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Gen Y Speaks: My journey from a beer waitress to a scholarship holder and business owner

I am a 23-year-old Malaysian who just completed a degree course in international business on a scholarship. While I am excited about working full-time and embarking on a new career, the fact is that I have been working part-time in Malaysia for 10 years due to my family’s financial difficulties.

The author (pictured) says that while she has come a long way in the last years, the road ahead is still a long and unpredictable one.

The author (pictured) says that while she has come a long way in the last years, the road ahead is still a long and unpredictable one.

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I am a 23-year-old Malaysian who just completed a degree course in international business on a scholarship. While I am excited about working full-time and embarking on a new career, the fact is that I have been working part-time in Malaysia for 10 years due to my family’s financial difficulties.

I have held various jobs, including as a beer waitress when I was only 13 and as a private tutor.

Here, I would like to share my story in the hope that it can inspire others.

I was born into a well-to-do family in a small town in Perak. My dad owned a restaurant in London. However, when I was four years old, my life changed after my parents divorced.

My mum then took my elder sister, who has Down Syndrome, and me to Kuala Lumpur to live with our grandmother, with all four of us squeezed into a room.

My mum was previously a tailor in a small factory but she stopped work when she married my father at the age of 18. Starting life anew as a divorcee with two kids, she soon found a job as a beer promoter, earning less than RM900 a month.

Despite that, she insisted on providing the best education she could for me, sending me for tuition and buying me lots of revision books. But I was never a book smart person, and only just passed my examinations. 

In my primary school, after my teacher learnt of my family’s financial situation, she helped me to apply for a bursary that was provided by a Malaysian property developer.

The bursary covered my school fees and also provided an allowance of RM800 a year, somewhat easing the financial burden on my mum. 

But one of its criteria was that I needed to get good grades for the bursary to be renewed every year. So I made it a point to study hard.

That was how I obtained a good result for my Malaysia Primary School Achievement Test, or the equivalent of Singapore’s Primary School Leaving Examination. And that was also how I managed to get my bursary every year until I was 17.

When I turned 13, I wanted to do more to contribute to my family’s income. So I found part-time work as a beer waitress at a Chinese restaurant during the weekends.

I was the youngest worker there. The other waitresses were at least 18. That didn’t bother me as the pay of RM50 for five hours of work was good.

I worked there for four years.

One day, while at work, a woman pointed to me and warned her daughter to study hard so she wouldn’t be like me in future. Her words made me even more motivated to work harder.

When I was 15 years old, I also took on an extra job as a teaching assistant at a tuition centre for three days per week.

The pay was quite pathetic at just RM3.4 per hour, but working there meant that I would get a good discount for my own tuition fees at the centre.  

At that time, I was not very optimistic about my future. I often asked myself: “What can I be? How can I provide a better life for my family?”

So I forced myself to study harder. No matter how tired I was from work and classes, I forced myself to revise my lessons.

I bought a lot of past-year exam questions to practise. I eventually scored 8As and 1B+ for my SPM examination, the equivalent of Singapore’s O-Levels.

With that, I managed to secure a scholarship from Hong Leong Bank to pursue a diploma and a degree in international business at Help University. The scholarship covered my school fees and accommodation.

By then, I had stopped working as a beer waitress and had become a tutor teaching Chinese primary school children Bahasa Malaysia.

The income was much better. Teaching about three classes a week, I could earn RM2,500 a month.

The author (centre) with two colleagues on a business trip to Singapore in Aug 2019.   Photo courtesy of Jessica Wong

I did that for about a year, until I found an even more lucrative job at Grab Malaysia as a driver acquisition specialist, which came with a basic salary and attractive commissions.

The company set me a target of recruiting 35 drivers a month but using social media and through word of mouth, I regularly recruited 60 to 70 a month.

In six months, I became a recruitment controller — in charge of other driver acquisition specialists — earning RM 4,000 a month by working from 6pm to 1am on most days. 

I did that for almost 1.5 years until March last year.

In between, I also tried my hand as a property agent and a digital marketing executive briefly.

Juggling part-time work and studies was not easy, particularly having to wake up at 6am and then embarking on a two-hour commute via seven buses and trains for class.

But I was determined to press on despite having only four or five hours of sleep. This is because I wanted to support myself and carve out a better life for my family.

My grandmother, who worked as a sales assistant in a Chinese traditional medicine shop, taught me the virtue of hard work.

The author (far right) with her mother and sister on a holiday to Seoul in 2019. Photo courtesy of Jessica Wong

I always remember how when I was younger, I could not bear to spend my earnings on food.

My go-to meal was a McChicken burger for RM3.5. It was only when I turned 19 and as my income from part-time work grew that once in a while, I could indulge in a spicy McChicken Deluxe set for about four times the price.

Most importantly, I could finally bring a little change to my family. My grandmother could retire in 2018 after working for 52 years.

For the last four to five years, I have also been giving her a monthly allowance of RM500, on top of the RM300 I give my mother for household expenses.

In June last year, I took my family for a holiday in Seoul. Even though it cost almost RM10,000, it was well worth the money as we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

A few months ago, I started a social media marketing business that connects companies with social influencers.

It’s very much a one-woman operation, though I have some freelancers helping me. As it is a fledgling set-up, I am keeping an open mind on my career options.

I have thought of pursuing a master’s degree in real estate, with the hope of setting up my first property services firm in five years’ time.

I have come a long way from serving beer as a 13-year-old, but the road ahead is still a long and unpredictable one.

But I believe that if I set my heart to chase after my dreams, I can succeed.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jessica Wong Yah Ying is a fresh international business graduate from Help University in Malaysia.

Related topics

Education university social mobility parenting

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