Senior but slaying it: Interns over 50 go full-time at Malaysia’s Gen Z-run start-up

SINGAPORE – Two unlikely interns have been making waves on social media – not for their bumbling inexperience, but the opposite.

At Malaysian pimple patch start-up Dododots, Mr Leslie Mah, 62, and Ms Loh Kit Lan, 55, have just been made full-timers, after a year of working as “senior interns”.

Co-founder Ethan Wong, 26, announced their promotions on LinkedIn, delighting netizens who left more than 150 comments, tickled by parallels to the 2015 Hollywood movie The Intern. The film starred Robert De Niro as a 70-year-old in the titular role, opposite a much younger boss played by Anne Hathaway.

Mr Mah, now a warehouse manager, told The Straits Times in a video interview that his colleagues were mostly below 30.

“Babies”, said Ms Loh, the resident personal assistant.

Uncle Leslie and auntie Stephanie, as they are known to their colleagues, said they were just “looking to fill the time” when they signed up in January 2024.

Both were encouraged by their children to apply, after the Selangor-based company listed packing internships for people over the age of 50.

Mr Mah said: “Maybe (my daughter) was fed up with me being at home. She knew there was so much more I could do.”

The former sales manager had been retired for nine years, but he was dazzled by the Dododots team’s energy, which he saw in videos posted to the company’s TikTok page.

“If only you could have seen it through my eyes. The videos portrayed so much fun and love, I thought it had to be made up.”

He was inducted quickly, filming his first TikTok video on his first day at work. “Ever since then, every day is full of surprises,” he said.

Mr Mah and Ms Loh, who was formerly a housewife of 20 years, have since learnt viral choreography, participated in Amazing Race-inspired games organised by the team and gained minor fame online.

Their Gen Z vocabulary has expanded: slay (nail it), lit (amazing) and ate and left no crumbs (perfect).

The “good vibes” Mr Mah had initially taken for “good video production” also proved genuine. “It’s like a family here, we care for each other,” he said.

“Going into the office, with the teasing and the chatter, is always the best part of my day.”

They are no slouches professionally, either.

Mr Wong said his hiring decision was not inspired by the Hollywood movie, but as in art, so in life, the uncle-auntie duo swiftly impressed their younger bosses.

The pair – who are not related – took on larger responsibilities early in their internships.

As the company grew, Mr Mah, who had engineering skills, seamlessly took charge of a new 5,000 sq ft warehouse, Mr Wong said.

Mr Wong said his young team knew nothing about running warehouses and renovations.

“The day we got the keys, uncle handled the A to Z – the fixing, painting, installation of lighting, cameras, the compliance, everything,” he said.

The place was certified fit in just two weeks. Most recently, he said Mr Mah led tenancy negotiations for another 10,000 sq ft warehouse, posing “all the right questions” to owners who had been sceptical of Mr Wong and his co-founder’s youth.

The two former senior interns said the computer aspect of the job was the biggest challenge, with both stumped by long e-mail threads and keyboard shortcuts like “Ctrl-C” for copying text.

But Mr Wong is effusive about their analogue wisdom.

He said Mr Mah surprised him with a “simple but genius” method for stock-taking: Slotting a sheet of paper in between stacks of boxes so that every time inventory dipped below that level, the team knew it was time to top up.

No need for Google Sheets, Mr Wong said.

As for Ms Loh, she is a paperwork whizz and “one of the most important members of the company”.

Her sharp eyes saved the young company, now at its peak of around 15 employees, from a “terrible business deal” when she pointed out the fine print in a contract, he said.

She did not attend law school but was simply “fantastic at filing, paperwork and documentation”, a rare skill among Gen Z workers, Mr Wong added.

Before the company appointed lawyers, she was the last pair of eyes on every contract. Even now, she is the first, he said.

Emotionally, the two “old” new hires are father and mother figures to the team.

“We confide in them so easily. Being a team of young, emotional fresh graduates, sometimes we go through difficult moments,” he said.

“Having them as a shoulder to cry on, and knowing that you can trust their judgment, is irreplaceable.”

Mr Wong knows how invaluable they are. Even as interns, they were paid their last-drawn salaries, pro-rated for days they worked, as they were given flexible hours, he said. As full-timers, they get the market rate.

His unusual age criterion for interns, 50 and above, stemmed from personal experience, when his grandmother helped him out with the packing of goods in the company’s early days.

“That’s when I realised it would be so sad to think that the elderly who have experience, are perfectly capable and have the time and energy, are restricted from work because of bias,” he said.

Mr Mah and Ms Loh listened cheerfully, if not slightly impatiently. They had a team dinner to get to on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year.

Before leaving the call, Ms Loh said the new gig energised her.

As for Mr Mah, he had a final anecdote: “I was with a group of friends, retirees, talking about the medicine we’re on.

“And I said, ‘I cannot be part of your conversation because I work with a bunch of young people now. While you are busy thinking about medicine, I’m busy trying to remember all this Gen Z slang.’”