The Covid-19 outbreak has created a new job that Singaporeans have never heard of before the pandemic: safe distancing ambassadors. These folks are hired to ensure that the public complies with the government’s safe distancing measures, which include standing one metre apart from your fellow men and wearing your mask.
This also includes not overcrowding supermarkets, which Nicolette Lim, 23, had to enforce when she took on a job as a safe distancing ambassador for supermarket chain Sheng Siong. She was stationed at a heartland outlet in Bedok, where she primarily took customers’ temperatures to check for a fever and scanned IC particulars for potential contact tracing.
Prior to working with Sheng Siong, the Ngee Ann Polytechnic Film, Sound & Video graduate tells 8days.sg that she was working “for about two years” in media production, which has come to a standstill due to the circuit breaker. “When CB started, my contract was temporarily suspended. I thought I should still go and find another job within the industry, but no one could shoot, so no one was hiring. I needed a temporary job so I could have income during the circuit breaker.”
She came across the safe distancing ambassador contract job on a recruitment agency’s Telegram chat group. “The job scope was to ensure people stand one metre apart, take their temperature and all that. I thought no harm, I can just try this out and gain experience. You never know how all these experiences can help you learn something,” she says.
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What it’s like on the job
Nicolette worked the 2pm to 10pm shift. “I was in an older HDB estate in Bedok, so I was meeting older people — aunties and uncles. I asked them, ‘Can I take your temperature?’ And they said, ‘Why do I have to do this?’ I just try to explain [the measures] to them in whatever language they speak. I understand that they might have more difficulty accessing information compared to younger people,” recalls Nicolette, who admits that she found her job “quite tough”.
Apart from sieving out unwell customers (“I've had people who came even though they had a fever. But they won't insist when I tell them they can't enter”), she also had to check whether the supermarket outlet was crowded and limit the number of shoppers inside. She shares, “We have to ask people to wait outside and queue one metre apart. Some of them said, ‘But I just want to buy bread, why do I have to queue?’ But I can’t help it. It’s the policy. If the customers continue grumbling after I’ve made my point, I just smile and walk away (laughs).”
In her media production job, she also had to wrangle “stubborn extras on set”. She explains, “Some people don’t listen to instructions, but you can be ‘fiercer’ with them on set. You can tell them what they’re doing is wrong. But for supermarket customers, you just have to say sorry and appease them. Some of them are not easy to appease — they don’t get the whole logic of social distancing. I think they might have even felt micromanaged. It comes as a shock to them, when they go to the supermarket and they suddenly have to queue up and have their temperature taken and keep a distance from other people. From their perspective, it can be frustrating and very hard for them to adjust. I just try to say, ‘Uncle, please stay behind the line thank you.’”
https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/ne...g-ambassador-tells-us-what-it-s-like-12695320
