On the 4th of July 2007 we had a farewell dinner for one of the colleague at The Yacht Club. Time fly by so fast until we had never realized it, by the time you realized it is normally a bit too late. That’s how I felt during the dinner. When I started in 1982 as a Process Trainee Arief is the one senior that I had tried to avoid the most but he kept on searching for me high and low, there is no place to hide from him and the ‘thugs of B shift’. Luckily for me I’m based at D shift so my encounter with those ‘thugs’ are only during my overtime in their shift. What I did not realized at that time is they search for me because they had wanted to impart their knowledge on oil processing! Their intention is very good but their approach is very scary!
Now those days are gone and I’m out from actual process work. Once awhile I still go back home to Process Department to do some investigation works or an RCA. What I found out is very disturbing to me, the level of knowledge of the new and seasoned technicians are very low! Those seniors that been brought up with Operation tradition of mentoring highlighted the problem to me. Trainees nowadays are Diploma holders but yet their desire to study and excel is very low compared to trainees of SPM and STP level of 20 years ago.
I do realize now the benefits of having a few ‘otai’ to take care of the juniors. Those ‘otai’ are called ‘thugs’ during my days and yet they keep on searching for the student to impart them the art of oil processing and the best part is that they are all volunteers! I know and understand these very well, I’m one of those ‘thugs’ and I have students from all over the world and all of them are doing very well. Now is the problem lie with the Diploma holder trainees or is it because there is no more ‘otai’ that is daring enough to impose his authority on students and force them to study? Or is it the sign of deteriorating teachers quality or the death of teaching institution in the company?
The actual reason is that all the seniors that are good at oil processing work can only grow up to a few limited supervisory post within the department, in order to grow they had to leave the department and secure a post somewhere else. With this kind of brain drain it is no wonder the Process Department had lost their Midas touch.
Now those days are gone and I’m out from actual process work. Once awhile I still go back home to Process Department to do some investigation works or an RCA. What I found out is very disturbing to me, the level of knowledge of the new and seasoned technicians are very low! Those seniors that been brought up with Operation tradition of mentoring highlighted the problem to me. Trainees nowadays are Diploma holders but yet their desire to study and excel is very low compared to trainees of SPM and STP level of 20 years ago.
I do realize now the benefits of having a few ‘otai’ to take care of the juniors. Those ‘otai’ are called ‘thugs’ during my days and yet they keep on searching for the student to impart them the art of oil processing and the best part is that they are all volunteers! I know and understand these very well, I’m one of those ‘thugs’ and I have students from all over the world and all of them are doing very well. Now is the problem lie with the Diploma holder trainees or is it because there is no more ‘otai’ that is daring enough to impose his authority on students and force them to study? Or is it the sign of deteriorating teachers quality or the death of teaching institution in the company?
The actual reason is that all the seniors that are good at oil processing work can only grow up to a few limited supervisory post within the department, in order to grow they had to leave the department and secure a post somewhere else. With this kind of brain drain it is no wonder the Process Department had lost their Midas touch.
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