The Real Team

Musings from Dennis #12: In my late 20’s and working at Sentosa Island Singapore (no mobile or cellphones, no social media, no internet, just a pager!), I learnt an important lesson to recognize all my co-workers as equals. I used to simply write an order form to get plants from the nursery or indent more security personnel for our planned events, or get more garbage bins to cater for the incoming crowds. And I expected all these to be fulfilled to the tee. They all were but once ever so often, I needed more plants because the stage needed that much more and so on – and a call for help would be met with ‘but you did not order so my hands are tied’. I began to recognize that these colleagues were all important, despite being invisible to everyone else. Now filled forms came with face-to-face explanation on what we needed and why, so there is context to the work. Saying hello to everyone and being friendly even to the monorail train operators. And offers of help came when I really needed them, especially those last-minute ones. It was wonderful that my colleagues really represented the multiracial fabric that is Singapore. Of course, now after the main party was done, there’s the ‘after-party’ where we ordered extra food for the teams and event swags were shared freely!