The Lives of Singapore's Working Class

Ignore the bombastic title. I don't mean to give you a treatise - I cannot offer that. What I can write, however, is 1 or 2 lines about what I've seen so far.

PMETs who work in an office don't have much contact with the working class. You're cooped up in a climate-controlled space for 8 hours a day, and most would rather spend lunch hour in the company of people you've already been with for half your waking life.

It's only after I left the office that I started noticing the working class. I don't mean all of the working class, of course, but those in the service line - the people in McDonald's, Certis Cisco, Grab uniforms. You can't see these people when you buy nuggets from them at 7pm. They are in full work mode by then. No - it is only when PMETs are safely installed in their air-con terrariums that it's possible to see the working class in the wild, before or after their shifts. 

10am: Pink-shirted Foodpanda riders take the MRT from Woodlands to Raffles Place, e-bike batteries in rolling suitcases. 

4pm: Seniors in stripey McDonald's tees cycle through Bishan Park to clock in; their colleagues eat ice cream cones in the park before work. 

Or 11pm: Exodus of retail workers - all wearing telltale black shoes and looking totally zonked out - on northbound MRT from Orchard.

What is life like for the working class? You might very well think it's a life of unimaginable poverty - after all, they take home only $2-3K a month. 

But after observing the working class for over a year I can tell you they (or "we"?) aren't afraid to enjoy life. They eat pretty well, at least. People who make $10/hour aren't shy about spending an hour's pay on Tori-Q for lunch, then another hour's pay at Starbucks or a box of chocolates to share with co-workers. It's not unusual to see delivery riders tucking into good food at the kopitiam. 

It does not occur to the working class to deny themselves good food. Food is perhaps more essential to the working class than the office worker, for their work is either manual or emotionally draining.

The working class does not have the contemptible white-collar habit of trying to be frugal for the sake of financial independence. Anyway, if you earn $3K a month, financial independence is a joke. This liberates workers, who spend their income quite freely: concert tickets, BTS merchandise, books, collectible toys, clothes, cute toys for your e-bike, fancy thermal bags, Thai discos, beer towers, and what-have-you.

There's a big difference though. Working class people do not spend on big-ticket PMET things like cars or condos. The ones with kids do not use their children to justify purchases like big houses or live-in helpers. Consequently they are in less debt than their professional counterparts. They are freer for not having mortgaged their futures.

Working class jobs are often described as "no future" or "no career progression". This is not necessarily a bad thing. Since upward mobility is non-existent, people don't feel the need to get ahead, backstab colleagues, play political games with management, post shite content on LinkedIn, etc. All I'm saying is, life is simpler without the aim of "professional growth" (which at its heart is about comparison and competition).

I have never heard a single person wishing they were in an office making 5 figures. They probably wouldn't turn such a job down, but it's not something they yearn for. Most in the working class are well aware of the psychic cost of joining the PMET ranks - there are always tales of those who have gone corporate and lived to regret it. So don't bother suggesting to the working class that they upskill - it's not an attractive proposition.

But one clear advantage the working class has over PMETs is lateral mobility. One retail job is pretty much like another. And now that I've worked in retail I reckon I could probably manage in security, child or pet care, cleaning services, F&B, or whatever. 

As for the famous working class camaraderie? Yes, it's there. Even among people who are in direct competition - like Grab riders. There's camaraderie across industries, too. Any two people wearing service work uniforms can quickly strike up a conversation about their rates of pay, bonuses, rosters, and whether it's tiring. 

Wait, I don't mean to make it all sound like utopia. There are friends and enemies, of course. Certain people are like oil and water. But the working class are openly rude to one another's faces - not secretly bitching in locked Slack channels. Who knows which is better? But I know which I prefer.