From pushing in chairs to washing mugs, small daily habits reveal true character more than titles, meetings or motivational speeches ever could.

AIYOH, sayang. Come, sit down. Don’t look at your phone first, look at me. Yes, me – the woman who can smell nonsense before HR can even spell “wellness initiative”.

I just walked past Meeting Room 2. The big bosses had just finished their “Strategic Synergy Deep-Dive Future-Proof Optimisation Alignment” circus. I peeked inside and – walao! The room looked like a hurricane stopped by for lunch – PowerPoint still glowing, biscuit crumbs doing community service on the carpet.

And the worst? The chairs. And you ask, “Makcik, why you so kepoh about the chairs?” Sayang, how you treat your chair tells me everything about the state of your soul.

But today, Makcik is not stopping at chairs. Oh no. We are conducting a full moral audit because small gestures – tiny, boring and unglamorous actions – are the true CV of a human being. Not your LinkedIn bio, not your filtered gym selfie and not your inspirational quotes stolen from Pinterest; it’s your habits, your reflexes and your default setting when nobody is clapping.

The chair test: Character in two seconds

If you leave your chair sticking out like it’s applying for permanent residency in the walkway, you are suffering from main character syndrome.

You stand up and leave it there, legs sprawled, blocking traffic as if the rest of us are NPCs (non-player characters) in your corporate video game.

You are telling the universe: “I have exited. The scene ends with me.” No, darling, the scene continues – the intern trips, the cleaner sighs and the next colleague squeezes through like they are training for Ninja Warrior.

Now, if you push your chair in – neatly, automatically, without drama – you are what HR calls “detail-oriented”. What Makcik calls? Marriage material, promotion material, civilised. Because discipline is not loud; it is quiet. It is sliding the chair back in when no one is watching. If you cannot execute a two-second adjustment, how to trust you with a two-year strategy?

The pantry sink: Where integrity goes to marinate

Come. Follow Makcik. Don’t run. The slipper is aerodynamic. Ah, yes. The sink. The archaeological site of office civilisation.

Here we meet the “mug personalities”.

The “it needs to soak” scientist

You pour water into your three-day-old crusty Milo mug and leave it there like you are conducting a lab experiment at Universiti Malaya. Sayang, dried Milo is not cement. You are not doing research; you are avoiding effort.

You are the type who says, “I’ll reply later”, “I’ll start tomorrow”, “I’ll deal with it next quarter”. Your life is one giant soaking process.

The invisible maid-believer

You place your mug in the sink gently – as if it’s a museum exhibit – and walk away. In your mind, somewhere in the building, a magical auntie has pledged her existence to your caffeine residue. Tolong-lah. If you earn five figures but cannot wash one cup, your adulthood needs firmware update.

Washing your mug takes 27 seconds – soap, scrub, rinse and rack. (Upside down, I am watching.) That 27 seconds is micro-discipline – integrity without applause.

The public test: Who you are when it is inconvenient?

Character is not proven in air-conditioned boardrooms. Character is tested in a packed bus at 6.15pm when your knees are tired and your playlist just reached the emotional chorus.

An elderly uncle boards, a pregnant woman sways and a child grips the pole like it owes him money. Do you look down at your phone, be suddenly fascinated by your shoelaces or do you stand?

Giving up your seat is not about heroism; it is about reflex. It is about whether empathy is your default setting or a seasonal promotion.

Same with holding doors. When you see someone behind you – stranger, delivery rider or colleague – do you let the door swing back into their faces like fate? Or do you pause one second? That one second says: “I see you”; “You matter”; “I am not the only person in this corridor.”

And don’t even get Makcik started on returning shopping trolleys. If you abandon one in the parking lot like a rebellious teenager, I already know how you handle responsibility.

Dating Physics 101: Outer side, inner side

And since we are already outside, let Makcik remind you of something from the dating phase – yes, that phase – when men still behave like endangered gentlemen.

Some of you – my husband included, don’t think Makcik forgets – during courtship suddenly discover traffic physics.

When walking on the pavement, you instinctively move to the outer side – the road side, the danger side, the splash zone, the side where motorcycles flirt with mortality and drains have no lids – and you gently guide your girlfriend to the inner side.

Why? Because somewhere in your brain, without a podcast, without a masculinity coach charging RM799, a signal fires: “Protect her.”

You don’t announce it, you don’t post it, you don’t say, “I am performing safety masculinity now”. You just… shift positions. That is instinctive care – reflex empathy, quiet responsibility. So don’t tell Makcik you “don’t know how” to be considerate. You already know.

You demonstrated it beautifully during the dating probation period. Which means this is not an ignorance issue; this is a maintenance issue. Decency did not disappear; it expired because you stopped renewing it.

And that, sayang, is the entire thesis of this column.

Character is not something you switch on for big moments like weddings and crises; it is something you practise when nobody is watching, when nobody is clapping. It is how you treat chairs that cannot complain, mugs that cannot protest and doors that will swing back anyway.

You want to know who someone really is? Don’t interview them, don’t read their bio, don’t attend their keynote; watch what they do with a chair, watch what they do with a mug, watch which side of the road they place the person they claim to love.

Because the same person who positions themselves between danger and another human being will also position themselves between chaos and responsibility. And the same person who lets chairs stick out, mugs rot, doors slam and aunties wobble will always have an excuse, a reason, a meeting, a framework – but never accountability.

So here is Makcik’s final blessing and warning, bundled together like sambal in newspaper:

• If you can slide a chair, you can meet a deadline;
• If you can wash a mug, you can finish a task.;
• If you can pause a door, you can pause your ego;
• If you can stand on a bus, you can stand for people; and
• If you can walk on the outer side once upon a time, you can do it again.

None of this is hard; it is just inconvenient. And inconvenience, darling, is where character lives.

Azura Abas is the executive editor of theSun.

Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

 The Sun Malaysia