Thursday, March 16, 2006
Sure all of you know what that GEMS thing is. "
Go the
Extra
Mile for
Service". All of a sudden, pink cards are all over the place. Honestly, do you ever feel ashamed of these courtesy campaigns? I do, because it very plainly spells out "Singaporeans need to be told to be nice people."
People simply cannot care less. The nice ones don't need these rubbish campaigns to be nice, and the heck-care ones, whom the government is wasting money trying to educate, will remain heck-care. And
boy, does it suck when it seems that half the nation or more falls into the latter category.
I'm not even talking Utopia here, where we're in an everybody-helps-everbody-and-we-all-live-happily-ever-after society. Nice thought though. Dream on. It ain't going to happen anytime soon. We're not even close to a civic society, which is sort of a subset of Utopia. Nobody spits, nobody litters, handphones don't ring in the middle of movies (I admit I've been guilty of this one, but it was only once okay?), people give up seats to pregnant ladies... You get the picture.
In the most recent issue of
CLEO, there's a column on '20 things Singaporean women should give a damn about'. No.2 is etiquette. Let me quote from the magazine:
"Is it that hard to put your mobile phone on silent mode at the movies? Which part of 'No flash photography' do you not understand? Even if you're not guilty of the above crimes, you could be guilty of staying silent. Nudge offenders to practice considerate behaviour. And when was the last time you gave up your seat to the elderly or pregnant (it's not just the guys who are supposed to do so, you know). If you can't, ask a man to kindly give up his - equality between the sexes isn't an excuse to stop being gentlemen."
Yep, that and 19 more important things that every Singaporean (not just women) should give a damn about. I'm not writing them here. Go buy an issue of
CLEO yourself. It's a great mag.
And speaking of gentlemen, is chivalry dying? I almost said 'dead' instead of 'dying', but then I recall there are a handful of gentlemen I know.
A mere handful.
Sad.
Okay, the event that happened that made me so fired up to type all this, happened this morning at Burger King. This morning, I met up with CK for a breakfast date, and I also intended to study there. After we finished eating, we put the food aside and spread out our work. Then his friends came over. 5 people in total, so we sat at the 6-seater table. (Shiyun was there! Still the same. Nice to see her.) They were discussing their Chinese drama stuff, I was half-listening, half-reading 'Frankenstein'. Meanwhile, the tray was attracting flies, so the auntie collected it. (Of course she would have taken it away anyway.)
Then CK and his friends left to go to Shiyun's house. By then I was pretty engrossed in 'Frankenstein', so I didn't move to another table. After half an hour to one hour later, the manager came to the table and barked at me,
"If you don't mind, there are people who need the table to
eat!"
Bloody hell, so many people turned around and stared at me! That's so not the kind of attention I want. I was so humiliated! Then this group of men came in and sort of gathered around the table, so there was this immense pressure for me to get lost. I didn't even pack, just threw everything into my bag and walked away from the table. After that, I was scanning the place for that manager. No sight of him. I stormed out. Then I stood outside, about 5 metres away from the door.
The manager appeared. I glared at that rude manager through the glass door.
And he glared back.
And I whipped my phone out of my bag and dialled.
Manager looked worried. See? He's guilty!
Anyway, I was calling CK to complain. He told me that the manager was not worth my getting angry over. Still, I really felt like storming back in and telling that manager off. Idiot, he's on the service end, what right had he to chase me away like that? And it's not as though I randomly sauntered in and plonked my books down. I dined there as a customer, fair and square. In the end, I suppose that I agreed with CK, that the stupid man really isn't worth the trouble.
Grr. I'm not going back to that outlet to hear more barking.
Afterward, I asked my mother for her mature opinion of the matter. And she said that I'm in the wrong. She told me that I should have bought a drink or something if I wanted to continue to sit there alone. But I ate there already, so why should I pay more?
Argh, I'm so vexed.
Is it my fault?
♥ The lights faded at
3:34 pm
