SINGAPORE – Two unlikely interns have been making waves on social media — not for their bumbling inexperience but the opposite.
At Malaysian pimple patch start-up Dododots, 62-year-old Leslie Mah and 55-year-old Loh Kit Lan have just been made full-timers, after a year of working as “senior interns”.
Co-founder Ethan Wong, 26, announced their promotions on LinkedIn, delighting netizens who left over 150 comments, tickled by parallels to the 2015 Hollywood movie The Intern. The film starred Robert de Niro as a 70-year-old in the titular role, opposite a much younger boss played by Anne Hathaway.
Mr Mah, now a warehouse manager, told The Straits Times in a video interview that his colleagues are mostly below 30.
“Babies”, added Ms Loh, the resident personal assistant.
Uncle Leslie and Aunty Stephanie, as they are known to their colleagues, said they were just “looking to fill the time” when they signed on in Jan 2024.
Both had been put up for the job by their children, after the Selangor-based company listed packing internships for people over 50.
Said Mr Mah: “Maybe [my daughter] got fed up with me being at home. She knew there was so much more I could do.”
The former sales manager had been retired for nine years. But he was dazzled by the energy of the Dododots team that he saw in videos posted to the company’s TikTok page.
Said Mr Mah: “If only you could have seen it through my eyes. The videos portrayed so much fun and love, I thought it had to be made up.”
He was inducted quickly, filming his first TikTok video on his first day at work. “Ever since then, everyday is full of surprises,” he said.
Mr Leslie Mah (right) is now a warehouse manager at Dododots.PHOTO: DODODOTS
Mr Mah and Ms Loh – formerly a housewife of 20 years – have since learnt viral choreography, participated in Amazing Race-inspired games organised by the team and gained minor fame online.
They tell of their Gen Z expanded vocabulary: slay (nail it), lit (amazing), ate and left no crumbs (perfect).
The “good vibes” Mr Mah had initially taken for “good video production” also proved genuine. He said: “It’s like a family here, we care for each other.
“Going into the office, with the teasing and the chatter, is always the best part of my day.”
They are no slouches professionally, too.
Co-founder of the company Ethan Wong said his hiring decision was not inspired by the de Niro flick, but as in art, so in life, the uncle-aunty duo swiftly impressed their younger bosses.
The pair – who are not related – took on larger responsibilities early in their internships.
As the company grew, Mr Mah, who had engineering chops, seamlessly took charge of a new 5,000 sq ft warehouse, said Mr Wong.
He said his young team had known nothing about running warehouses and renovations. “The day we got the keys, Uncle handled the A to Z, the fixing, the painting, installation of lighting, cameras, the compliance, everything,” he said.
The place was certified fit in just two weeks. Most recently, Mr Mah led tenancy negotiations for another 10,000 sq ft warehouse, posing “all the right questions” to owners who had been sceptical of Mr Wong and his co-founder’s youth, he added.
The two former senior interns had said the computer-side of the job was the biggest challenge, with both stumped by long e-mail threads and keyboard shortcuts like “ctrl + c” for copying text.
But Mr Wong is effusive about their analogue wisdom.
He said Mr Mah had blown his mind with a “simple but genius” method of stock-taking: slotting a sheet of paper in between stacks of boxes so that every time inventory dips below that level, the team knows to top up.
No need for Google sheets, he said.
As for Ms Loh, she is a paperwork whizz and “one of the most important members of the company”.
Her beady eye had saved the young company, now at its peak of some 15 employees, from a “terrible business deal” when Ms Loh pointed out the fine print in a contract, he said.
Ms Loh Kit Lan is a paperwork whizz and “one of the most important members of the company”.PHOTO: DODODOTS
She had never gone to law school but was simply “fantastic at filing, paperwork and documentation”, a rare skill among Gen Z workers, added Mr Wong.
Before the company got lawyers, she was the last pair of eyes on every contract. Even now, she is the first, he said.
Emotionally, the two “old” new hires are father and mother figures to the team.
He said: “We confide in them so easily. Being a team of young, emotional fresh graduates, sometimes we go through difficult moments.
Having them as a shoulder to cry on and knowing that you can trust their judgement, is irreplaceable.”
Mr Wong knows their worth. Even as interns, they were paid their last-drawn salaries, pro-rated for days they worked as they were given flexible hours, he said.
As full-timers, they get the market rate.
His unusual age criterion for interns, 50 and above, stemmed from personal experience, when his grandmother helped him out with the packing of goods in the company’s early days.
“That’s when I realised it would be so sad to think that the elderly who have experience, are perfectly capable and have the time and energy, are restricted from work because of bias,” he said.
Mr Mah and Ms Loh listened cheerfully, if not slightly impatiently. They had a team dinner to get to on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year.
Before leaving the call, Ms Loh said her new gig had energised her.
Mr Mah had a final anecdote: “I was with a group of friends, retirees, talking about medicine that we’re on.
“And I said, ‘I cannot be part of your conversation because I go to work with a bunch of young people now. While you are busy thinking about medicine, I’m busy trying to remember all this Gen Z slang.’”
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