I still remember my first paycheck in an accounting firm back in 1990.

RM280 plus RM20 COLA.
Emm. what is cola?
I only Coca Cola

No bank transfer.
No “your salary is in” notification.
Just a paper cheque.

Every month,
I would walk to UMBC Bank (now RHB),
queue up, and pass the cheque to the teller.
I would slide it across, smile, and say,
“This is my allowance.”
The teller would chuckle, stamp it, and
hand me the cash.
That became my monthly ritual.

I never complained.
I knew the pay in accounting firms was low.
I was studying ACCA at the same time.
What mattered more was that my first firm had accepted me and given me a chance.

They gave me a desk, a stack of audit files, and the opportunity to prove myself.
I was blur like a sotong in those early days , ticking, vouching, referencing and proof reading, all alien to me.
But my seniors were patient, correcting my mistakes without making me feel small.

We bonded outside work too.
One day, someone suggested a dancing class.
Not K-pop. Not hip hop.
It was waltz, cha-cha, and twist.
Our two-left-feet moves were worth every laugh.

Work hard, study hard
That was the routine.
I would leave the office at Wisma Lee Yan Lian (near Maybank Tower),
rush to my classes at Systematic.
Audit bag in one hand, a “photocopied” BPP ACCA textbook in the other.
Dinner? Sometimes just a curry puff along the main road.
After class, maybe a bowl of beef noodles before heading home.

Weekends were for studying ACCA near my workplace in ACCA HQ.
Sometimes, I would wander to Jalan Bukit Bintang for shopping or a movie.

Sweat memory
But not the traffic in KL .
No Grab. No LRT.
I squeezed into the mini bus,
shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers.
The driver blasted music, weaving through traffic like a F1 racer.
We all just held on.

Looking back,
my first paycheck was never about the amount.
It was about the journey.
The starting point of my career.
The people I met.
The bonds we built.
The skills I picked up slowly, clumsily, but surely.

That little cheque from UMBC Bank was small in cash but big in value.
If I could walk up to that same teller today, I would still say,
“This is my allowance.”
And this time, I’d add,
“It changed my life.”

PS: After 1½ years in KL, I moved back to JB in 1992. Guess what my next paycheck was.