Sunday mornings usually find me on a Uber-Dad run, sending my daughter for her tuition. During the 2-hr wait, I’m either at a Starbucks on my laptop, catching up with friends or exercising in a park nearby. This slightly wet Sunday morning, I walked for about an hour in Singapore’s Botanic Gardens. It seemed apt even the heavens were struggling to keep it in.
Mr Wijey was my principal in Temasek Junior College when I was there some 40+ years ago. I have a Chatgroup with about 20 of my closest friends from TJC. We have that easy relationship, borne out of a shared 2-year coming-of-age experience in our late teens, where no matter how long we’ve not connected with each other, each time we do connect again, we are 18 and best friends again. And as you can imagine, with a bunch of close male friends in a Chatgroup, our messages can get quite silly.
This morning, the Chatgroup was full of messages in praise of the man, and the tone somber.
“He was a good man.”
“He did not reprimand us for being late … Btw, I was late for school almost every day.”
“He was very open-minded.”
“RIP Mr Wijey! Forever in Gratitude.”
“It was (Mr) Wijey who allowed me to come to TJC. I will never forget that. It changed everything for me.”
I must confess to not having thought about Mr Wijey in many years. My overwhelming recollection of him today is when he interviewed me for 20 minutes in my JC2 year (year 12) to be on a shortlist of some sort to represent the school. I can’t remember what the shortlist was for. I do remember not making the cut, and more importantly I remember how Mr Wijey spoke to me almost as a peer, instead of an 18-year-old punk. What an absolute gentleman!
I’m a keen student of behaviour and how to influence it. As I walked in the slight drizzle in Botanic Gardens this morning, the thought came to me that if Mr Wijey’s job was to mould me and my friends into young adults, he did a fine job of first treating us as adults. By respecting us, he nudged us to be more respectful of him and our teachers. By respecting us, we would respect him for the rest of his and our lives.
WYMW? All of us would be lucky to have someone like Mr Wijey in our lives. If your path didn’t cross with Mr Wijey’s, Who’s Your Mr Wijey?
WWWD? I’m going to suggest to my clients that the next time they feel triggered by one of their team members, they should take a breath to ask “What Would (Mr) Wijey Do?”. Probably treat them with respect as a peer.
RIP Mr Wijey. To his family, know that Mr Wijey impacted far more lives than we can count.