New job as a buyer/stock analyst

I raised MIV’s, bought a welder’s umbrella and connected a long air hose from the production workshop to the site. I obtained two contract labour and we started to do descaling of every item, treating them with antirust compound. I built wooden pallets to lay them out and in general, kept very busy every day for about six months. It all came to nothing of course; but in the process, I learned a lot about the warehouse and material operations and got to know the people working there and understanding their work culture. For example, R&D did not refer to research and development; but receiving and dispatch of goods, a section under George Lian, the Kayan!

The real story was this: four senior buyers in Materials dept had recently got the sack for corruptions and it was not such a pleasant place for me to work in 1983. Every one was under the microscope! Investigations were on going and the material staff was very wary and suspicious of my actual role there. Was I a company spy or what? How come I only report to the orang puteh supervisor and I seemed to have no fixed jobs or responsibilities, just walking around the place, looking and listening?! What happened to my telephone and IN tray? My colleagues told me all this, much later. Let me back track a little here…

One time, as trainee drillers we were attached to production wireline operations to learn the routine daily operations. All of them were happy to follow the production crew offshore to makan angin, except me. I was assigned to Yee Khai Pang for my training. He was a little embarrassed because previously I was his mentor who taught him all that he knew about wireline operations. He was my protégé when I was his mentor for two years! To avoid an awkward situation, I quietly stayed on-shore, packed my golf set into the Healey Sprite and went to play golf every morning! The beauty was: I got paid a good salary with over time payments and was given a meal allowance for playing golf for three months! Ramli Hj Lani,[11] the production payroll clerk, just credited every thing to all the trainee drillers as per roster given to him, including me who was not even there! Life was great! Shh!! However, it was round about then that I finally realized the truth. We were merely recruited to keep Petronas happy! There was no real intention on Shell’s part to carry on and finish the training programme for the drillers. They don’t need us at all because Shell had no rigs operating in Borneo! The company was using all contract rigs supplied with drillers.