外厲內荏 / 外厉内荏
wài lì nèi rěn
“outside stern inside weak”
I have a reputation for being a strict teacher. Some students had even called me a Dragon Lady. Off duty, however, I do a lot of things for them: baby-sitting, gardening, DIY. I say to people, “In class, I’m the whip-cracker. Outside class, I’m their slave.” 外厲內荏.
After I got my LCC (London Chamber of Commerce) Private Secretary Certificate, I applied to a law firm (Boey, Ng and Wan) in downtown Singapore for the post of legal secretary.
I was at the time, while waiting for the results of the LCC exam, working as a telex operator in Conoco Singapore, doing the early shift, starting at 6am, so I had to drive to work as there weren’t night buses in those days. I, therefore, drove to the law firm for the interview after my shift, which was around 2pm — a busy time of the day for road traffic. With no air conditioning in my car, and being stuck in the snarled-up traffic, fretting about making a bad impression, being late already for just the interview stage, I arrived for my interview all sweaty and nerves jangling.
It didn’t help at all to find that I was to be interviewed by not one but three lawyers. It was a firm with three partners, so they all wanted to have a part in the selection process. The partner whose office it was sat at his desk, the other two flanking him, one standing, one sitting on the edge of the desk.
I sat down, all hot and flustered, holding my hands together in my lap (which they couldn’t see from the other side of the desk), wringing them to help calm myself down.
After that, I went for the shorthand dictation and transcription test.
Yes, I passed both parts of the interview, and got the job. A few weeks later, the partners told me how impressed they had been by me at the interview: all cool and calm, collected and confident.
Haha, a good example of 外厲內荏, indeed.
(London, 1985–now; Singapore, 1974)
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