In Every Sime Darby Employee's Home...

It is not uncommon to speak to a late 20 to 30 year old person in the Klang Valley who's father or mother worked in Sime Darby. In fact, in a quick survey with some friends a couple of years ago, more than half of my close friends had their parents work either in tyres, plantation... I can't remember what other subsidiaries were mentioned.

Anyway, this was brought to mind again recently when I met up with an ex-colleague and we happened to mention that our dad's worked in a subsidiary of Sime Darby. He then said, "I'm sure you had that tyre ashtray thingy in your home, didn't you?". I was surprised because since my dad was in the tyre subsidiary, naturally a tire ashtray didn't look out of place. I didn't think those in plantations would have received one.

We used this ashtray that is about 8 inches in diameter to place our house keys for decades. And my parents happened to find it recently after their shift to PJ.

So I'm wondering, is it really true that every Sime Darby's employee back in those days receive one of these?