As an expatriate in Princess Jakarta, given the recent cull on foreigners in the Indonesian employment market I am extremely grateful to have a job here. I stepped up to the challenge and dived into the rat-race. Work was stimulating and colleagues were interesting. I embraced the new, multicultural environment and all the unique cultural quirks that working in a foreign office had to offer. But something caught me off guard and I am struggling to deal with the heirarchical reality of it. I thought I had balls of steel until I was confronted with the moral dilemma of how to cope with our “Office Boy”.
The Office Boy is an over-qualified cleaner and an under-valued assistant in our workplace. He is there to serve us desk-turds who are too busy to get our own cups of coffee, food, or fix our own staple malfunctions. Everything from the dark ages of commerce, “Mad Men”, corporate sharks and office politics with a dash of servitude rolled into one, he is a combination of butler, secretary, cleaner, and cook, with the prerequisite of having a dick and the ability to stay quiet, take orders, and maintain an under-bearing smile that screams gratitude.
Correct – I have a dude at work who brings me anything I want, whenever I want, anytime I want. But despite the luxury of having a desk-servant at my beck and call to supposedly ease the stress and burden of powering the commercial steam-ship towards company prosperity, I am struggling with the concept and the ability to accept the service guilt-free and without feeling like a colonial king. We don’t have them in Australia. Hell, we can’t even call a person a “boy” these days without being sued for discrimination, verbal assault or getting an old-fashioned knuckle sandwich.
How, then, can the term be so fondly used and liberally applied in our modern Jakarta corporate society? The reality is that the Office Boy is a perfectly normal concept, highly sought after and fondly embraced in the Jakarta workforce. Apparently, in Indonesia, we work so hard that we need someone in the office to do the all the dirty work. We simply do not have the time to get off our arses and grab a glass of water. We do not have the time to go to the canteen and get a bite to eat for basic sustenance. We work so hard that we are incapable of plugging something into the wall underneath our own work desks. And we are all so bogged down with obligations and responsibility that we do not even have the time to wash our own plates when we finish using them in the staff kitchen. The solution to such a burdensome work schedule? Hire an Office Boy and pay peanuts for it.
He kicks the shit with a smile and will bring you anything you request to your desk, speedy, sincerely and politely. He may only speak when spoken to, and even when he speaks in response to being spoken to, he is as meek as a mouse. And what is even more heart-wrenching is that he is kind, friendly, loyal, and not allowed to refuse any request that employees ask of him. It’s too beautiful for words and too degrading to stand.
Having an underling at my beck and call for a whole eight to (sometimes) twelve (or more) hours a day is a crippling problem for me because I expected that by the time that I had graduated from university and entered full-time employment, our workplaces would have been politically correct and non-offensive. But you can’t get more politically incorrect than having a colleague and calling him the “Office Boy”. “Office Females” do not exist, and the Office Boy isn’t really a boy because in the very least I am sure that Indonesia has partially accepted the basic international labour regulations that outlaw child labour. And, since we’re nit-picking here, he technically isn’t working in an office – he’s the backbone of our entire company operations in Indonesia.
I can handle corporate superiors slicing my morale, burying my ego in a grave and breaking my balls all day long. But FOR FUCK’S SAKE, I’m struggling with having an Office Boy. I can’t say that I haven’t asked the him to bring a few favours to my desk here and there. But nonetheless, I feel guilty for using a personal lunch-mule. Having an Office Boy seems to be evolving into one of the greatest challenges that Princess Jakarta has thrown at me yet.
princess Jakarta 