Security guard laments to me about life

The security guard was at the table just outside the lifts. I walked up and sat on the opposite end. She was Malay and obese.

"How do you buy that?" she asked suddenly, pointing a finger at the ice blended coffee I had set down. Apparently she wasn't so sure what the black pearls in it were called. The conversation turned into a rant about her job pretty quickly though, so I'm fairly sure she had wanted to talk about that all along.

She works pretty much fulltime. In a single day she has to stand around at different places, usually traffic control. She opened her notebook and indicated a bunch of organized scribbling. It all adds up a nine hours a day of standing. Not all at once, but I think it was mentioned that the breaks were short. It's hard on the legs. Right now she was taking an unsanctioned rest; the pain became a bit too much for her this time. She has to ration a medicine to keep on her feet.

I wasn't participating much in the conversation at this point. The woman obviously had a lot she wanted to get out. She was an immigrant, and she couldn't use her Johor work experience here (I think it had something to do with production lines). The paycheck is eaten up quickly - with products like clothes and shampoo priced for the middle-class, saving money is a challenge.

I honestly can't remember very much. I'm a pretty bad listener, but I didn't want to break her flow. It's a bit like a dream - I had long grown used to the convention that adults would only ever bother to talk to teenagers for work, or for dispensing advice. As a listening ear, even, but never the other way around. Most of what I know about my own parents' lifestyle at work is stuff I overhear.

As I said goodbye to the security guard, feeling some pity for her pretty shitty existence, I wondered why she had bothered to talk to me. I definitely don't have that kind, approachable face. Would she have said anything if it was in my twenties, thirties, or preteen years? Teenagerhood is a magic period of time where most people hover between childishness and adulthood. Perhaps it's a mix of the youth responsibility to listen to elders and the ability to understand things on an adult level. This could be a quality that teenagers could utilize for the betterment of society and all that, but sadly, due to widespread apathy and image of teenagers as immature suicidal nymphomaniacs, the generation gap stays, and woe betide anyone who tries to take that away form Singapore.