Smiling like a retard
March 19, 2008
Obviously, the income gap between Malaysia and Singapore made the bus drivers in both countries behave in a certain way. In my almost 1 week stay in Singapore, I noticed MOST of the bus drivers are generally polite and they quite patient dealing with clueless tourists. When I mentioned clueless, I mean those who obviously do not know their way around. You can’t expect tourists to memorize every road name in 1 day, do you? Given the same situation, our bus drivers are merciless if the tourists are wasting his precious time. This is the comparison our bus drivers between the singapore ones:-
Singapore Bus drivers
Me: Excuseeeee me, is this bus going to Geylang?
Driver: Yes sir. Hop right in.
Me: All right. How much does it cost?
Driver: Only S$1.30, sir.
Me: *Pays the fare*
Driver: Thank you very much sir.
Malaysian Bus drivers
In this situation, my cousin who is a British (despite being a mixed breed he looks more like a Caucasian) can only speak no other languages except English..
Cousin: Excuse me, is this bus going to the National Museum?
Driver: Apa lu cakap? Gua tarak paham! Cakap Melayu lah!
Cousin: *Keeps quiet because he’s figuring out what else to say* (he understands simple BM but he can’t speak it well enough to hold a basic conversation)
Driver: Cepatlah cakap mana lu mau pegi!
Cousin: Errrrr……?
Driver: Jangan buang masa I! Traffic jam kat belakang $%^&#@$#$@$@R@#%%^#%@%@$%@%@#$@
I don’t blame them actually because I believe if malaysian bus drivers are paid with fat salaries I am sure most of them will smile at you till kingdom come.
Technorati Tags: bus drivers, tourism, singapore, malaysia, public transportation
Posted in Lifestyle
March 19th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Manners is manners..despite being paid well or not..i dun tink manners is sumting u pay for to get it..its sumting u shud b doing so tat people can respect u and communicate wif u nicely..but i guess..some ppl dun get tat..i dun tink its hard to juz tok nicely? like it will kill them like tat..
on the other hand..i tink most of our msian drivers dun speak english…but still..shud reply nicely..not rudely..correct not?
March 19th, 2008 at 10:10 am
well what i am saying is, it is hard to get motivated or even smile properly if they are not paid accordingly. Pay peanuts, you get monkeys?
Oh yeah, based on what my Singaporean uncle said, most of the Singapore bus drivers are from Malaysia.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I believe the keyword is COMPLAINT and ACTION. The unsatisfied customer must complaint and the relevant party such as company or government should take action towards the issues. Otherwise, no matter how much the worker are been paid, without feedback from customer and enforcement of law or company policy, they will never improve the service.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Good point willchua. I think there is a complaint board (ie:- the aduan sms thing) in place but sadly action is virtually non existent.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:50 am
i made a complaint already wat..let’s see effective or not..lolz..