As part of Mental Health Day, I’m sharing here a longer piece on being a precariat, or not having much job security, despite being highly educated - an issue that’s not just targeting our younger people, but the older ones that are being displaced by technology.

Being a precariat

In 2010, when I was 15, I complained about the rice my mum cooked. It seemed grainy, sticky, and not very appetizing.

She shot back,

you should be grateful. It’s free. People gave it to us.

I shut up and continued doing my thing, going to school, working hard, and trying not to ask for tuition even though I was struggling with my studies. I was at an elite school, and everyone’s family in my class had a car, and it was hard for them to understand why I was always late.

One morning, we had the chance to go for an archery workshop. As the bus turned, it ended up turning near my home. Just then, I caught a glimpse of my dad, walking home, head bowed. It was 10am. Wasn’t he supposed to be at work?

Later, I found out from my mum that he had been retrenched. At 46, this wasn’t his first time. By this time, he knew the drill.

In 1998, when he was 34, he was retrenched following the Asian Financial Crisis. As a logistics manager, after setting up the manufacturing and supply chain facilities for international companies, he was no longer needed. He would then be let go.

In fact a great job done by him, meant that his termination would come faster.

What it means to be a precariat

It was my first understanding of what it meant to be a ‘precariat’, a term that described the social class that existed without predictability or security. They were highly educated, but were increasingly disenfranchised with the gig economy and zero-hour contracts. It was first introduced to me by Guy Standing, a British economist, during my time studying at Nottingham.

My father had a degree, but still had gotten retrenched thrice in the short span of 17 years. Was it still worth getting a degree?

In January 2016, I was lost and confused about what degree would be the best for me. I had wanted desperately to enter medicine to get the ‘safe money’, but found my grades a poor fit. I desperately volunteered my time to beef up my CV, but still, it wasn’t enough.

I started looking overseas. These degrees started at 200k.

I told my dad about my desire.

If you want it, I will try to make it happen.

We had no money, and I was given a rude awakening when my sister asked me,

What did you tell Daddy? He came home very sad.

That was when I realised that we could not afford an overseas education.

Fortunately, all that volunteering (and God) landed me an overseas scholarship.

At this point, I thought it was game, set and point. My career was set for the big leagues. I was an overseas scholar! You’d better take note of me!

But it was not to be. October 2019, when I started my first full-time job, I was so antagonizing to my colleagues that I was issued with a performance improvement plan. You wouldn’t have wanted to cross me in anyway. I would have cut you to pieces.

So came my first real lesson at work.

You can be the smartest person in the room, but learn how to pace the sharing of those smart insights you have.

When I left my first job in October 2021, I thought it would be a quick entry into another job. But it turned out not to be. Despite holding an overseas scholarship, and showing premier ex-employers like Google on my CV, I had more than 240 job applications over 2.5 years.

Being a precariat

It was then that I truly experienced what it meant to be a precariat.

One of the hardest things was seeing those things I used to take for granted.

Like having no place to work. If you’re in a job, you might think,

isn’t it great that you can work from home?

Can’t you work in the library?

Can’t you work in public spaces?

I became an expert at learning where the best places to stay for free were, without being chased away.

If you’re looking for a place, the best place is the hotel. They think you’re a guest, and they never ever ask. Of course, the smart thing to do is to keep switching hotels, so no one recognizes you.

But earning the average of $400 a month meant I always had to make hard decisions around food. I learnt to skip morning breakfasts, treating myself to a pancake once a week, because that $2.40 was precious. I stopped going to restaurants.

I learnt to sneak and creep into events where there were buffets, and learnt that the best way was to wear a nice Oxford long-sleeved shirt everyday, so that people would think you belonged there.

I wore nice clothes, but I was living the lie. That I had made it, and could go to fancy events, have smart insights, but really, inside, I was facing abject poverty, in my pocket, and in my heart.

In being a precariat, in having unstable employment, and cash, I finally understood why the clients I used to have as a social worker could still laugh.

The art of being content, in everything, and in nothing.

If you’re reading this, you might be in a job, and you’re likely not happy at some aspects. But we know that nothing is perfect.

Maybe you can’t find fulfillment. You’re not happy at the pay. You’re thinking - my friends earn so much more. What am I doing with this $3850 pay as a social worker?

In my poverty, I remember that I was more happy than I ever was earning that $3690 as a social worker.

The turning point came one evening in September 2022, when I found myself breaking into uncontrollable laughter, after I saw the youths kick a ball straight into the groin of another.

For 3 years, I had not been able to laugh. It was always forcing a smile, and knowing that it was just that.

A curtesy.

More than that, it was finally realizing that I, we, didn’t need all of these shiny new objects to live a fulfilled life. That holiday, that phone, sure, they were nice, but they didn’t replace the hole in your heart, that you tried to patch over.

It distracted you, but it was like scratching that itch on your inner thigh that never went away. The holiday ends, and you’re back to reality.

In that hellhole.

So what do you do? Look for those spontaneous moments in your life, where it’s unplanned, and you like something beautiful drop in.

Take those risks. Get off that phone.

If I had never went to the street soccer court shyly and asked if I could play, if I had continued looking in, and wondering when I would ever be invited in, I’d never have found fun.

If I didn’t spontaneously take those risks, asking people I met for dates in person, I don’t think I’d have grown in courage.

In our lives now, we’ve learnt to trade the relational risks we used to take for certainty. I used to turn up at the park to play - no friends? Go home. Today, if we want to meet, we text. Wait for the blue tick. Wonder why they still don’t reply.

We use dating apps to ‘match’ with people who only ‘like’ us.

We’ve gained convenience, time, money, efficiency.

What have we lost?

The uncertainty that calls for courage, the anxiety that necessitates composure, the ambiguity that calls for conviction.

We’re living shadows of our lives, never fully checked in, yet never fully checked out. In many parts of our lives, we’re split, fragmented, giving a little of ourselves to everything. Replying a quick WhatsApp message, then returning back to that person in front of you; scrolling your Reddit, then turning to the friend beside you; playing that mobile game, whilst your girlfriend wraps her arm around you - and we wonder why we aren’t enjoying life.

Because we’re never fully in it.

If there was anything that being poor taught me, it was that idea of having so little to give, and having to give everything to the little that was placed within your care. You held nothing back, because you had to make it work.

My agency hasn't died not because I've been great at sales, design, and whatever BS. It's survived because I haven't let it die - and I fight tooth, nail and claw to keep it going. 

So if you want to survive what tech is going to do to your job, fight for your job, and make sure you're better at whatever tech others can come up with. 

Practical ways? 

1. Figure out how your company makes money, and how you can help it make more 
2. Stop complaining about what tech is doing to you - do something with it to beat it 
3. Hold nothing back 

So today, if we could take something away, practically, it would be to live fully in person.

Not in the moment, but in person. To bring all of yourself into the settings you’re in with nothing held back. It’s not about being impolite, direct, but rather, it’s about bringing your strong, full-bodied self into the room.

It’s a little like swimming. How do you swim? You get fully into the pool. You don’t tip toe, testing if the water is too cold. You jump straight in.

And you hold yourself in that pool, and continue swimming through.