“Working offshore is very dangerous and risky,” Lee noted, his voice tinged with apprehension at the memory of almost having missed when he had to leap from a ship to the platform of an oil rig in Sarawak.
“If my colleague had not grabbed me from behind, I would have fallen straight into the ship’s propeller below us.”
Today, Lee is a self-employed refrigerator and washing machine repairman – a job that might be surprising, given the nature of his previous occupation.
The Selangor lad is no stranger to hard work: even during his kindergarten days, he would help his parents at Restoran Chong Loy, their chicken rice restaurant in PJS 10, Petaling Jaya.
With his three older sisters, Lee would head straight to the restaurant after school, often missing out on typical childhood activities. “I couldn’t hang out with my friends. It was quite difficult,” he recalled.
Much to the chagrin of his parents, he would spend whatever free time he had at the gym.
“They weren’t happy that I was spending my time there, especially after I got injured a few times,” said Lee who, in 2018, became the second runner-up of the National Amateur Body-Builders’ Association-WFF Malaysia competition.
Indeed, life in the family business wasn’t easy; even though he had considered taking over, he found that his parents’ traditional mindset clashed with his modern ideas. “When you want to introduce something new, they resist,” Lee explained.
After finishing Form 5, he spent four years running the restaurant but felt a growing need for change. “I told my parents I wanted to go out and see the world.”
Through a friend’s father, Lee secured a job as a seafarer for a shipping company. From 2019, he spent three years transporting items and people to and from oil rigs.
Despite – or perhaps because of – his near-fatal incident, Lee said life at sea was “adventurous”. He added: “I think if I had known about that line of work when I was younger, I would have started earlier.”
However, the instability and gruelling hours – working six hours on, six hours off – slowly wore on him. The final straw came during the pandemic when Lee’s grandmother passed away while he was at sea.
“My grandfather hugged me and said, ‘Please stay here. Don’t leave anymore.’ So I decided to quit my job and find a new path.”
In April 2022, Lee went on to start his own repair business, simply called Lee Repair and Services. His transition to fixing appliances began serendipitously: “There was a repair shop next to our restaurant, and I decided to learn from them.”
He added that his expertise was largely self-taught, and his interest in this new line of work is fuelled by the satisfaction he derives from fixing things.
Today, Lee serves both household and commercial clients, primarily in the Klang Valley. And while certain aspects of the work can be tiring (“I need to drive all over the place, especially when I have three clients in a day”), he has big plans for his business, including hiring workers and expanding into a full-fledged company.
But does he ever look back on his seafaring days and feel a pang of wistfulness?
“Sometimes I do miss being out at sea again. I guess it’s because I have an adventurous spirit,” Lee admitted.
“But starting my own business has been an adventure also. I am grateful and satisfied with what I have accomplished to date, and I know that my parents are very proud of me.”
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