I chatted on the phone for the first time with a new acquaintance recently. His first question to me was how he should address me. I said Adzhar is fine.
It’s the name my parents gave me, and calling me that honours them. It also honours the policeman back then who, when registering my birth, accidentally added a “d” to it.
It makes my name slightly unusual. Most Malays have no problem with it (they must’ve known the policeman), but non-Malays trip over it sometimes. Foreigners trip over it a lot.
The closest foreigners come to pronouncing my name is Edd-zharr, or occasionally Adz, but strangely never Edz. That’s close enough, and I’m sure my parents (and the policeman) would’ve given it a pass.
Cool and the gang
My first job more than 40 years ago was with a semiconductor company. They were the cool ones, just as Google or Apple are the cool ones now. We wore jeans and T-shirts at the office, and worked five days a week when hardly anybody did so back then.
I joined as a lowly middle manager, but addressed both my Malay lady boss and the American CEO by their first names. Pretty much everybody was on a first-name basis there, and I liked that.
When I came to KL for business, I was intimidated by people in formal office clothing such as white shirts and ties. Back in Penang, people only wore ties when they were going for a job interview somewhere.
Years later when I came to work in KL, I found that many of those people who had intimidated me were rather low-level “executives”, junior or middle managers at most, much like the job I started with years earlier.
One of my companies had an American boss seconded to sort things out as we’d been a rather aimless company and things were starting to get hot.
The executive class
One of the boss’s first requests was to meet with all the executives of the company. At the meeting room he was met with hundreds of staff, all with titles of Executive or grander (and wearing ties).
His first reaction was: No wonder this company is in trouble! Look at how top-heavy it is! The company had no revenue or profits (yet) but had hundreds of “executives”!
The misunderstanding was soon cleared up. In America, an executive is somebody who executes big strategies and business plans, part of what’s now called the C-suite. An “Officer” or “Executive” of a company is a big cheese indeed.
But in Malaysia, an Executive or an Officer is somebody who’s in between a manager and a clerk. They’re mostly order-takers and the only things they execute are the staplers and filing cabinets.
Now that you know that, this next story makes sense.
A young Malaysian wanted to buy a popular car. When he placed his order, having just returned from studying in the US, he asked for what he thought was the top of the line model, the “Executive”.
As with other cases of “Executive” in Malaysia, that turned out to be just one model up from the bottom, barely qualifying for an aircon and door handles. There are many models higher than the Executive, such as Premium, Special, and if I’m not mistaken, Terrer and Bossku too.
Dealing with titles
So that’s how things are with Malaysia, where we take titles seriously but at the same time we throw them around like confetti.
A peer of mine was awarded a Datukship. I was then also working with a huge company where – had I stayed long enough (I was fired within a year) – and didn’t get caught stealing office supplies (nope, I had stolen enough earlier), I’d have been made a Datuk myself.
By the way, I’m not one. It looks like I’ll only be a Datuk when my kids have their own kids. But they seem to be busy running around being executives, or perhaps stealing office supplies – so, not much chance of that happening any time soon.
Anyway, I had to speak with this friend one day. I called him, wondering how to address him now that he’s with a title. But I thought nahhhh, we’re friends and peers, it wouldn’t be a big deal with him.
He answered my call by addressing me as “Saudara Adzhar!”. I thought (insert expletive here) me, I’ve just been given a sign about how our new Datuk prefers to be addressed!
So, I addressed him as Datuk, and he never even paused to tell me no lah, don’t worry lah about this title thing lah, I’m still the same humble fella eating char kuey teow by the roadside blah blah blah. I never called him again, happy to let the idiot enjoy his title alone.
Dealing with the titled class
I absolutely have no problem with people having titles. In my career, I’d reported directly or indirectly to two Tuns, a handful of Tan Sris and many Datuks of various flavours. Many of them were clearly worthy of such honours, and many carried them well.
But not all. I heard the story of a rather unsavoury character paying a few hundred thousand ringgit as “donations” and “gifts” for a higher-end Datukship from one of our more commercially-minded states. For this, he also received two lower class Datukships to give to his friends. Buy one free two.
I’ve absolutely no idea whether this story is true or not, but I can say no original, genuine, factory-guaranteed Datuks were harmed in the telling of this story.
And apparently I’m not one of his friends.
I’m happy to call many people by their titles. It’s a sign of respect and good manners. But we Malaysians overdo this aspect of deference a little bit, as in, way too much. I see respect unearned given in huge doses, whereas the respect every human being deserves is often denied because their station in life is not so atas.
On becoming a ‘Boss’
Everywhere I worked I insisted on everybody, from the tea ladies on up, addressing me by the name given by my parents (and a clumsy policeman). I also insisted the CEO call me by my first name, but apparently CEOs don’t think they need permission to do that.
Even when I tell people that calling me by my first name is fine, I see many get stressed by it. They feel they’re transgressing by doing that, regardless of my approval or encouragement.
That’s what happened to a staff member who worked for me once long ago, and ended up working for me again after many years. She insisted on calling me Encik Adzhar as she just couldn’t get over the mental hurdle of calling me Adzhar.
Since she’s the real boss anyway, I allowed her to do that. However, she soon settled on calling me Boss, which in Malaysia is what you call your superior and basically anybody else who has a pulse.
I’ll let you know when I become Datuk Boss one day, dear Saudara and Saudari readers.
PS: I’ve just confirmed with my younger sister that we were named by the kampung midwife who delivered us! Now calling me by my first name actually honours my parents, a policeman and a midwife too! Three honours for the price of one, much like some Datukships. - FMT
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
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