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Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

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JR8
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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by JR8 » Thu, 18 Dec 2014 10:44 am

maneo wrote:
Barnsley wrote:
maneo wrote: In fact, you may find your "way" becoming even more irrelevant as this Asian century continues to develop.
Is this all of Asia , or just the Eastern bit?
Might be a double whammy with the 2 nations containing almost half the world's population gaining economic clout.

Well let's get real for a moment: This isn't going to happen in any lifetime soon.
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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by Barnsley » Thu, 18 Dec 2014 2:22 pm

JR8 wrote: Well let's get real for a moment: This isn't going to happen in any lifetime soon.
I was about to say , unless its some unpleasent military nonsence from China , not sure what they are going to do to make it their century. As for India .... looking from the outside they look a long way off from where they can make an impact this century.
Life is short, paddle harder!!

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by nakatago » Fri, 19 Dec 2014 5:32 am

Barnsley wrote:
JR8 wrote: Well let's get real for a moment: This isn't going to happen in any lifetime soon.
I was about to say , unless its some unpleasent military nonsence from China , not sure what they are going to do to make it their century. As for India .... looking from the outside they look a long way off from where they can make an impact this century.
Seriously, India needs to get its s#!+ together.
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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by earthfriendly » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 7:39 am

This makes for interesting read. As a counter against kiasuism and govt- commanded campaigns on how to behave and think. Why do you think govt social compaigns are not that effective? Do the government or the authority have the answers. Do they know what is best? The ideas expounded in this article just seem so peaceful and so much calmer than what I have come to known. It is a less conflicting way of life. There is different types of behavioral evolution theory. There is the survival of the fittest and there is this:

https://www.facebook.com/The.Warrior.Li ... 58807031:0

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by JR8 » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 11:15 am

earthfriendly wrote:Why do you think govt social compaigns are not that effective?
Because they are far too timid and polite, and afraid to call a spade a spade. They seek to suggest the virtue of better social behaviour, but never, or only in the gentlest most humorous of ways, aim to shame bad behaviour.

Man, I'd love to be given a budget to make some anti-kiasu adverts :)

In the same way that you will not alter 'survival of the fittest' neither will you persuade a kiasu ar$e that he/she really should consider others. The 'warrior lifestyle' that you link is for people who aspire to being virtuous. It would make nil impression on something who doesn't care what others think, and quite possibly gets a buzz from p'ing other people off in a 'I won/you lost') kind of way.
'Do it or do not do it: You will regret both' - Kierkegaard

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by earthfriendly » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 1:08 pm

Hmnnn.....don't think shaming works in the long run. And it creates a whole sleuth of problems unto itself.

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by x9200 » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 1:26 pm

Probably the only way with all the (pre)conditioning around for already close to 2 generations (and some well beyond) would be to impose fines (and more importantly, execute them).

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 1:54 pm

x9200 wrote: (and more importantly, execute them).
The fines or the Generations? :cool:
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by rajagainstthemachine » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 2:26 pm

Back on the subject of Informal conversations with customers. I was at the post office today, the customer was a Japanese woman. The post office tried to deliver her package but she wasn't there at home, so she'd come to the Post office to collect it. The lady at the counter genuinely wanted to help her but the manner in which it was put across to the woman seemed rude/authoritative, and then the two women wouldn't let each other complete their sentences, the Japanese woman was peeved that she had to come all this way to the post office and only to be told by the woman at the counter that they didn't have the package.
Moreover things went bad when the lady at the counter asked for her ID, to which she flatly refused. She then left cursing under her breath and the lady at the counter slammed something on the table. The next girl in line was trembling a bit as she approached her turn.
Totally avoidable circumstances in my opinion.
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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by JR8 » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 4:54 pm

Did the JPnese lady have the 'We tried to deliver xyz but you were out' card?

That would have told her from where and when to collect it. Nothing further needs to be discussed. If not, then tough luck IMHO...
'Do it or do not do it: You will regret both' - Kierkegaard

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by x9200 » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 5:47 pm

It happened to me at least once that I had the 'We tried to deliver..." advice and came over to the right place after the time specified in the advice (i.e. next day after 2pm) and my parcel was not there.
It happened to me a number of times that I found out from the tracking info that there was an attempt to deliver yet there was no advice left.
Interestingly vast majority of these cases took place when my post office was Ghim Moh.

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by Addadude » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 6:22 pm

To JR8's point about the effectiveness of campaigns in changing social behaviour, I'll have to say that having myself worked on many of them over the years, They. Simply. Don't. Work.

When I worked on the 1995 Courtesy Campaign - "Courtesy. That's My Kind of World" - we had to create a TV commercial that showed specific examples of courtesy that were totally lacking in Singapore society: offering your seat on the bus to someone who needed it more than you ( :lol: :lol: :lol: ), arriving on time for wedding dinners ( :lol: :lol: ) and holding the door open for others ( :lol: :lol: :lol: ). Well, you know how effective that campaign was... In fact, even during our WIP meetings with the Courtesy Committee, there were certain high-ranking members who were consistently late for every meeting, holding things up for everybody.

I've worked on 2 consecutive Clean & Green Week campaigns. And, if you've ever walked through a HDB estate first thing in the morning before the foreign worker cleaners have had time to do their job, you'll see first hand that those campaigns (and all the others down through the years) haven't worked either.

The fact is, it's a matter of upbringing and the 'gahment' can blather on all it likes, and the 'authorities' can issue fine after fine, but if generation after generation are being brought up to consider helping out "strangers" through simple acts of courtesy as being meaningless, and that all the crap they leave behind them will be picked up by 'lesser beings' who are "delighted to have the privilege" of coming to Singapore and living in hovels while working for a pittance and being exploited by unscrupulous employers, then all these efforts and countless millions on media spend are completely wasted.

Shite. Even my infamous "Low Crime Doesn't Mean No Crime" line hasn't prevented imbeciles from 'choping' tables at Starbucks and McDonalds with bags and mobile phones!

Oh God. I'm turning into SMS...
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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Mon, 22 Dec 2014 9:14 pm

:cool: You could do worse! :-P
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by Brah » Tue, 23 Dec 2014 7:26 pm

Addadude wrote:To JR8's point about the effectiveness of campaigns in changing social behaviour, I'll have to say that having myself worked on many of them over the years, They. Simply. Don't. Work.

The fact is, it's a matter of upbringing and the 'gahment' can blather on all it likes, and the 'authorities' can issue fine after fine, but if generation after generation are being brought up to consider helping out "strangers" through simple acts of courtesy as being meaningless......

Oh God. I'm turning into SMS...
Or me.

Although of late I have started liking the place a bit more than I had, I've pretty much given up on people here adopting a humanistic character in public situations. The few who do are greatly outweighed by the many who don't, it ain't gonna change while I am here and I gave thinking it might long ago.

At least these behaviors are universally recognized.

On the upside, it makes me appreciate how personable and decent most people are from where I am originally from, despite their marginalized image in a lot of valid albeit occasionaly warranted stereotypes.

I blame kiasu on it all, it just makes every normal situation a case of who wins/who loses.

Oddly in Japan it gets stiflingly the opposite, of "you win" "no, you win".
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Re: Singapore Informal Conversations with Customers

Post by JR8 » Tue, 23 Dec 2014 8:27 pm

Hahaha.... ^+1

I think that's one reason, amongst all the others, that it's such a wonderful place to visit: They're just so ridiculously courteous it is almost embarrassing at times.
'Do it or do not do it: You will regret both' - Kierkegaard

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