Before I Was Boss: Singapore's sandcastle building pioneer won't give up the allure of part-time jobs

Alvin Lee, inventor and founder of Castles Can Fly Singapore.
Photo: AsiaOne

SINGAPORE - He calls himself a permanent part-timer.

That is because Mr Alvin Lee has dabbled in odd jobs since the 1970s even though he has already built up a successful corporate training business.

And at 58, he shows no signs of slowing down.

The founder of Castles Can Fly feels no need for the extra income now that his business is well-established, but he still finds it rewarding to milk the value out of each short-term stint.

Mr Lee's company conducts sandcastle-building activities to facilitate corporate and social team-building sessions - the first of its kind in Singapore.

He landed his first part-time job as a construction worker in the early 1970s, a time when the foreman would drive up to his kampong in Changi and shout for volunteers.

He added: "There were no recruitment agencies or foreign workers then.

It was just as simple as rounding up whoever was present in the morning." It was hard work, but the daily wage of $10 was well worth it.

Growing up with six other siblings in a household which ran an ang ku kueh business meant that finances were always tight.

He was the only one in the family to enter a polytechnic, but his parents could not afford to send him to university - a situation which spurred him to sign on with the army upon enlistment.

Two sales jobs followed after he quit the Singapore Armed Forces. But by then, Mr Lee was 27, married, and had chalked up at least $15,000 to embark on his long-awaited university degree.

Packing his bags, he departed for an engineering degree program in University of Newcastle in Australia. But it wasn't a bed of roses.

University fees were high and he also had a family to support.

Mr Lee turned to waiting tables at a Chinese restaurant on Fridays and Saturdays during term time for extra cash. When summer breaks came, he would take on as many as three jobs.

"In the mornings, I would wash toilets at McDonalds, serve as a security guard in the afternoons and drive a taxi at night," he said.

Fortunately each job earned him around AUD$50 (S$50), meaning he would make a total of AUD$150 each day. This allowed him to finance his studies for the next term as well as provide for his family.

Among all the part-time jobs he had, manning a salad bar at a Sydney restaurant was one that stood out.

He said: "It gave me a newfound appreciation for salad. As cliché as it sounds, the freshness, taste of a salad sets the tone of your meal. Once you mess it up, you'll ruin someone's appetite."

He was no sous chef, but within three months, he learnt to skilfully select, prepare and present vegetables in a salad bowl.

It certainly beat gutting fishes - a part-time job he once took on at a wet market in Australia which saw the back of him after two days.

Mr Lee told AsiaOne: "The Westerners only wanted fillets, so you had to cut away all the scales and strip the fish off its head and tail. Nothing on the plate must resemble anything that was live."

After graduation, he worked as an engineer with American data storage company Seagate, earning about $1,800 a month.

Around this time, Mr Lee divorced his wife and became a single parent of one son. Mr Lee has since remarried with two daughters.

Although he held a full-time job, he branched out to tutoring a pair of twins in the evenings to earn some extra keep.

Besides facing financial pressures as a single parent, Mr Lee also found another reason to continue part-timing.

He said: "Maybe it's because I was a mature student in university. At 30, I was earning the same salary as a 20-year-old, so I felt that I had a lot of catching up to do. I was making up for time."

The enterprising man sure does not like to sit still and be idle. In fact, he finds a dual-track life fulfilling, saying that everyone needs something to look forward to while at work.

"There are 24 hours in a day. Eight are for sleeping, eight for working and the remaining eight defines you," he said.

While many settle with a full-time job, the entrepreneur finds it limiting.

"Beyond an engineer, what am I? Life cannot be so stagnant. Singaporeans spend most of their time complaining about their financial situations, or their work-life," he pointed out.

"But part time jobs give you different skill sets and perspective to look beyond your one-track identity. In that way, I felt that I was not bounded by limits. I was always solving the problem instead of letting it wrest control of my life."

In what he terms a "part-time mentality", Mr Lee says that every stint has an expiry date, a short-term goal that can be fulfilled quickly. This was a trait that eventually shaped the way he started and sustained his business.

Mr Lee said: "I want to finish projects as fast as I can and move on to the next. Therein lies the part-timer mentality. You learn and try to value-add as much as possible. After all, you may be a part-timer but you were hired for a reason."

It's easy to preach, but Mr Lee makes it his mantra, embarking on a new project every five years to challenge himself.

He is currently working with interest groups in Hong Kong, China and Brunei to expand his sandcastle-building business and is in talks to build a theme park for drone-enthusiasts in Thailand.

Who knows? Castles may really fly for him then.

debwong@sph.com.sg

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This article was first published on Asiaone.