Bear, Diah and Pasha

Part V – Racism is Not Dead Yet

Posted on the April 27th, 2009 under Life by papabear

The title might offend some people immediately but I am just going to tell my story the way it actually happened and it is up to you to make your own judgement. Racism has been a sensitive issue in a multi-cultural and multi-racial country such as Malaysia. Most of the time it is only subdued due to certain reasons and circumstances but it is never gone. Not even with the new One Malaysia vision from the new Prime Minister.

Anyway, back to my interview session. The next interview that I went to was at a Dutch software company located at the KLCC. This is where the development requirements for Asia are done and I must say, it is not a bad company to work for.

My first interview was with two young and energetic middle management staffs and from the 2 hour session, there were two questions that caught my attention:

1. Would you have any problem reporting to someone who is younger than you are?
2. Would you have any problem working with staffs who are all Chinese (referring to Malaysians who are from the Chinese race and not people from China)?

The first question was not really something that bothers me but the second question made me wonder why is that something that should be part of qualifying questions when hiring a new staff…

I told them that during my 8 long years of managing people in my previous company, I only had one Malay staff and the rest were all Chinese. To me race has never been as issue since what a person can produce at work is far more important than whether they are Malay, Chinese, Indian, American, British, Arabs or any other race in this world.

I had no idea what was going on in their mind after getting that answer from me. The only thing that I noticed was that they were eager to set me up for the next interview.

One week later, I was called for the second interview and that time I would be facing the more senior managers in the company. As expected, the same question about my comfort level with non-Malay staffs was brought up. I am a Malay, by the way…

I gave them the same answer but I could see that there was something bothering them…

Anyway, before the meeting, I had the chance to observe the people who came to work. Apart from an Indian HR executive and two Indonesian general workers, there was no other race there beside the Chinese. Is it coincidental or carefully planned?

Based on the way the asked questions, I had to believe that they would not want to have things changed over there. The prospect of having a non-Chinese manager instructing all-Chinese staffs must have been too scary a thing to happen and on top of that, it must have been unsettling to actually find out that Malays could really perform contrary to their beliefs that Malays are generally lazy…

In the end, to protect their little comfortable world, high up on the twin tower, they told me that I am too technically inclined and therefore, not suitable for a manager’s post. I was hoping that they would come up with a more solid reason and yet, they let me have some craps.

It goes to show that something could never change or be change. Half of my friends are Chinese thus it makes me sad knowing that some people are still using race as an excuse…

To be continued…

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