I received many questions from classmates wanting good, cheap, convenient massages in Singapore. My answer was usually that the ones in town aren’t that cheap and they’re better off getting massaged over the weekend in Bangkok/Bali etc.
So the thought occured: Why not organise an on-campus massage? Get the visually handicapped masseurs to come to INSEAD. There’s no overhead costs and their rates are reasonable.
I sounded the idea with James the head of Operations, who was very supportive of the idea. In fact INSEAD staff already had one massage session with the Singapore Association for the Visually Handicapped (SAVH) so I invited SAVH to send its masseurs again, this time to massage the students.
They were only able to make it today as the service is very popular. Also, they sent just two masseurs with the request that each masseur makes at least S$60 to cover the cost of their trip to INSEAD. I offered to fetch them from Buona Vista MRT but emphasised that they should go to the bus stop near the Ministry of Education. They were misdirected and ended up on the wrong side of the road, but thought they were on the correct side, and thus I was unable to locate them. They took a taxi instead and arrived in the middle of my Operations class, so I asked the professor to excuse me while I settled them in. So my plan for a perfectly timed schedule where everything would begin before I started class, went out of the window.
The other thing I underestimated initially was demand. Feedback from classmates on the idea of a massage (aka my ‘market research’) was quite strong, so when the service was confirmed I only emailed the P2s. However in reality not as many signed up - even though many said it was a good idea (i.e. one does not totally translate to the other). Many had groupwork at the time. I also learnt that early morning massages are not popular, so in future these sessions will be scheduled later… provided we can find another suitable date!!
Faced with the prospect of some empty slots, I wanted to announce the service to all at INSEAD, but another classmate assured me that more A2ers would sign up at the last moment so I waited longer. It didn’t happen. So the day before the massae, I asked for the message to be passed on to the P5s but it wasn’t sent out. I sent another email for dissemination to staff, but it also wasn’t sent out in time. I sent another email to another P5 councillor who offered to spread the word, but it was rather late by then. I resorted to designing a poster for passers-by to see, and made acquaintances with a few curious P5s in the process - all of whom said it was a good idea but they had classes on.
Anyway, I also learnt that as neat as my scheduling was, it did not have enough buffer time to acommodate people who were 10 minutes late at the beginning. I was supposed to give a 5-10 minute break every 2 hours. I decided to be generous and allocate 10 minutes, but learnt that if there were 4 customers every 2 hours and if each customer arrives just a few minutes late each, that would have eaten into the break time already. Alternatively if I scheduled a 5 minute gap between each session that would help, but if classmates were punctual (most were) then the masseurs would also serve less people in total.
A similar thing happened with the lunch break. I thought 30 minutes would be enough, but spent 10 of those minutes in the toilet waiting for one of the masseurs. I couldn’t leave her alone and dash off to buy lunch for them, as this masseur was almost (if not totally) impaired and would walk into the wall if I wasn’t holding on to her. Poor thing! It taught me a good lesson, that I cannot just give a little bit more allowance because they have much slower movements.
As a memento, I got satisfied classmates to sign on the poster, and took a photo of the masseurs with it. May I say to my classmate-patrons that they were happy that you were happy, and they went home with decent earnings. Many good learning points and good vibes too.
I was happy that the girls and guys (mostly in my section) were supportive of this initiative - my first attempt at enabling social entrepreneurism. Feedback has also come in. Yes, I will make bigger announcements in future when there is more supply available. Also I will ask for someone else to help me because it is a time-consuming job, having to be there as a guide.
Thank you to those who made this initiative a success!
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