'Our jobs are coming to an end; it's bittersweet': Concierge supervisor who became swabber reflects on his journey

SINGAPORE - Mr Muhammad Shafiq Romaino, 28, is a swabber with the Ministry of Health. He was in the hospitality industry for five years and was a concierge supervisor before he was retrenched at the onset of the pandemic.

I did not expect to be retrenched at all.

Early 2020 was certainly a time of uncertainty. Very little was known about the virus then and we did not know what we were dealing with.

Even then, it took me by surprise when I was retrenched in March 2020. I did not know how to react when it happened. I needed some time to process it.

I knew the hospitality industry was going through a tough time and so I was looking for other office jobs but none of the employers got back to me because I did not have the relevant experience.

I received a severance package, and some assistance from my former employer and the Government, and that got me through a few months.

But I was a contributing breadwinner to the family and I needed a job. So, when the Health Promotion Board got back to me, I immediately said yes.

I joined as a swab assistant and was initially assigned to the Special Roving Operations team. The duties of a swab assistant included ensuring that the particulars of individuals are correct before they are swabbed.

We were deployed to the dormitories a few times. We swabbed hundreds of people a day there. We had to work in the open under the sun and in our personal protective equipment (PPE) for four hours before we got our lunch break, only to get back into our PPE for another four hours till the end of the day.

There was also a language barrier when we had to communicate with the workers.

Sometimes, we would get assigned to the same dormitory again and the workers would remember you, which was nice. But seeing them having to go through that was heartrending.

I was a little apprehensive at first, worried about contracting the virus while on the job, and so I decided to apply for the swab assistant role to limit direct interaction with clients.

But after a year of being a swab assistant, I decided to approach my supervisor to inquire about becoming a swabber, and when vacancies opened up, they sent me for training.

Later on, they sent me to learn about the administration systems we use for registration, and then more training to become a point of contact for a team, allowing me to stand in for my supervisors when they are at other sites. I always had something to look forward to and something to learn.

Initially, I was quite afraid of telling people what I did because of the stigma associated with being a front-liner. We saw healthcare professionals being shunned, Grab drivers not accepting bookings from them and people avoiding them on public transport.

After a while, I stopped being afraid. We are doing our job and putting our lives at risk on a daily basis. I have no reason to be affected by what they think.

When all of us started in this job, we knew it was not going to last forever, but we just did not know how long.

Now, many of us know that our jobs are coming to an end and we are mentally prepared for it. It is bittersweet because I get along with my colleagues very well and I will miss working with them.

The resilience that not just front-liners but Singaporeans as a whole have shown during the pandemic is my biggest takeaway.

We did not know how long the pandemic was going to last until lately, when we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but we adhered to the rules and stayed resilient throughout.

I am open to returning to the hospitality industry and I look forward to new opportunities that the industry may present.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.