Training Ground

I feel good today. The driver who has been with me for the past 8 months makes more money working somewhere else. I told him he could move - I would recommend him to move - if he can make a better living for his family and get health insurance for them.

This experience reinforces my non-attachment principle. There is no need to hold on to something if it is time to let it go. Not a driver, a housemaid, a wife, a son, or anything else for that matter.

I have been criticized by my father to let my son live by himself in Canada. He is in grade 12. It was difficult for him, but he has so far adjusted well. He acknowledges that it would be difficult to start living by himself if he does this in his first year at university.

I have been told that I am a "western" dad despite my Asian heritage by one of my friends. I have to say that most parents in Indonesia really hold on to their kids, until they grow well into adulthood.

But a memory is like a box that I can lock if I don't want to remember about it. A glimpse of my son's photo reminds me of four of us having a vacation. It aches me. I looked at his photo and am grateful he has grown to an adult I am proud of.

I think the best thing for me to do is to allow my daily life to be a training ground for anybody who crosses my path. I simply work with this person and hope he and I can learn something along the way. When it is time to say good bye, then we will do so. No tears, no regret. Life goes on.

Trader's Mentality

I won't bother too much with the sad state of infrastructure in Jakarta if I don't have a family living with me here. But I do, so I become more critical as the lack of public infrastructure, such as decent sidewalks and bus stops, starts creeping into family's enjoyment of living in Jakarta.

We have been living in Jakarta for 8 months, and slowly - but surely - we feel the effects of lack of infrastructure in our daily lives. It is very difficult to walk around our neighborhood. The hot weather makes kids and women - mostly - uncomfortable when walking outside in the sun. The irony here is that Jakarta has fertile land and it shouldn't be difficult to grow large trees sheltering every road.

I can only blame for the sorry state of roads on a severe lack of planning on roads being built and maintained. This lack of planning happens everywhere. I see it in the roads, in the buildings where designs and construction materials seem haphazardly assembled, in houses where they have little regards for safety, comfort, and aesthetics. There are places in Jakarta - to name an example is the food court in Pejaten Village - that show good design and build, but it is a tiny minority. By and large, Jakarta is a complete design mess.

I often ask "How come the lack of planning seems to permeate many activities in Indonesia?" They seem related to a lack of thinking and putting this thinking into action. Why do people appear always in a hurry when they think about something? Indonesians are a relaxed bunch when they talk, but when they think they always want short cuts. Here is what I think the reason why.

I think most Indonesians have trader's mentality. A trader is someone who derives his money for living from trading activities: buying and selling stuff. A trader will pay a lot of attention to maintaining good relationships with different people: customers, suppliers, and informants. A trader will not try to offend someone for a possibility that this someone might be one day his customer.

A trader is a consummate deal maker. A trader maintains a balance of interests between suppliers and customers. It is not in the interests of a trader - I believe - to change a status quo once he learns how he derives profits from it. It is more profitable to have a stable network of contacts than to produce a quality product.

I think most of 66 years of independence have been governed by this principle where maintaining a status quo is more important than building a strong nation. Look at how the political elite get their money from and you will realize they have trader's mentality.

A trader is not a builder. A trader does not create something out of nothing. A trader brings products from one place to another. Indonesia has a strong trader's mentality since it is a vast archipelago and relies on abundant natural resources to make money.

A builder will not focus his energy entirely on building good relationships but also on building good physical objects, such as roads, building, and manufactured products. I see the trader v. builder dichotomy everytime I listen to discussions about infrastructure woes in Indonesia, from flood mitigation efforts to building safer roads.

Trader's mentality also explains why construction companies - despite having already assurance of winning contracts from their cronies and friends - still build shoddy buildings and roads. At least one thinks that these companies make an attempt to build decent products, but they don't. They are always in a hurry to make more money and are willing to sacrifice quality.

The problem with infrastructure, however, is that after it is built haphazardly - complete with their crappy qualities - it is very difficult to remove. You cannot easily remove badly designed roads and buildings. On the other hand, you can easily actually remove bad contact networks. In this sense, I think the rulers of Indonesia - the rich, the smart, the powerful - have been investing in the wrong kind of investment. Instead of building good infrastructure, it has invested in an infrastructure of network alliance by showering and exchanging each other with money and power.

Poor's Subsidy

For $250/month one can hire a driver in Indonesia. For as little as $60/month one can afford an unexperienced housemaid. They show that what slows down Indonesia's economy is the low quality of workers. It is practically impossible to expect them to improve their skills beyond their current and their ages are between 20 and 40 years old, the supposedly productive age bracket.

They received typically 6-9 years of school education which is not enough to improve their lot in real world. Most grow up in rural areas and cannot use their agricultural skills when they move to cities. I estimate about 60% of Indonesian workers have these characteristics.

These Indonesians are achingly polite, so much so that they would defer if they are presented with challenges. For instance, I was interviewing a driver, and before I said anything about driving out of town he already said that he did not have intercity driving experience. Such worker needs a lot of encouragements - which could be tiring for an employer - and suggests he does not have initiatives.

Low skill workers are also reluctant to improve their skills. What do I mean by low skills? They are those that can be mastered at acceptable proficiency within 1-2 months. Examples are household (simple) cooking, floor cleaning, and grocery buying. Driving is not a low level skill, but it is easy to get driver's license in Indonesia. It still takes 1-2 years to master driving skills though, but there are not many standard rules in Indonesia. All one has to do is an access to a car, a driver's license, and a willingness to drive in a chaotic traffic.

They are disadvantaged because of their low skills. They are, however, a boon to the Indonesia's upper middle class. The quality of living of the upper middle class is quite cushy since cooking, cleaning, driving, washing, gardening, and even house repair can be outsourced cheaply. It allows for the upper middle class to focus further on their jobs, and this is what I would call the poor's subsidy.

It is not a mistake of the upper middle class to give low salary since there are a lot of poor looking for jobs and the quality of these workers is low. What separates one from others is his loyalty and hard work.

This low economic class represents a huge untapped market. My rough estimate is that their purchasing power is about USD 15 billion per year. Unilever, Danone, and other multinational consumer product companies aggresively pursue business in Indonesia not only for their current purchasing power but for their future loyalty in 10 years.

Before their purchasing power can increase they have to improve their education and skills. This is not a realistic expectation, however. What is more likely going to happen is that their purchasing power will rise due to inflation. Demands of wage raise are getting louder. There have been labour demonstrations occuring in Batam island and Jakarta. I don't think they will subside since lives are hard for them.

This low economic class is - I think - the reason why Indonesia is not in recession. They spend all they have on lubricating the country's economy. They subsidize the rich with their low paying wages. I suspect money circulation in this economic class is fast as well since they borrow each other constantly. I know this since I have a microcredit business in Solo and watch how they struggle to make ends meet.

Kesehatan Bangsa

Sebelum kaya, kita sehat dulu karena aku
Belum lihat orang kaya mati muda
Mereka terbiasa olahraga dan jaga makan
Jadi sehat makanya lebih penting dari kaya

Rakyat miskin berdesakan di kampung
Makan seadanya, hampir semua laki laki
Kurus, pertanda sulitnya hidup walau
Ibu-ibu sering gemuk mungkin terlalu
Sering mencicipi masakan

Sedang yang punya "upward mobility"
Memenuhi mall dan makan suka cita
Banyak yang gemuk: bapak anak ibu
Sering aku pikir: hidup untuk makan
Atau makan untuk hidup

Kebanyakan rakyat jadinya tidak sehat
Kurang berolahraga beribu alasan
Bagaimana bisa bersaing dengan bangsa
lain yang lari, berenang, main ski
Melatih keberanian, jiwa, raga

Jangan salahkan masakan Indonesia
Karena memang cita rasanya luar biasa
Aku bisa gemuk tidak karuan jika
Menuruti lidah perut yang terus lapar

Tapi mungkin karena rakyat kurang arahan
Maksudku, kalau hobi ya mbok hobi olahraga
Presiden pun ikut gemuk pipi nyempluk
Makanya aku suka Jokowi karena dia
Orang kaya tapi kurus, tidak ngumbar nafsu

Work Life Balance

Last time I wrote my blog was 12 Dec 2011. It was my first feature on interview with Indonesian poor. It seems a long time ago, and although I tried to find time it was not possible. There were many things I had to do at work. Managing a team of people and at the same time adjusting to a new work environment in the past 8 months.

It took me 6 months to adjust from an associate professor job to a managerial position at an oil and gas company. Much adjustment rests with coordinating people; this took about 50% of the time. The other half is to learn and do the job at the same time.

Once 6 months have passed, I noticed I changed my work strategy. I become much more cooperative and try to find common grounds to settle issues. I prioritize better since the most challenging part of working in industry is to understand and manipulate the connections between time and cost.

Different business types have different time-cost correlations. For university business, professors do not worry about cost except costs of equipment and amount of grants as there are virtually no profit and loss calculations.

That is the work challenge and I survive so far. The other component I have to worry is life. My life. What I want to do with my life. What I want to achieve. Working for a company is good, up to a point, but I know at some point I have to be on my own.

The work life balance is tricky for me. I need good salary to support my family, but I myself prefer free time to do whatever I want. I am always attracted to become a traveling teacher monk. It is not a job; I mean: who gives a shit about job if you become monk, anyway.

I am one who believes my lifestyle should dictate what my job should be. Not the other way around. I am still working on making it a reality.