From washing cars to working in labs

The Workforce Development Authority launched a Lifelong Learning Campaign to encourage both individuals and organisations who want to raise their skill level. We speak with two workers who progressed by upgrading their skills.

Three years ago, he was working at a car wash.

He earned $1,500 a month.

Along with his wife's salary as a part-time cleaner, the couple couldn't even afford to take their five children to Sentosa.

Today, Mr Abdul Malik Mohd Gazali, 30, is glad that those days are over.

As a lab technician, he now takes home more than $3,000 a month.

But the path wasn't easy for the university dropout, who had only A-level qualifications when he started job-hunting in his 20s.

He dabbled in insurance and construction, and was unemployed when he married and had his first child in early 2011.

Mr Abdul Malik and his 25-year-old wife lived with his mother-in-law, with a total of 11 people squeezed into a three-room flat.

"Expenses were growing because the kids were growing. We had to send them to childcare centres as my wife was working too," he said.

His children are aged two to nine years old, and four of them are from his wife's previous marriage.

"We wanted to move out from that situation. We wanted something better for our family."

That was when he attended a job fair organised by the South West Community Development Council.

"There were jobs in the process industry. At that point, I didn't know what that (the process industry) was."

In March 2012, he joined a firm which processes chemical waste as a chemical engineering technician.

"At first, I was more like a labourer. I had to carry bags of chemical waste around and take samples."

Mr Abdul Malik was also attached to the incineration department, and worked outdoors.

He soon learnt about the plant and the processes. Four months into the job, he was promoted and worked from the control room.

SAFETY IS PRIORITY

"There would be about 12 digital readouts and a large LED indicator panel showing the running status of each machine. I'd have to know what was the safe range and most importantly, when to shut down the plant for safety reasons."

A fire had broken out at the plant just two months after he joined the firm.

He was later rotated to other departments and learnt about different working systems, such as distillation in solvent recovery.

With his salary double of what he used to earn, he was happy enough.

But others in the firm told him to look further.

"If you can do this, why not search for something with better pay?" they told him.

Work experience in hand, he went on to a research and development laboratory and has been there since last June, testing methods of production in a pilot plant.

"I tried applying to almost every company which said it wanted process knowledge. Chevron called me and I remember thinking, such a big company is considering me.

"I had a sense of euphoria. I was finally going places I didn't even know existed when I was at the car wash," he said.

By now, he has taken his brood to the zoo, Jurong Bird Park and Sentosa.

He and his wife, an administrative assistant, are waiting for a four-room build-to-order (BTO) flat in Choa Chu Kang, which will be ready in 2016.

In the meantime, they are staying in interim housing in Spooner Road, near Jalan Bukit Merah.

He said: "If I hadn't taken the chance, where would I have ended up? Even my BTO wouldn't have been possible."

This article was published on April 26 in The New Paper.

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