The Long Stand

"Pulak dah..." the senior technician groaned into the dead machine.

Next to him, the trainee engineer - his first week on the job - anxiously craned his neck to get a look at what the problem was.

"Err... Michael," Fairuz said as he pulled his head out of the machine. For some reason, Fairuz Ahmad always looked like he had just woken up with a hangover. "Kamu pegi kat store department, bagitau kat dia kamu nak long stand."

"Long stand," Mike repeated, scribbling it down in his notebook. He had half the mind to ask what a long stand was, or how it looked like, but he figured he'd find out soon enough.

Mike walked briskly across the air-conditioned work floor, making his way around machines enormous in size and noise. He made a deliberate detour through the Quality Control department, where cute Vietnamese girls examined electronic components under microscopes.

In most factories where operations run around the clock, the junior engineer fresh out of the utopia of university is arguably the most useless thing on the production floor. Heck, even a broken down machine could at least be sold for scrap.

Senior technicians who've spent the last 5 to 7 years of daylight working their fingers to the bone for the company usually don't take a liking to the new engineers. Not only do the bratty college kids have to be taught everything from scratch, they also take home bigger paychecks than the senior techs. That's why it isn't unheard of that technicians occasionally enjoy pulling pranks at the expense of the inexperienced engineers.

But Mike was glad he was assigned Fairuz as his mentor. Fairuz was so cool and laid back, you can't help but wonder if his cigarettes were actually laced with weed. He had been with the company from the time it was still a small chinaman factory, before it was bought out by a global American corporation. If something mechanical was faulty, Fairuz was the go-to guy.

Mike knocked on the door of the store office and peered inside. The store manager, Mr J.B Lau ('J.B' apparently stood for Johor Baharu) was just on his way out.

"W'sup, Mr Lau?" Mike greeted. "I came to get a long stand."

"Long stand, ah?" J.B scratched his head. "I don't have one here, I ask my boy in the warehouse to bring one for you, can?"

"Sure," Mike said. "Will he be long?"

It was ten minutes to noon.

"A while only laa," J.B said. "I'm going out for a while now, I cannot leave the store office open. You wait for him outside, can? I call him bring the thing now."

"Cool," Mike nodded.

The two of them exited the tiny office. J.B locked the door, then took out his old soap-shaped Nokia to make the call.

"Wait for him here ah, Michael," J.B said, walking away with the phone still to his ear. "I call him come now."

Mike gave the guy a thumbs up and stood waiting outside the store office.

His stomach grumbled. He hoped the warehouse boy would bring the equipment over quick - Mike was missing his lunchtime waiting for this dweeb. To kill the time, Mike began counting the number of fluorescent lights on the vast ceiling of the production floor.

When he was done, the boy was still not here, so he counted the number of ceiling tiles. He wondered what made all of them stick up there. What was the probability of one falling down? What was the probability of one falling down on the head of the warehouse boy?

His feet were killing him. He looked at his watch. 23 minutes.

Just then, the Senior Design Engineer, Ted Halloway, who was here from the headquarters in the U.S passed by.

"Hows it goin, buddy?" he said in his New Jersey accent.

"I'm doin' good, thanks." Mike said, trying to keep his Malaysian Indian accent in check.

"You're the new guy here, huh?" Ted smiled. "I see they gave you the long stand."

"No, they haven't given it to me yet. I'm still wai..."

The white man smirked.

Bloody technicians and their pranks.

The Razor

"Dei, macha," Sureish stormed into Mike's hostel room.

Mike was sprawled on his bed watching Freddy vs Jason on his computer.

"I got a hot date tonite, da," Sureish said. "Lend me your shaving blade."

Mike reached over to his bedside shelf and plucked the razor from the plastic Colgate cup. He was just glad he wasn't being invited to be Sureish's sidekick tonight. Spend the evening with Freddy and Jason or with his college senior? It's a no-brainer.

"Thanks da," Sureish said, grabbing the razor and storming out of the room with the same urgency when he stormed in.

Only after the lanky figure had left did Mike question the rationality of his actions.

Mike bought a new bottle of Palmolive shower gel every six weeks. He changed his toothbrush every six months. But he'd used the same razor since he was 14. And despite the many times the razor had gashed it's owner's handsome face, it was Mike's prized possession.

He cleaned it in boiling water and changed the Topaz blade everyday. And in return, it helped maintain his 'clean and decent boy' image... Maybe trusting Sureish with it wasn't a smart move.

Half an hour later, as Jason and Freddy were plunging blades into each other, Sureish showed up with Mike's razor.

He wore a black embroidered shirt and silver jeans. His shoulder length hair was slicked back and he wore a gold chain around his neck. But what caught Mike's attention the most was that Sureish's goatee was exactly as it was a half hour earlier.

"Uh, senior," Mike said, not really sure how to ask the question. "You didn't shave, ah?"

"Got," Sureish said, adjusting his huge belt buckle. "I shave clean already,"

Time for Mike to get a new razor.