It's a "wait, wait..." society

Everywhere we turn to people are asking us to wait. Different languages spoken to ask for the same thing from us. "Wait a moment, please." or "Wait ar." Or even "Qing shao deng yi xia.". How long is that "moment" actually going to be - well, who knows? Not even the person who had asked you to wait.

Sick and tired of waiting, Singaporeans developed a culture of "kiasuism". Because waiting consumes time, and time is precious, it cannot be retrieved no matter what, therefore to reduce the extensive waste of time, they become "kiasu". To the world outside, this may seemed a bad reflection of their principles of life - they are desperate not to lose out. But is it really just that?

Although not a native, but living in Singapore for so many years, I too feel the need to be kiasu sometimes. I came to realise that every corner of this country is requesting for the same thing, and such a request is possibily one of the reasons that cultivated an intrinsic "kiasu-ism" in every native. If we miss a bus or a train, we might have to wait for another ten to fifteen minutes for the next one, so why wait? Why not die-die get on this one, so I don't have to do the waiting? (I might also escaped the terror of getting marked for being late.)

There are also other things that required true blue waiting. If I need to process an important legal document, I need to first take a half-day (or maybe, a whole day) leave from work, then proceed to the building to do the processing. There, I have to first wait in line for about twenty minutes to get my queue number, and the brief information about which counter I had to proceed to. After which, I had to possibly wait for another hour, before the number on the screen finally revealed the number on my queue ticket. Then, when the moment I've been waiting for has arrived, but after a brief audience with the consultant or officer, I noticed that the actual processing of the document took only ten minutes. Shortly afterwhich, I'm back to waiting for another hour (worst case scenario - maybe two) to make payment, which, needless to say, took only five minutes. As the number of processing stages increases, my waiting time increases, and half of my day's time (worst case scenario - whole day) will be exhausted. When I leave the building, there is just enough time to go home for dinner.

Yes, our voices are heard. Our pleads are well-received. The solution? Customer service hotline, and online services. Good or bad? You decide. For me - the customer service is just another portal for the same request. "Our care consultants are busy at the moment. Your call is important to us. Please wait, and we'll attend to you shortly." And of course, I was attended to after waiting for one hour, with the phone tightly tugged to my right ear. I bet many users of such supposed solutions to longer waiting time might have provided their heartfelt feedback to the "customer service people", but so far, the wait goes on.

Of course voicing out problems is one thing, finding the appropriate solution is another. As customers, we do expect the people servicing us to "solve the problem". But often people wonder - how? Well, there are countries on the globe in our vicinity who has set pretty good examples. They might not have entirely solved the problem, but they provided solutions that actually better the situation; not make it worse. They promised to reduce the frequency of asking customers to wait, and they did. They ensure that waiting time will be shortened, and they did. I mean seriously, if the best you can do is this, us, being on the receiving end of your service, would truly appreciate the effort, as there are signs of improvement.

So much for yapping on a bad experience with customer care service hotline. I mean, frankly, they do care - I can definitely feel the sincerity. But unfortunately, maybe they are busy caring for so many people, they sincerely needed you to wait a moment, please, before they could shower you with the same attention.