Hard at Work

Life in Singapore

By: Gerard Sasges, Ng Shi Wen

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Paperback | 7 November 2020

At a Glance

Paperback
416 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 3.81

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$59.75

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For most people in Singapore, having a job is just a fact of life. But that simple fact encompasses a wide range of experiences. Have you ever really considered what workers do on a daily basis and how they feel about their jobs?

Have you ever walked past an ice cream uncle and wondered why he does that particular job and how he got it? Ever wondered what your barista is thinking of you as she takes your morning coffee order? Have you ever considered the tension that comes with being a gay volunteer police officer and being tasked with enforcing the law in a country where sex between consenting adult men is still a criminal act? What exactly does a funeral director do? And did you even know that jobs such as academic ghostwriter, temple flower seller and Thai disco girl agent exist?

Hard at Work gives us access into the interior lives and experiences of more than fifty Singapore workers. It forms a snapshot of Singapore's working population that will fascinate contemporary and future readers.

Industry Reviews

"Their stories provide as good a glimpse of life as it really is in Singapore: raw, unfiltered, and in flowing Singlish. There is struggle, frustration, boredom, angst, but also grit, determination, hope and gratitude."

"It is a book of very personal stories and I found myself drawn into each vignette. It is a credit to the student interviewers and the editors that they have been able to achieve this effect again and again, especially considering that most of the accounts are just two or three pages long...The book contains no analysis per se, but its sixty stories provide a wealth of qualitative data for anyone-scholar, journalist, civil servant, or politician-who might want to tease out policy lessons, or simply understand better how Singapore works and how Singaporeans work."

"The candor and colloquial tones reflect the decision of the student interviewers and editors Gerard Sasges and Ng Shi Wen to leave out commentary and, as much as possible, let the workers speak for themselves [...] Hard at Work fills a vacuum in the country's inequality debate that has been reignited in the last few years."

The interviews are often warm, authentic and relatable. The best ones are even funny, entertaining and inspiring. . . . Hard at Work stands out as an impressively authentic record of the real struggles of work and life in pre-pandemic Singapore. Reading it, one feels less alone in these dark, uncertain times."

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