RE helped me get a job a couple of times but both jobs were short-lived due to my lack of skills. AL tried to get me a job interview but I had to reject because of logistical problems and because I was scared of interviews. RY once called me out of the blue and just sort of invited me to work with him in getting contracts from TNB but the job never materialized. AT and AA came to see me one night with only suggestions of jobs that would suit me such as a security guard (Really?) and doing tuition for school students (if only I had the skills for teaching and interacting). AS's only assistance to me was a suggestion that I went to a "Majlis Zakat" to get a handout in order to settle some of my debts. In the five-year troubled period of my life, I accumulated debts totaling more than RM50,000 from relatives and friends only and not including unsettled credit card debts. My last job was working with a "friend" (an ex-TNB colleague) who invited me to work with him and then stabbed me in the back; but that is another story.

The point that I'm making here is that no matter how close a friend is, he will never really help you get back on your feet during troubled times. Perhaps he will lend you money but he will never understand the agony that you are going through in your life. My Trojan friends never made any real effort to understand my feelings and emotions of being unable to work or to do business. Despite countless times of pouring my thoughts and emotions to them, most of them just kept silent and away from me. Their silence was deafening to me. Nobody wanted to try to put himself in my shoes or to get into my head. Perhaps they were all expecting that if somebody else could do it, I should be able to do it without understanding my feelings and shortcomings.

I'm beginning to think that the people that I call my Trojan friends have no feelings and emotions. Perhaps being high up in social standing robbed them of empathy. It appears that having a 5-digit salary, a fat bank account, a luxury car, and an enormous house had the effect of doing just that and making them complacent. I should add a Datukship to the list of worldly possessions. Worse still, they mock me with their silence and inaction despite being fully aware of my condition and situation. KS promised to send me an application form that never came. RY was uncouth and arrogant by calling me again by a nickname which I had already made it clear to them that I didn't want them to use it anymore. The worst thing is, they make me harbor the green-eyed monster called envy in my heart—as well as hatred, prejudice, anger...

"What are friends for?" and "A friend in need is a friend indeed.", the cliches go. I would like to answer the first one with this: Friends are just for laughing and for comparing who have the largest tummies! As for the second cliche, I would like to rephrase it as follows: A friend in trouble is a friend no more! It doesn't rhyme quite right but it will do.

Finally, this posting has pretty much summed up what I think about my Trojan friends. I guess I'll end it with a short prayer for my Trojan friends though I don't believe it will make any difference:

May God bless my Trojan friends in this world and their souls in the hereafter! Amen!

"Till death do us wake up from our slumber!"

The Trojans in New York circa 1981.

To Kill A Mockingbird

Dear Datuk Professor,

To Kill A Mockingbird is the title of novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It is also the title of a movie starring Gregory Peck based on the Harper Lee's novel. The main theme of To Kill A Mockingbird  involves racial injustice and prejudice. Some people called you a "walking encyclopedia", but I would like to call myself the "surfing Wikipedia" with the following quote from Wikipedia: Mockingbirds are a group of New World passerine birds from the Mimidae family. They are best known for the habit of some species mimicking the songs of other birds and the sounds of insects and amphibians, often loudly and in rapid succession.

Anyway, my posting has nothing to do with To Kill A Mockingbird—neither the novel nor the movie. I'm simply using the title in my posting to make a dramatic impact on you for what you did to me—mocking me for my failures and weaknesses! What Datuk has done did not involve racial injustice because both of us are of the same race, Malay, even though you may have a trace of mamak descendant—no offense intended—in your blood. But what you did had a tinge of prejudice against me.

For what reason did you send me a photo of yourself receiving an award from PM Najib at a time when the people were lampooning PM Najib for insulting their intelligence? What was your motive? Was it to ridicule me for mocking PM Najib who, I suppose, is dear to your heart because he presented you with the award? Or was it to deride me over my failures and for having nothing better to do than criticizing other people?

Datuk, you yourself said that you would send me a membership form for the "scientists' club" or something of which you are a member. I certainly did not request the form. I was just fooling around when I said I would like to join your club. You must have been fooled to think that I was really interested in your social club! I am not even a member of my high school old boys' association and my college's alumni association. Then you gave me your word that you would email me the form. I take people for their word when they say things that affect or concern me. What irked me was the fact that you reneged on your promise to send me the form. You failed to deliver on your word regardless of whether the form had any value or not to me!

I wonder why you accepted the datukship in the first place. What was your intention? If not for showing off, why did you post the photo of your receiving the datukship on Facebook? The pride and vanity must have gone to your head when you received accolades for your achievements. You might say that you were sincere in accepting the datukship and the other awards but it is said that sincerity is like a tiny black ant on a black stone on a dark moonless night. In my opinion, a person who says "I'm sincere" while giving a donation or assistance to somebody in need is himself/herself expressing "I'm being insincere". Frankly, I was just trying to kiss up to you when I myself congratulated you on your receiving the energy and scientist or something awards! Truthfully, I was not sincere when I congratulated you because I myself harbor the green-eyed monster called envy! How's that for sincerity?

Anyway, what is the point of accepting a datukship if not for business purposes or for becoming the "strings" for other people to pull to get something? I did suggest that you should commercialize your inventions so that the rest of us could get a piece of the pie. I thought "necessity is the mother of invention". What is the point in inventing something when at the end of the day, you just get to hang the award that you won on your office wall, and the invention itself ends up in a display case that gets shoved into some store room after several years?

Datuk, I gave you a hint that I was hoping you could use your datukship to get me a job, but unfortunately, you were too engrossed in your own vanity to pick up my hint. I even suggested that you use my rooftop in your solar energy research from which I get to save energy and/or sell energy to TNB. It could have been a win-win proposition for you and me. But it appears to me now that your only interest is to win as many awards as you can for yourself from your researches, and feeling conceited about it!

Nevertheless, it is too late for anything now. Why don't you go ahead and send me the membership form for your crème de la crème of scientists club? That will complete your mocking of me—I can take it, unless you are worried that I might contaminate your elite club. After all, you have been mocking me with your silence all this while. All that's left for me to do is to "kill a mockingbird"!

My misadventure or rather, eye-opener, with TNB.

When I paid my last electricity bill, I purposely omitted payment for the Renewable Energy (RE) charge, which was RM1.35. Less than three weeks after the due date, I received the familiar yellow letter from TNB—the notice for disconnection of electricity supply. The northern Malay dialect would say that TNB is "kelapaq" for merely RM1.35! Instead of just writing off the chicken feed considering that the power tariff had just been hiked, TNB had the cheek to threaten me with a power disconnection for mere RM1.35 arrears!

Armed with the yellow letter, I went to the TNB's regional office with the intention of making a big noise about the RE charge coupled with the latest hike in electricity tariffs. I had prepared the exact amount of coins that I wanted to pay the arrears with. When I asked for the queue number, I was advised by the front desk clerk to pay at a kiosk considering the rather long line ahead of me. I told the clerk that I wanted to pay with coins. The courteous clerk then had a look at my yellow letter and upon seeing the amount of arrears, she advised me to go upstairs to get the arrears cancelled. I said to her that I doubted that TNB would cancel my arrears. I was then directed to the front manager who had the courtesy to check my account and informed me that TNB would not disconnect my supply for the tiny amount of arrears. He politely advised me to pay the arrears together with my next bill. The courtesy and politeness of TNB's public-relation or customer-service officials melted my heart and I just left the TNB's office saying thank you to the front manager who shook my hand.

What I'm saying here is I don't have a heart of stone. Even though TNB appeared to be heartless when it raised the electricity tariffs, I understand that the hike was beyond TNB's purview, and TNB management's hands are tied when it comes to deciding an adjustment in power tariffs. I submitted countless complaints to TNB concerning the tariff hike just to vent my anger and frustration on the real heartless culprit behind the power tariff hike—the BN government!

A notice for power disconnection from TNB for just RM1.35 arrears!

The god-d****d sootblowers!

I'm saying with conviction and from experience that the multiple failures of the Kapar Power Plant Phase 3 sootblowers was the root cause of some of the major boiler troubles in Phase 3. A couple of major incidents involving the Phase 3 boilers during my tenure as the Plant Engineer there that could be attributed to the sootblower failures are laid out below.

The worst case was when numerous platen superheater tubes were found bent out of shape during an inspection by an inspector from DOSH for boiler certificate of fitness renewal. To make matters worse, the DOSH inspector had to walk up ten floors of the boiler house with me in tow due to a sudden breakdown of the boiler elevator although it had been serviced not long before the day of inspection. Subsequently, DOSH instructed the plant to replace the distorted superheater tubes before the boiler certificate could be renewed. As a result, the unit's downtime (for overhaul) had to be extended and the plant incurred several million RM of losses from additional repair costs and loss of generation. It was too bad I wasn't a golfer like my colleague from Phase 2 who occasionally teed off with DOSH inspectors. Perhaps the losses could have been curtailed had I been a golfer and rubbed elbows with DOSH officials!

Following a "nasty" letter, which the Station Manager asked me to draft, faxed to the boiler manufacturer, the manufacturer sent its engineers to inspect the damages. It was determined that the root cause of the problem was none other than the many broken-down sootblowers in the platen superheater region.

Another major incident was the puncturing of reheater tubes by sootblowing steam attributed to a non-rotating sootblower lance tube. This occurrence caused a forced shutdown of a generating unit and led to more financial losses for the power plant.

The sootblowers themselves suffered countless defects and breakdowns right from the beginning. There were several cases of lance tube getting stuck in a boiler and breaking apart due to the intense heat inside the boiler. That kind of occurrence was unheard of in Phases 1 and 2 during my years in Kapar. Imagine the effect (on metal temperatures) of operating the boilers for prolonged periods with nearly half of the sootblowers down. The root cause of most sootblower breakdowns could be pinpointed to the drive mechanism of the sootblowers.

A very good example of reliable sootblowers was already in plain sight next door in Kapar Phase 2 but why the TNB Generation Project Division chose to specify an unbelievably less reliable drive mechanism for the Phase 3 sootblowers was anybody's guess. The Phase 3 sootblowers were fitted with a plain old chain drive in comparison with Phase 2 sootblowers which used the highly reliable rack and pinion drive. I read the contract document which specified chain drive for the Phase 3 sootblowers.

Now I dare say with conviction that the root cause of the Kapar Phase 3 project debacle was mismanagement on the part of both TNB Generation Project Division and the project consultant; not unlike the root cause of the country's financial troubles which is the economic mismanagement by the BN government!

A sootblower lance tube disengaged from its drive mechanism and stuck inside a boiler.

The "plain Jane" chain used to drive the Phase 3 sootblowers.

Dreamscape

I dreamed of it again last night, or rather, this morning! I have been dreaming about the moments before I take a flight home after completing my studies abroad. In my dreams, I am packing and making other preflight preparations, and the packing is always a havoc because it is a last-minute chore. There are still many things to pack while my flight is only a few hours away; I also need to make the trip to the airport! Sometimes, I find myself in a dilemma about what to pack because of time and space constraints. And yet at times, I have not even completed my studies when I'm already preparing to go home. Then I can't find my way to the airport. At the end of the day, I never make the flight and wake up in a daze!

Perhaps the dreams are indicative of a trip that I have to prepare to make in reality—probably the journey for haj that I'm yet to embark on. But I have always thought of the dreams as a reminder or a premonition of the ultimate event in every mortal being's real life—the final recall by God or the journey to the hereafter! And I'm yet to prepare for it!