Chapter 13 : Hello

When Diane and I went to the TNS dan attended a short briefing session by James who was one of the supervisors there, in that moment I learned what TNS was and the meaning of the "Interviewer" mentioned by Diane to me when we met at the Dr Love café before this. TNS Research International was a global marketing research company. I never knew something like such company existed before, to be quite honest. They were not selling any tangible products but instead were tended or hired by companies to conduct marketing researches for them so these companies could develop better marketing strategies. Prior to these researches, a research concept and a set of questionnaire related to the current marketing trends would be developed by the researchers. Then the interviewers would disperse together with the questionnaires to interview the public in order to gain all the necessary data or input needed for the research. These interviews would take place indoors and outdoors in which phone interviews were used for indoor as for the outdoor interviews involved face to face interviewing session.

Every interviewer would be paid according to the number of the questionnaire set they managed to complete at the rate of RM 6 to RM 20 per set. This position did not require high level of certification from the applicants. They just needed to be good at communicating with proper language (s) when conducting these interviews. To me both ways of interviewing sounded fun and so at the beginning of it I was really in a dilemma to do it indoor or outdoor.

After a discussion with Diane, I decided to be an indoor interviewer. To me working outdoor meant more freedom and fun and the payment was also higher than being an indoor interviewer. But there were also many other factors to put under consideration if I decided to be an outdoor interviewer, such as my own safety and transportation issue. And so, my new life started as I signed the agreement to work at the TNS.

Every morning I would make my way to the TNS Interviewing Centre located on the 32th floor. As I arrived in the there, I would have to consult with Mary or James who would then assign any projects on any segments, and that segment would be my focus until it was completed. It could be on car service, fast food restaurant, insurance provider and many others.

To be honest it was quite hard for me to fit in at the beginning of it. But after a few weeks of working there, I started to get in better control of what I was doing. The stress that I had when I was working with La Nona, it was nothing like that in this new place. I did not have to sell anything, there were no mind boggling datas around me to work with and even better, I did not have to bring my works home. 

It's just that there were times when I felt like choking some people with my bare hands- those whom I rang and rejected my interview in very rude manners. Eventhough I could not see these people's face, they still affected me in some ways. A tongue is sharper than a sword, as some would say.

However, I was very lucky to be surrounded by the people at the office who would always came for the rescue when such situation took in. Rani, Sosila, James, Rohani and also Mary-whose hair kept reminding me of Anna Wintour;  these were the closest friends of mine at the office. They never failed to calm me down and put a smile on my face. I was just so thrilled to get to know them.

Day after day, this new job and my new friends there slowly pulled me out of my old world. I was no longer getting too preoccupied or being carried away by all the bad things that happened to me. Norman's image and all the dark memories at La Nona slowly faded away. Well it was not entirely, but I was just so happy with what I had in my hands and I knew the best days were coming.

Even better, being friend with all these people who were mostly older than me with much more experience than mine, I knew I hit a jackpot knowing them. They kept me in check with reality that I still had hopes as long as I maintained a positive outlook in life.

I noticed I spent so much time at the Dr. Love, more than ever. And as always, Ally and I would have conversation about so many things. It's still green in my head that time when I was feeling terribly sad and discouraged with my work progress in TNS. I remembered that very day, Mary assigned me to do such a long interview on 'fast food restaurant'. I called many, but there was only one person who made it through the whole interview and for that I earned only RM 20 that day. But I was aware, that the possibility of having someone to commit to answering a 40 minutes long questionnaire was close to zero, and the questions were even sometimes being repetitive that they would bore these people out and make them drop the session in many ways.

At that time, it's been five months since the first day I stepped into the TNS as their staff and frankly, that was not the first time I earned so little after so many failed interviews. For crying out loud, just the day before it I made a whopping RM 120 for completing ten interviews on 'vehicles service centre' and I thought I would gain as much for this one on the fast food restaurant research. Alas, I guessed it's not going to be everyday that you would get so lucky...yes?

Since then, I stopped being too ambitious and I made it a target to only score RM 60 per day as suggested by Ally. This was an interesting thing with Ally and I when we had a conversation. Whatever it was that we were discussing, it would end up with something so deep, something to ponder about. For instance when I was done telling him work situation, we would start discussing on how any complicated things could be solved or at least simplified. There must be a way out for every problem and we were both agreed and believed in it. As long as there is patience, hope and prayer, every hardship or challenge would pass by and the road to a better future would be there, wide in front of us. All we have to do is to be strong and do not give up.

All I know, conversations with Ally have injected me with so much positivity and faith, that I would survive and be able to get out of the confusing phase, well and alive. When facing any challenges, it's not about winning or losing. It's about pushing through till the end.

Sometimes we were in charge of any situation. And more often we lost direction as things turned around and it was the situation that conquered us. This conclusion suddenly reminded me of Rohani, and her story that I have also shared with Ally one time.

A week before that, Rani, Rohani, Sosila and I went to the cinema and we spent the night later having a dinner at the Flamming Steamboat nearby Sunway Pyramid.

We talked about a lot of things that night, especially on our lives and at that very moment I learned about Rohani's tragic life and it was pretty shocking but also, I would describe as some kind of an epiphany for me, to be honest.

Rohani was a mother to two kids. She got married at quite a young age, when she was still attending a college. Sadly, her husband was murdered right in front of her eyes about a year ago. It was by a burglar who broke into their house one night. That burglar was trying to sexually assault her and her husband who came into the rescue was shot whilst fighting the man. I was stunned listening to her story and there was no dry eye as she spilled her hardships after that incident.

Nobody would have have guessed that behind Rohani's smiles, there was a scar formed from such a tragic and traumatic experience. Rohani has just finished her study last year and just like any other graduates, she was facing a lot of challenges in front of her. Finding the most suitable job and improving self economy, managing student loan's debt, fullfilling self needs, the needs of the family and just the people around in general, among others. But on top of that, she had two kids to take care of.

Some times, I would try to put myself in Rohani's shoe. I tried to imagine just how hard it was going to be for me if one hundred percent of parental responsibility were on my shoulders. How it's like to have to beg to people for help, to feel stucked and helpless during hard times or just in any situation. She seemed to be under the control of her situations, instead of being in charged of all of them. It's the situation that decided her life as soon as she opened her eyes in the morning every single day.

And every single day since I learned about Rohani's life, I would never fail to take a second thought before I would complain about anything in my life. I realized I was living a much better life and I should be grateful for it instead of doing the opposite. My below than troublesome daily situation have given me a better control of my life day by day. For one, I did not have to wake up every morning worrying about how or what I was going to feed to my two children. I just had to believe that good things would come if we keep trying and hoping.