The Young Engineer Who Earned Respect

When Amir first arrived at the palm oil mill in Sandakan, his white safety helmet looked too clean, his boots too new. Fresh from university, armed with a mechanical engineering degree, he was eager to prove himself.

The mill was a different world — the scent of fresh fruit bunches in the morning, the rhythmic hum of the press machines, and the chatter of seasoned operators who had been there longer than Amir had been alive.

At first, Amir thought his role was to “fix things” and “make processes faster.” He spent days buried in manuals, sketching diagrams, and preparing technical solutions. But something was missing — the operators weren’t engaging with him. His ideas rarely gained traction.

One day, the senior fitter, Pak Salleh, invited him for coffee during a short break.

“You know, Amir,” Pak Salleh said, looking over his cup, “the machines here don’t just run on steam and oil. They run on people. If you want things to work, you have to work with them, not just on the machines.”

That advice stuck.

Amir changed his approach. He swapped some office hours for time on the shop floor. He listened to the operators’ concerns — about spare parts that always came late, about safety hazards near the sterilizer, about night shifts with too few hands. He asked questions, not to prove he knew better, but to understand.

Slowly, the mill changed.

The team began to share small innovations — a more efficient way to clean the conveyor, a better schedule for boiler blowdowns, a safer method to clear blockages. Productivity improved, but more importantly, morale lifted.

Months later, when the mill achieved its highest extraction rate in five years, the Mill Manager called Amir into his office.

“You’ve done well, Amir,” he said. “Not just for the numbers — but because the team trusts you now. And that’s worth more than any title.”

Amir walked out of the office with a quiet smile.

His degree had opened the door to the mill.

But respect?

That was something he had to earn — one conversation, one act of empathy at a time.