Retrenched at 52, he starts his own business
Published on
01 Jan 2013
Published by
Publisher: Singapore Press Holdings Limited
Industrial and planning consultant Peter Chua’s nearly 30 years of logistics experience seemed to go up in smoke after he was retrenched following the Sept 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
Business for the German company he was working for shrank. Eight out of 11 staff members, including himself, were let go.
“They said I was among the shortest- serving members but I think my age was a factor,” says Mr Chua, who was then 52.
About 11/2 years of job search followed, for positions from a general manger to sales manager for industrial equipment. The result: Just one interview out of close to two dozen applications sent.
“You panic and assess yourself, ‘What is my skill?’” recalls Mr Chua.
His two daughters were then 16 and 12. He lives with them and his aged mother in an apartment in Pine Grove.
Eventually, he decided to make his experience work for him by starting a logistics service, SysLog Consultancy in 2003. “It was better than struggling to find a job. I was losing time – there was no income coming in and I had bills to pay and kids to take care of,” says Mr Chua, now 63.
His first contract was with a footwear group. He had six months to revamp the warehouse and its shelving system so stock handlers could find shoes easily from 200,000 pairs of footwear and deliver them to department stores.
His client was pleased with his work and renewed his contract.
Ten years later, Mr Chua says he derives great satisfaction from running his own show without any help.
Although contracts fluctuate and earnings are just “reasonable enough to keep me alive”, he says “the sense of relevance and contributing to society gives me a sense of achievement and fulfilment”.
He says: “The perception in the job market is that you go downhill when you hit the mid-40s. And when you are in your 50s, with only about 10 years to go to retirement, you are no longer relevant.”
Now that his children are grown up, he is “more relaxed” about work, tendering for ad-hoc projects. But he keeps busy in other ways, such as walking 2km every other day at a park and jamming once a week with his five-piece band, playing the lead, rhythm and bass guitars.
He is also a member of the National University of Singapore Society graduate club’s music interest groups, organising bi- monthly song and dance nights for about 60 members and friends. They play oldies from the 1960s and 1970s.
“I play music because of my passion,” says Mr Chua, who picked up the ukulele at eight but gave it up to concentrate on his studies.
“If you lose interest in life, the mental decay sets in very quickly. My music keeps me agile. I don’t want to be dead wood.”
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