The Ghost Who Takes His Job Seriously

​Confession by Alvin

​One thing that Singapore is good at is in giving old buildings a new lease of life every decade or two. What you may not know is that most of the time, it is only the facade that gets a makeover. The backrooms and maintenance rooms look very much like they did back in the 70s.
 
The company I work for handles contracts for building management and my job is to upkeep the building operations, making sure that things work the way they are supposed to.
 
The building I’m in charge of has a ghost, whom we believe is the spirit of the maintenance uncle - Uncle Phua - who passed away many years ago. Since his passing, the maintenance guys that took over his role have complained about their items going missing, tools toppling over the floor and even mysterious bruises appearing on them.
 
As time went by, the maintenance team figured out the way to prevent things from getting disrupted was to not leave the tools and items in specific places. The senior staff quickly noticed this pattern. They had already been suspecting the ghost of Uncle Phua is haunting the place but did not want to say it out loud. Stories like this don't remain a secret for long. Eventually they got to me. Naturally I had to investigate.
 
What I gathered when I spoke to the team was that they believed a ghost was haunting the maintenance room and belonged to a staff who passed away. (Point to note: Uncle Phua did not die on site, he passed away at home peacefully from heart failure).
 
The telltale signs were that once the room reverted to its previous configuration, the poltergeist activities stopped. There were other strange occurrences too, like instances where the aircon wouldn’t function or the fire alarm kept tripping. When in doubt, the maintenance guys would call upon the spirit of Uncle Phua to help, and just like that, the unknown problems would be resolved.
 
To thank Uncle Phua for his help, the team erected a makeshift altar outside the maintenance room, with offerings of beer, cigarettes and incense.
 
The last I heard, my company might not win the bid for the renewal of the building maintenance contract. i don’t know what it would be like after we leave. Good luck to the new team. Maybe Uncle Phua will give them so much hell that they call us to come back and take over. Next time I tell you about other buildings in town. All of them have stories.