At a funeral, I met a group of women in their fifties who are the original Singtel girls (Singapore Telecom, then the national telephony company before it privatised). These women started working at Singtel as girls fresh out of high school, as telephone operators, phone book distributors, and some stayed with Singtel for more than 30 years. In 1998 they were retrenched from the Teletext department but not before becoming firm friends. They have seen each other through children, illnesses and they were there for the funeral.
Incredulous that anyone could spend all that time with one company, I hal- teased them, “You mean you gave your youth to Singtel?”
I got an answer I did not expect – “No! a couple of us met our husbands there!”
They must have done a split-second tally-up and decided that that made it all worth it.
From L-R Tracy (26 yrs), Doreen (26 yrs), Christine (30 yrs), Daisy (31 yrs), Nancy (31 yrs). Between them they worked for Singtel for 144 years
