Wages of Sin

Replay. Impossible to guess the number of repetitions. It was not really like it was a serious survey or investigation. Simply, you meet one of the guys and chat in passing. They look tired or something, the natural question arises: Either, when did you start? or when do you finish? And from there the follow-up. So-called “native” people, kampung folk, were used to straight talk and no shyness. (On the other side, how many times had you been asked by a perfect stranger, Are you married? Or the like.) Here the nice short Tamil stationed either at the rojak stall or collecting the plates and glasses. In this instance around at the entry to the bathroom washing out his dishrag that was used for cleaning the table-tops after collection. (Some relief to see those filthy rags washed occasionally by the way. Usually caked in grime from the regurgitated scraps &etc. left on the tables.) Started this morning at 9:45. Unusually precise answer. Oh! And finishing 10 was it? Reasonable guess. No. Not in this instance. Twelve. Midnight…. Oh. I see. Fourteen hours. Long day…. Something in the look returned led to still another enquiry. Rat smelt. Usually everyday fourteen? (Hardly likely, but the look was indeed such.) Bang-on. Bulls’ eye. Yeah, that was the term of servitude alright. Finally, and this was perhaps not 100% to the last cent: That’d get you, I reckon, say.… twelve hundred. That was what the chap got. One day off a month was standard for the foreign workforce. (Currently, in the last couple of weeks again, the question of a minimum wage raised here. Costs. Benefits. Dangers. Comparisons over the globe. A notice in this morning’s paper of a Sunday feature where the case would be argued by a proponent and a naysayer, the latter a former union head. YOU READ RIGHT. That is the state of labour-government relations in this republic.)