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I think it was around this time last year that I ordered the batch of indigo fabric from Sanskruti. The shipment arrived from India not long after, and inside there were two things I didn’t order. They weren’t gifts offered as part of any store deals, either. But amongst my indigo fabric order was a scrunchie in indigo fabric, as well as an indigo drawstring bag.
Now, it’s not that this was an unusual occurrence. I’ve shopped online before, and when I do, I try to favour artisanal brands. And I promised myself not to buy more new clothes, since I already have quite enough. But I’ve not seen real indigo fabric in, maybe forever. So when it finally came on trend, I felt I had to get a supply of indigo things.
But I digress.
The point is, I’ve received little gifts in past orders before, typically from artisanal brands. And I don’t mean “samples”, which are intended to introduce other products in the hope that you’d order them in future, but gifts. As in, they’re not offered for sale on the store. It’s just something the artisan has around, because they make the things themselves, and make other things from the scraps. So they can throw it into the order because they felt like it.
Who gives gifts?
It’s one of the little things I liked about shopping from such stores. Not so much because I specifically want the gifts themselves. But I liked knowing that they could, and why they could. But last year, when I received the parcel and discovered the gifts, a new thought occurred to me. For the gifts wound up a thread of my career discontent all through that year.
As I grappled with the changes in my corporate workplace, I realised that I did not have the same agency as these artisans in India, even though I was a white collar professional in a big Western multinational. It was counter-intuitive, but it was true.
Because my specialisation was in contaminated land assessment and remediation, nearly all my projects are confidential due to the inherent liabilities involved. On top of that, I practiced in Southeast Asia. Most of the countries here do not have regulations compelling public registry of contaminated lands.
Whatever one thinks about the merits of doing so vs not doing so, a side effect of that is that there is no incentive to form public-private institutes on the subject. Unlike other science professions like geology or chemistry, contaminated land professionals don’t have an association to develop the discipline, where the projects aren’t public record already – no corporate lawyer would advise that.
It meant that no matter how skilled or knowledgeable I became, I could not teach from my knowledge, because it’s all confidential. None of my colleagues or consultants could, except within our own companies, or under disclosure-controlled contracts.
I couldn’t give from my expertise, but Sanskruti’s artisans could. Wealth aside, who is truly free, if they could give from their skill and I could not?
The original professional
There was a period of time when contaminated land regulations were in development across Asia, and the company allowed us to engage the ministries to advocate from our experience. I found myself enjoying those roles. It surprised me to find that I’m suddenly a lot less cantankerous, and considerably milder, when I’m teaching. I liked giving from my knowledge, to benefit more than just my employer.
Nowadays, in a world where professional employment grows increasingly synonymous with corporate employment, it seems fanciful to imagine that freely teaching from your professional expertise was ever normal.
Yet, once upon a time, if you were a forestry specialist, you could be employed with the government by day, and be part of forestry civil societies in your off time. There used to be a kind of separation between professionals and the entities they happen to be employed in – whether government departments or private companies.
You had your responsibility to your own profession – sometimes even an oath of ethics – which overrides your employment contract. Civil engineers, for example, will still faithfully over-design as part of their responsibility to anticipate unforeseeable events and misuse!
The STEM worker
In other words, STEM professionals used to be actual professionals, in that career progression means a higher mastery of their own discipline as recognised by their own discipline peers, rather than promotion to the managerial class or stock options. Today, perhaps only medicine and law are still like that.
I’ve watched quite a few engineers risk their careers to put safety over pleasing a corporate manager. Yes, they prevail. No, they weren’t fired. But later on, someone else who didn’t speak up typically gets the promotions. Over time, the profession still suffers.
I caught up with a former consultant recently, at a conference that I attended as an independent professional. (He is still a consultant, I mean, just not working for me as the client.) He’s one of those who believes in the profession, and the distinction between a STEM professional and a degreed STEM worker.
The working relationship between such professionals is different from between professional workers. For example, you would want the contract to double as a means to train the next generation of professionals. Because the country needs that, and this is bigger than the immediate contract value and project savings. Whereas a STEM worker would only do that if it’s in their annual performance review.
We lamented the obstacles that impede a professional community to form for our discipline. But doing something about that is difficult when you’re constantly bidding for projects, because the value of STEM work is so depressed. When a graduate engineer’s salary is minimum wage, the profession loses dignity.
Teaching as a love language
I eventually resigned from my job. There were many reasons, but the realisation that I could not teach from my knowledge if I wanted to, was one that haunted me.
And I guess, whether or not this bothers you, depends on the kind of person you are. There are many, many people who seem perfectly content to treat their profession as being just a job. But I was raised to consider knowledge to be the most special kind of gift. It must be grown, and it must be given away.
They say giving gifts is a love language. Perhaps it’s mine, except that my gifts are knowledge. Ever since I came home from kindergarten and taught my little brother when I got home. And when I tutored my friends in school. And when I kept my university friends – whose command of English was weaker than mine – up to speed on the Greek tragedies and Shakespeare I read from the library. Perhaps they were all acts of love.
Perhaps, the proliferation of YouTube channels and TikToks of people just teaching others from what they know, even if they have 5 followers and barely any views, is this need to give gifts of knowledge as an act of love.
Seeking the dignity to give gifts
When we had a lot of mentoring from seniors, and there was still an advocacy element to the job, I remember my time as happy. But, ever-growing budget cuts and downsizing gradually removed these acts of love. And I was not financially constrained enough to stay where there is no love.
In the months after I resigned, I thought over the job offers I received. When you have a lot of options, it can get difficult to choose. They can all be objectively good choices, but that doesn’t mean they are all right.
Trying to choose by ranking them against one another, is not usually the best way (even if the method does well for something like buying a car). Rather, I’ve learned that if you start eliminating them based on values – what you cannot live without doing, what you cannot live with if it becomes an ethical dilemma, what you must have at this time in your life – you might just reveal the one right choice. You might have to forgo choices with more money or fame, but it would be right for your soul.
And in this end of year season, one important criteria for me comes to mind. Having achieved a degree of independence, perhaps I should now look for the choices that give me the dignity of giving from my gifts.
