My Former KLM Colleagues In Town Office

I spent one year in our town office before I resigned sometime in 1990.  I asked for a transfer to the ticketing/reservation (PO) department on hearing there was an opening.  It was granted by the management.  My intention was to gain some exposure in ticketing before asking to do sales and I did express to our then 'fearful' UG (country general manager), Mr Kardinaal in one of the interviews by him.  Our town office was at Mandarin Orchard.

The manager of PO department was Katherine who was mostly in her room typing away.  There were some young and pretty ladies in the ticketing department then.  Well, let me recall all the ladies in my department then, we had ever smiling Maryanne, sweet Janet, helpful Zawyah, friendly Michelle, 'kangcheong" Komala (I think I spelt her name wrongly), serious Irene and cool Sadiah.  The other guy in my department with me was Thia.  He was a very stout man, suave and sported a head full of black hair.  I had started to drop hair then and ya, kind of envy him then.  I still see Thia sometimes. More than two decades later, Thia still sports the same hairstyle as before but almost all white now.  A plus though, he still plays football at this age.  For the rest of the ladies and save for Katherine and Irene, I have not met them for ages.

Maryanne was our supervisor.  I enjoyed working with her and the PO team though it was for a short one year tenure.  Janet if I remember well can get easily irritated but as a person, she is nice.  The one who was very good at ticketing was Michelle in my opinion.  She came over from a corporate travel agency and she brought with her wealth of corporate ticketing knowledge.  Admittedly, I have never liked corporate ticketing but felt I should equip with some ticketing knowledge if I had hoped to land the sales position eventually.    

In the sales department, Maria was the manager and the sales representatives under her were all guys. George, Francis and Christopher.  Maria was one heavy smoker and I remember her room was always so smoky.  During our time, smoking in office was not banned yet (unfortunately).  I was closer to Christopher and he used to call me "Ah Poh" - the moniker I earned from a brush with one
airport immigration officer whose surname is "Poh". Francis was going to retire soon and I was actually hoping to replace him.  I did not get my wish as I eventually left the company.

At the management office, there were also Jennifer who was the secretary to Kardinaal and and Annie to Vincent Vogt.  They were friendly and helpful too.

In accounts department, I remember Helen and Hwee Peng too well.  Helen was the supervisor who worked diligently till she retired.  She was already in her 50s then.  Hwee Peng was very young, just joined and she definitely has the potential to move up in the company.  Their manager (BU) was Mr Yeo, a serious man whom I had never seen him smile at all.  

I will be meeting some of the PO colleagues at Janet's place soon.  It has been a long long while and I certainly look forward to meeting some of them.