longer young.’
This last utterance was said with the finality of someone much more advanced in years and took me aback slightly.
‘How old are you, by the way?’ I asked.
‘I’m 34 now.’
‘Well’, I countered, ‘that’s hardly old, is it?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘but it’s time to really get cracking and start providing for the future.’
‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘So, anyway, why are you living in England at the moment, and without Yossy?
He then explained his reasoning behind his going to England and although I still got the feeling there was something, or some things, he was holding back, I think we both knew I was going to offer him the job and he was going to accept.
Actually, I needed a new Director of Studies for a new school opening as well as teachers for all the schools, but although I mentioned this to Neil we didn’t really discuss the prospect of him becoming the DoS at that time. Again, I got the impression that he was a little bit backwards in coming forwards and I wanted to see if he would push himself for the position, but he didn’t.
Anyway, we ended our meeting cordially enough and he then headed off to the airport to catch a plane back to Surabaya where he was spending a few days with his family before heading back to England.
I mulled the situation over in the next week or so and an idea began to form in my mind.
My other investments were beginning to pay small dividends and I was now ready to move things to the next level. Amongst my new business partners I had often heard it said that investment in property was a sure thing in terms of long-term growth. They argued that in contrast with even the safest of financial money market trading, the value of bricks and mortar structures hardly ever depreciated and in fact almost always rose. It therefore stood to reason that if I were able to leverage enough capital to get started, then property management and development would be the next logical step.
A word here regarding my ‘new business partners’: these were in fact a conglomerate of people I had known from my days in the military together with some friends of theirs. These were an amalgamation of people from various walks of life and a mix of cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds. The Group, as they were loosely known as, was a highly motivated and financially astute collection of individuals who had interests, financial and otherwise, in any number of business markets and ventures across the archipelago. Gaining access to and acceptance by The Group was not an easy thing to achieve, and one had to have both financial clout and impeccable contacts in order to gain entry to their inner circle. Thanks to my security services background, I had the contacts, and now with the help of my loan systems, I was able to contribute financially too.
Neil came to Jakarta a month or so later and started work in the new EPLC school in Cikarang Mall. I pulled a bit of a fast one on him on his first day by welcoming him to the branch and then showing him directly to his office.
His face was a picture of bafflement. ‘What’s this?’ He said. ‘Why am I getting an office? I’m just a teacher, right?’
I just grinned.
‘Nope. You’re the new Director of Studies. Congratulations. Evie here is the Business Manager. She’ll fill you in on the details. Good luck.’
And with that, I left them to it.
While Neil got on with the intricacies of being a DoS, I continued to build up my portfolio. Together with a kind of sub-committee consisting of some of The Group members, I started investing in property and getting involved in leveraged buyouts of existing businesses. Starting small, we took over a couple of restaurants in the Depok area of Jakarta and bought up empty lots of land in the Serpong principality. This land buying was with the long-term future in mind, because we knew this area would be developed intensely over the next decade or so and as a result we wanted to get in on the ground floor, so as to speak.
Business-wise I was learning. I was learning not just how and what to invest in, and how to find a bargain or a good deal, but also how to deal with people in the private sector. My years in my first career had taught me about discipline and how to follow it as well as instil it in others, as well as the value of having subordinates and outsiders alike if not exactly fear you, then at least wary of you and the power you yield. In business, I realized, while there were certain parallels, there were also some major differences too. For example, people in the private sector were greedier and more self-absorbed and less likely to do something they didn’t want to do just because the boss was telling them to. Job fluidity in Indonesia is particularly commonplace with nobody tending to stay in any job very long. It is not uncommon for a well-educated professional to have three or four jobs within a five-year span, and this fluidity of movement is much greater amongst the semi and unskilled workforce. This meant a different approach to man-management from the one I had been used to was called for. No longer could I expect people to turn up to meetings on time, for example, or for something to be done just because I was requesting it. No, I had to find other ways to handle people and instil loyalty.
As I said, people are basically greedy and have loyalty only to themselves and,
