Empty Elevators in Black and White
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Empty Elevators in Black and White
It was the sound of the steel cables outside my bedroom banging against the air-conditioning unit that caught my attention at three in the morning yesterday. For a moment I thought one of those painters were stuck on the cage and was banging on my window for a glass of water or something. So there I was, seated at the edge of my table and looking down at the empty streets and the crowded parking lots below, with the empty cars and their darkened windows. That is Chuan Park at three in the morning, with its crowded parking lots and the three black apartment blocks towering over the rest of the shorter housing estates from across the road like three fingers reaching out into the sky for the giant invisible bowling ball. A white figure snaked through the narrow gaps in between the empty cars, and it was carrying a flashlight as he walked, as if he was trying to break into one of those cars or something. It was one of the security guards from downstairs, the one on patrol while the other sat at the main entrance with a license plate register opened on his laps. It is routine for these two men every night to make their rounds around the perimeters of the estate until the next change of shift comes along, the same dead end job for the rest of their lives in a community that takes them for granted way too much, way too often.
It was the sound of the steel cables outside my bedroom banging against the air-conditioning unit that caught my attention at three in the morning yesterday. For a moment I thought one of those painters were stuck on the cage and was banging on my window for a glass of water or something. So there I was, seated at the edge of my table and looking down at the empty streets and the crowded parking lots below, with the empty cars and their darkened windows. That is Chuan Park at three in the morning, with its crowded parking lots and the three black apartment blocks towering over the rest of the shorter housing estates from across the road like three fingers reaching out into the sky for the giant invisible bowling ball. A white figure snaked through the narrow gaps in between the empty cars, and it was carrying a flashlight as he walked, as if he was trying to break into one of those cars or something. It was one of the security guards from downstairs, the one on patrol while the other sat at the main entrance with a license plate register opened on his laps. It is routine for these two men every night to make their rounds around the perimeters of the estate until the next change of shift comes along, the same dead end job for the rest of their lives in a community that takes them for granted way too much, way too often.
I recall the other time when I was at the bus stop just down the street from my estate, waiting for a bus to meet Ahmad at Serangoon Gardens for supper. Sitting next to me on the marble bench was a man that I vaguely recognized, though I couldn't put my finger on who he was. A closer examination of his face with the corner of my eyes, I realized that he was one of the security guards that I would so often meet at the front entrance, but he was in a simple button down shirt then and black pants with leather shoes back then. He was out of his working uniform, which was probably why I didn't recognize him straight off the bat. The man was probably on his way home after his shift, which was when I thought to myself where he lived and if he was going home to anybody at all - a wife maybe, or children? I wasn't sure if he was going home to anybody at all, and bringing it up to him by a total stranger would seem incredibly odd. Still, in a strange way, I hoped dearly that he had somebody to greet at the front door by the time he reaches home, a good dinner and perhaps a comfortable bed to sleep in.
Maybe it wasn't so much about the act of asking him about his life, but rather the answer that I'd get in return. So many people go home to an empty house and an empty bed, so many people lead the same aimless life in our society today that the truly happy people are so few and so far apart. You only need to grab a handful of sand and count the grains one by one to know how common it is to find somebody with a life spinning around in an endless circle, and I had a feeling that the man next to me on the marble bench that night wasn't going back to anybody, or anything. With his slightly grey-ish hair carefully combed back after work and his shirt carefully ironed out and pressed, it seemed as if he still had a certain pride about his work, a certain vanity that he still held on to despite everything. He was a security guard, and still is a security guard of this condominium. Even people like that deserves a little pride in the way that they dress after work, especially when the people they are guarding are not showing them any appreciation, right?
I was just thinking last night, about how thankless the job as a security guard really is, perhaps even more so than a worker at a construction site for some reason. A foreign worker may have a more dangerous and unforgiving working condition down in the dirt pits, working around steel pipes and those concrete beams, but in a way their job seem to be a little more rewarding, if not appreciated, in nature. It is easy for the general public to take their contributions for granted, to drive on the expressways that they built without thinking about how long they toiled under the sun, or to take the subway that moves along the railway that they laid out with their own hands in pitch black conditions. It is easy for one to overlook such things and be thankless of these unsung heroes, but then there is a sense of camaraderie amongst these men, the way they work together and sleep together in one of those container houses. They are working under harsh conditions, and they are getting lower pay than any other workers in Singapore especially with the lack of a minimum wage policy.
Still, to go through the thickest and the thinnest with the man next to you is something that I can relate to somehow, something which they can draw some sort of reward from. Besides, they can always look back at what they have done and tell their children or their friends that they were contributory factors to what Singapore is today, and in the future. There is a tangible object for them to look upon in the future, something they can hold and touch and call their own if they ever need to do so. The same however, cannot be said about the security guards downstairs, working long shifts in a thankless job that nobody cares too much about. It's not just the security guards in my estate, but I suppose the same sentiment is shared by all the security guards around the world regarding their jobs, and the way people see their existence as a norm, or in a "matter of fact" fashion. It is true that a lot of us have taken their job for granted, but we cannot exactly be blamed for that either.
Safety and security are such an intangible things, and those are exactly what these security guards are trying to enforce on a daily basis. To ensure that the residences sleep well at night and not worry about the possibilities of people breaking into their houses is their primary job. So we fall asleep at night in our comfortable beds while they are out their snaking through the parking lots and the empty lift lobbies, or perhaps typing a blog entry in the middle of the night with the fan blasting from behind in front of the computer. None of us are going to think about the security that we are enjoying and think about those poor security guards downstairs at the same time. We are probably going to give thanks to the police forces, to the country as a whole but never narrow our sides to the people that have a direct impact on our safety in the first place. I don't know why such a thought has never crossed my mind before, but I guess the sight of the guard house downstairs with its lonely lights pouring out onto the road gave me a thought or two to think about.
Imagine yourself being a security guard in my estate for a while, just close your eyes and imagine for a moment. For the most part of the day, you are forced to sit inside a room that is three by three meters square in area, with piles of registry and records piling up on every corner of your narrow office. The CCTVs are stacked up one on top of another, with each screen divided into four smaller screens of each of the elevators from the three blocks of apartments in your estate. You sit there and stare blankly into the empty elevators at night, and then the screen changes from one empty elevator to another without much happening for the most part. You have the radio as company of course, but they are always playing the same songs and the same predictable voices talking about narrow topics that interests you little. The coffee in the flask tastes stale for some reason, and all you want to do is for your shift to be over so that you can head on home to - well, nothing. Nothing to look forward to at home, so you are back in the small office waiting for time to pass, and maybe for your partner to return from his patrol around the perimeters.
The same can be said about the patrolling guard as well. You are walking around the empty estate at night with a flashlight, looking for possible trespassing burglars or other abnormalities within the fences of the estate. You'd probably find none, and seeing a stray cat or dog hiding under one of the cars would probably be the highlight of the day most of the time. In a job like that, you'd think to yourself, nothing exciting ever happens anyway, and there isn't anything you can feel proud about. Seriously, there isn't anything you can do in such a career to feel anything rewarding, simply because there isn't a possibility for you to feel accomplished at how "safe" you've managed to keep the estate. You are just some guy that the management of the condominium hired to keep things working, you are in this job because you are old and haven't got any other jobs that might want you. It is sad, and standing in the middle of the parking lot with all those expensive cars and those expensive motorbikes, you start to question the worth of your life, if it is worth anything at all.
I cannot think of a job as thankless as being a security guard, a job that is less appreciated to be honest. I was thinking maybe a bus driver, but then the first person I thank when I get a smooth ride home from school is the driver, so at least even they get their thanks - even if those words are not said to their faces most of the time. Being a security guard, how my life would be like if I ever get to fill one of their old leather shoes. It is a scary thought to be honest, to know that it is so easy to slip into one of their shoes and end up inside one of those narrow offices staring at black and white screens of empty elevators. It is scary to know, that some people in your lives right now may end up as one of them in the future, or worse. I guess the closeness of it all, just scares me in a way, and it makes me really uncomfortable and guilty in a deep and profound way.
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on Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 12:59 AM.
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