Today we’re interviewing Alyssa Eng, Innovation and Improvement Executive at Qra, a small but growing startup retail chain store in Malaysia.
I met Alyssa once during my event a long time ago in WeWork Food Labs. It was my going away party to Austin Texas where I spent $2000 dollars on catered food. I didn’t remember at first. Grace told me about Alyssa so I reached out and the memories flooded in.
At the time, Alyssa worked at CCD in California. Phil Saneski and a few of his friends also worked there so it all clicked together. It was so nice to catch up with Alyssa over some delicious Turkish food like 5 minutes from the hotel.
So what’s unique about this interview Alyssa has worked in the United States and she talks about her experience being an intern in the United States
What’s really value about this interview is Alyssa’s transition from Malaysia to The United States to Malaysia again and how the pandemic, which seems like ages ago, affected jobs
QRA is growing fast and Alyssa is along for the ride. After opening 3 stores in a year, Alyssa has jumped into all sorts of job roles over there and talks about the dynamics of working in retail, developing products, and the expectations of working in Malaysia.
What’s up With Adam
So this week was my birthday. I say week because I feel after you turn 30,
I just moved to South San Francisco but I was able to scramble up a birthday party where I barbequed and fed people. It was small but I’m touched about who shows up. My intern from Motif Foodworks, my college friends, my industry friends, my roommate, and a couple of people I met 3 days ago. It felt good to have people together.
I never was very good at holidays and celebrations but it made me feel happy to be with people. I also did a few social events. Went to a house party and played a new board game with a group of new friends. I never told them it was my birthday
ANYWAYS
Let’s talk about the food in Malaysia! Especially in KL, I felt like the food was amazing and varied. It was most likely because I was in the center of town in the busiest city in Malaysia. KL in particular has a lot of foreign touchpoints compared to the more local cities in Malaysia. In any case, Kl had some of the best foreign food I’ve ever eaten and I’ve eaten a lot of foreign food. I would argue I had the best food from Japan and China in Mayalsia and I visited Japan and China. There’s something unique about Malaysia’s metropolitan area where it gives you extremely high quality ethnic food, but as Alyssa says in the interview, most locals can’t afford it.
I also want to tlak about the most underrated attraction I’ve been to in Malaysia. Batu Caverns. Apparently built during colonization, it’s basically a huge 40 ft tall golden statue, with a cavern on top, and surrounding caverns full of hindu artwork. I just had such a good time with the monkies, who scampered about and you could feed them bananas!
I also took a kind of simple break in a hut-like camp an hour south of the city. It was called the Tandom Hills Resort. Beautiful place where you can kayak, hike, pet dogs and cats, and enjoy a nice sunset by the lake.
Hopefully the next time I go to Malaysia, I can explore the whole country, I felt like I was completely thrown off guard to understand that there’s just so much to do in this country.
From what I’m gathering, Malaysia is a workhorse country because they can produce a lot of products for pretty good prices. When compared to Singapore, which cannot produce anything so they have to innovate to survive. The culture shock between Singapore and Malaysia, especially when talking to actual food industry people is super interesting and I hope you find it interesting too. Though close together, there’s a different feel between Singapore and Malaysia.
Again, I can’t say I’m an expert in this relationship. I’m just a wandering traveler who’s been to both countries but I find it really interesting. Though I don’t have many interviews in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, in the next couple of weeks, I’ll talk about my travels to Thailand.
Links
Taylor University
RCA
J1-Internship VISA
Oatside
Oatly
New Oatmilk from New Zealand
Banana Milk
WeWork Food Labs Party
Coconut Shake
Lot 10
Petaling Street
Chinatown
Jalal Alor
Penang
Malaka
@aly_huiling
Alyssa Eng on Linkedin
End of the Show
What resonated with me most in this interview was Alyssa’s work-life balance in Malaysia and though it seems like Malaysia generally has this problem, I’ve seen this a few times in the United States.
Let’s talk about communication with your boss. I personally believe communication culture is essential for an efficient and non-toxic culture.
I’ve heard several confessions with colleagues that in some cases, upper management will contact their R+D contact to get the job done. Sometimes these people will get texts late at night. In some cases, these can be as simple as discussing new flavors but in other times, it has to be a GET THIS DOCUMENT ASAP NOW.
Power dynamics are easily set in companies and without boundaries, power dynamics to make a work environment really tense.
So I’ve never had an issue with communication outside of what I’m comfortable with. I’m fortunate to not have had my superiors email me at midnight to get something done.
Yea, there are some times where I have a boss call me on the weekend or message me late at night, but those are from crunch time situations. This did not happen often.
Though culture is the primary culprit for bad communication style, and culture is generally formed from the top down, it’s important to passively set boundaries. Here are some examples:
Do not respond immediately unless they message twice or call you after hours. Especially if you’re eating dinner with your family, or with your friends or on a date. If you message immediately, this essentially primes the relationship where the superior can keep on doing it.
Try to deliver deliverables in packages and not in constant spurts of information. Email is the best for that. Emails with comprehensive and valuable information are super important as it gives people time to digest. There is some type of cultural significance with emails that allows us to in general, send an email and not expect to get it back as opposed to slack and whatsapp, where communication is generally instant.
Finally, communicate openly that it’s not right for your superior to disturb you after hours, or constantly. Leaders generally don’t get a lot of feedback and good leaders want to be better leaders.
You can create a culture from the ground up. It’s important to feel empowered to do so and it feels great when you can independently create boundaries in which people respect.
In general, most people create artificial deadlines which causes stress, panic and sloppiness. This unfortunately cascades sometimes. There is a time to take action and work your tail off, but those times can’t be all the time.
The most important part of this tip? If you get any pushback or get ignored or anything from this advice, evaluate if you’re even in the right company. Some people just love to work with no boundaries, but do you? Are you comfortable with this? If the answer is no, consider taking action and look for a new job.