Hired & Fired, episode 2

With Wendy Toh 

Watch me as I morph into a nasty boss in:

"Hired & Fired"

Monday 18th November 2013, 10pm

Mediacorp Channel 5

This is a docu-drama series that portrays the malpractices that occur in the workplace. This episode educates viewers about the prejudice against pregnant women and the reluctance of companies to incur the overheads of maternity leave and benefits.

The office scene was at Golden Mile Shopping Centre, some called "Little Bangkok" (of Singapore) with delicious Thai curry and retail shops. We chanced upon a friendly garment shop next door that was kind enough to lend us some extra clothes as costumes for the actresses. Thank you so much.

Stop Press:
After the broadcast of episode 1, Mediacorp has decided to take the series off-air.

 

Surreality in the Act.

There are times when the story gets surprisingly surreal -  stories so close to my life that I get into character in an instance. But to have the story appearing right next to me is another matter and outright ridiculous. Here are some surprising coincidents:

Story One: Right next to the apartment where I played the role of the Karung-guni man (rag-and-bone man), is an apartment where an old man stored the house with mountains of junk right up to his living room. He is more than likely a real Karung-guni man!

Story Two: In a video about "Pandemic", I acted as a hawker who persisted to cook and prepare food despite being sick. In between the takes in the scene where my character sneezes and turns dizzy under the weather, I found a real life cook next to me preparing the day's food moaning about how he has to work despite being sick.

"Why are you not at home resting," I asked. "Nobody else here knows how to prepare the dishes," said he.

Well...

With Wendy Toh.

Story Three: In a TV docu-drama about unfair dismissal and draconian bosses, in the office where we used as location, there was a prominent slogan on the wall that speaks to the effect of:

"If you do not work hard today, you will be working hard to find a job tomorrow."

It is arguable if the slogan is meant to be motivational. My guess is that a truly motivational environment needn't be explicitly reminding their folks with such intimidating slogans. What do you think? 

But,... all is good! It goes to show that they got the stories right and that some people really need to be educated on some issues.