In Humans of KL

“When I was 21, I lost a job that I loved because I fought for what I thought was right. I tried to look for someone to give me justice, the managers, the HR, the employee tribunal and even the CEO. I never got justice, so that’s why I decided to study law.

I was with a budget airline company as a ground operator. Since it is a budget airline, the managers wanted to show that they were making profits to the big bosses, so they would try to cut and minimize costs as much as they can.

When I was there, it was very short-handed. Computers broke down often causing problems at the check-in counters. We had to do a lot of the work manually and this took up a lot of time. We often had passengers waiting and scolding us, it was horrible!

I complained to my manager and the senior management, but nothing was done. So I was like ‘Screw it!’ and I emailed straight to the ‘big boss’. A week later, we got new computers and all the systems were fixed!

But after that, my managers got into a room and scolded me fiercely. I even cried because I was so scared. They told me that they were willing to forgive me but they had their eyes on me. That time, I really felt like it was my fault, like I made a mistake, and I was being forgiven.

One day, there was this passenger from India who wanted to travel to Singapore. But when he arrived in Singapore, they said he didn’t have a visa, so they sent him back to Malaysia. The Singaporean office emailed the Malaysian office and said our officers didn’t check if he had a valid visa.

So I looked up the passenger details and called him to ask if he could send me a copy of his printed visa on the passport. I sent the proof to the other side and explained that it wasn’t my fault and clearly they made a mistake. I did not realize that those emails were being CC-ed to the senior management team.

My regional manager called me up and said ‘Oh I see that you are very rebellious, you are an argumentative kind of person’. I told him no, that’s not true. I was just trying to state why I’m right. He didn’t seem to believe it. That was the time when they were going to renew my contract, but they didn’t. I lost my job.

I was really upset because I loved my job. I was doing very well and I actually saw a future there. I was devastated but I didn’t want to give up. I have to do something. That’s when I decided to study law.

An elder person would probably tell me, ‘You should just do your own thing, don’t bother about it’. But if you know something is not right, you should speak up. The reason why things have become like this in our country is because no one was speaking up, they were just keeping quiet, trying to play safe.

If you look at Kevin Morais, some might say that if he didn’t do anything, he will probably still be alive. But if he didn’t do it, his conscience would probably kill him.

Until now, I have no regret in doing what I did because I did the right thing.”

Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Photostory by Samantha Siow
Edited by Amalina Davis

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(This post was first published on June 13th 2018)

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