Chapter 6 The Cadet Planters Training Centre

I strongly believe that I was a victim of circumstances beyond my control.Yes a racist rejected me and subjected me to extreme humiliation just simply because he was bias against Chinese planters.I do have my shortcomings I confirmed but that was only momentarily,had I been given the opportunity to recuperate things would have been better.

I was a poor young man with only a school certificate qualification and a few years experiences on Chinese owned plantations who just made it to the big time.With so vast new environment changed,the sudden transformation stunned me into some nervous setbacks.Admittedly I was slow in my response.Had I been able to secure and get hold of myself earlier with confidence I would have survived the onslaught.But never I reeled from mistakes to tragedies with no one to confide in when in troubles,guidance almost nil.Everyone were for themselves.Most care about their own skin.

I also learn that in big companies like that there were cliques,therefore you must be either in team A or B and which group ever made to the top his gang rises with him.When falling they felt together.I being new belong to no one,thus I was knock here and there.That was politics in the plantations.That was the corporate ladder so they told me and should know their game,how it should be played.Being ignorant of all this,thus I found myself on the way out.

The annual meeting of planters of the same group once a year of which I too attended but did not achieve any headway with any one or any team,because I was still on probation.When invited to join the ruby playing planters I made the stupid blunder of not joining them.This was one golden opportunity where I could have made good.Yeah,no use crying over split milk.

I was forced to swallow my pride bitterly and with bow head armed with a tarnished image and reputation,in humiliation I joined the Cadet Training Centre.There were the three cadets which were once under me when I joined the Division and now I had to study with them.The situation was shamefully intolerable but I forced myself to take it in my stride.

The Training Manager,an ex-chief clerk,was bias towards me from the very start.His nose was pointing towards the sky when he faces me and spoke similarly cold.Oh,how I hate his attitude,but I have no choice but to "sir" him from the very beginning.

He was a "Malaiyalee",who walked like a duck,stomach bulging up front ward and with backside jetting backward, moving just like a duck.His likened himself to Adolf Hitler with the same style mustache as former.His duck walk was never fast and never looked into my eyes when talking to me.I tried to be like other "Ball deck" him but to no avail because he had taboo against me.So I noticed I was a marked man there.Seeing my own predicaments I held my ground pretending like a damn fool,buying time and pondering what my eventual steps will be.

Deep within me I knew I can never changed that position I was in,so within three months I studied hard for the ISP examination on Estate Practice (Rubber).I obtained only a pass but actually expected a distinction because I knew all the answers well.Even though I passed that within three months ,to the Training Centre it was no big deal to the Company.With that I knew they just want to keep me there and allowed me to find my own way out without further humiliations.

Therefore when I passed that examination I only received a congratulatory letter from the Personal Manager DE Souza, nothing more.Had I been an Assistant that would mean an increment of salary of $25/= per month but they never gave me that,so I now am sure of my position.So having still no other outlet I stayed on,hoping for the best that was never to be any.

The Training Centre was situated at Sua Betong Estate,Port Dickson.All the cadets studied and resided at that Centre.Food was cooked by a cook including doing our laundries.Our daily routine was going round to nearby plantations for some field work etc.were valuable experiences as we learned as we went round the fields on our own.Before I was admitted to the centre I knew little about surveying and the handling of the dumpy level.Well at that we were given a drain one Plantation to perform our practical work.A drain that had been done over and over again by other batches of cadets.

In reality there was nothing the "duck" could teach us for he himself was lacking in field experience.I would not argue should the subject be accounts,That too he instructed all to read on our own.

The only thing I remember him teaching was the "Catherine Wheel" and the way he drew the wheel my goodness was a large circle with with hair jetting from a centre smaller circle.See,his filthy brain was only thinking of that only.Of course then he was talking about the road system explaining that where ever the roads lead to ,it must ultimately come back to one centre point.Well I must admit that was one big point I learn from him.

It cannot be denied that I learned nothing from that Centre I acquired much which were useful in the years to come.What I experienced in the plantation as a probationary Assistant were most valuable.C.T.Ross really polished me well so much so I was brought down on my knees. With so valuable lessons which I can never ignored all these locked deep in my mind.Well in certain way it turned me into a monstrous planter in the years to come, no one can worked with that easily.I think without a doubt I was more difficult to please than C.T.Ross.0r at least no Assistants ever survived under me.

The Training Manager never set any good examples for us to emulate,maybe that was part of our training if sleeping in his office or sitting like a dummy looking blankly into the air to past time considered as lessons.I observed that he only like to chat with all his kind - the other office clerks at the plantation office.

I was no saint either for knowing my short comings I foolishly indulged in "mahjong' at the Chinese Chief Clerk's residence,a very bad deed indeed and these were I presumed were in my bad report as well.Those poker games at the Assistants bungalows with games into wee hours were also uncalled for as I was only a Cadet Assistant.Such things do not go in well with the marvelous duck.Yes,it was my follies lessons well learned as well.

We had monthly tests all the while,somehow later in the middle of the year we discovered one of the Manager's pet student apparently had a key to all his drawers.This smart Alex we found out was always re-writing all his test papers or he had prior knowledge of all questions set by the Manager.The duplicate key could have been passed down from previous batches of cadets.With this discoveries I now know how prestigious this training Centre and my admiration for it diminished to zero.

However we did not exposed our friend as training was soon be over and let things be.Although we now know the questions of all newer tests it did not have much to help me.In fact I never saw any of those questions as I know myself and can handle those tests without other help.Come to think of it I think the rest of the cadets knew the questions set for the final examinations.

To make matter worst the Assistant from Sungai Raya accused me of stealing the tapping manual of his division,sheer craziness of him,how absurd of him.Ridiculous,I have passed the ISP examination on Estate Practice (Rubber) then and I knew the tapping system of RRIM and that of Good Tree by hard.That was because that was one of the question set in the examinations and I answered that very well explaining both methods in my test papers.For him that was necessity but for me I knew it by hard.Why should I take away something I already knew by hard.Even today I still remember those tapping systems.Besides,the Training Centre had many copies of that tapping system.

This guy thought that passing a year in law and can conversed well in English was hell of a big thing.Yeah,he can sweet talk to the Personal Manager pleasing him as well as the Training Manager.He was half Indian that was why he talked like that.Well he was an excellent poker player and had made some money from me,damn man.He flung Law because of Poker and from him I learn a grave lesson that is never gamble with those from the University they were really good poker players.Believe me and you would not regret it.

I continued to reside at that place going on as normal.The Manager spoke little with me and when that happened he never looked into my eyes.Yeah,I was an eye sore and a big head ache for me.For his instruction were to rid me gently.Accordingly he was never well equipped to teach us,he was still there because he was highly recommended by certain planter.That was why in such company one existence was who you know and not what you know.Knowing and experiences seem unimportant,should your immediate superior says you okay you are right and up you go the ladder.That is a good planter.

For me I learned a lot when going round the various plantations and their divisions.Come month end we were to help to do the c/rolls individually at the plantation's division.To be frank I was not good at it but as months went by I slowly became well versed with it.Of course those conductors were quite helpful as we struggled through those c/rolls.

Opposite our quarters was the quarters of the contractor who gave C.T.Ross and us the lavish dinner plus night clubbing while I was in the first plantation.Of course he knew me and I sometimes chatted with him during my off hours.Apparently he was the main contractor for few plantations around.Just imagine he had to reside in those wretched quarters and yet threw so lavish parties for the plantation Managers,each at a time,mind you,never all at once.See,how corrupted were all those Planters so called Managers,my foot

The hours of reckoning finally arrived and we were to go in for an oral and written examinations.Deep embedded within my soul I knew ,heads I lose and tail I still lose,no matter what? They do not want me that was for sure.I was in fact very well prepared and over anxious about the whole thing.

On the appointed day we reached Kuala Lumpur putting a night at what "Kowloon Hotel"a very cheap hotel.No air conditions except some lousy fans.We could had stayed at a better hotel but one of the Malay cadets wanted that.What a waste of fund residing at a third rated Hotel.That Hotel was full of prostitutes,perhaps he wanted to have one that why we lodged there.

That night I had a an extremely bad sleepless night due to my anxieties over the examinations.That bad environment spoiled my night,the noises from nearby rooms plus the noisy fans did not help me either.I rolled about in bed in suspense.We were supposed to be junior executives staying in a low rated hotel is simply not right.It is simply outrageous.

As if not bad sufficiently I accidentally cut my finger with a pen knife while sharpening a pencil,a bad omen indeed.I panic and was struck by minor nervousness.
My hands shivered and was not obeying my instinct to move as I wrote those test papers.Not that I did not know the answers,sadly it was my unsteady hand in nervousness was shaking so badly I could hardly write properly.Therefore my writing went from bad to worst and hardly readable.My bad writing definitely killed me off.

My thinking was impaired momentarily and I was talking just as badly as I wrote in fact I uttered some nonsense with my invigilators shaking their dump heads in disbelief.Were they dumped, no, only me.I gave myself away with that bad expression of myself.The Personal Manager was smiling broadly at me,of course,deep in his mind,alas he is going off in a nice way- good riddance.This I presume was what they have been waiting for.Served me right is it not so???????????????.

At lunch at the Selangor Club,I again stumbled on another stupid part ordering pork chop.A thing which I should not have done in front of the Muslim friends,a lacking in antics.That made the personal Manager laughed even louder.So I fared badly in my final examinations and did not expect any better results.

However back at the Training Centre,the results finally arriving .The elated Manager without wasting any time told me the result wasting a second the moment he received the phone call.With him announcing the results to me I was devastated and he smiled as he told me you are at liberty to leave any minute now.That was the first time I saw the duck smiled,well he was happy so should not he smiled.

In silence I packed my bag and left without a single friend to say good bye to me.What a sad parting.Yes in disgraced and badly humiliated I left.this was the worst part of my planting career maybe the end of it.The question remained that was it going to be the end of the road for me in planting.Well for one I am still very young and the road is still a long way on.I would not be blogged by just a simple failure at one company but they were not the only one around,as saying goes should be not acceptable in this wretched place surely the world seemingly so vast definitely has a place whereby I be retained.

The whole picture made them looked good but was it the very truth.No,never they never gave half a chance to make amends to improve.They wanted me to go all the while.Should their intention were benevolent they would have given an opportunity for a second chance especially when I passed that Estate Practice (Rubber),an examinations where their senior planters flung.Yes,I am sore of their attitude,no doubt about it.



To be continued when inspired......................................