The UnSub

With clever use of words, our dear ministers have shift the blame to Singaporeans, inanimate objects and of course, our prized foreign talents. Yes, I understand very well the verse “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…”. Still, it makes me wonder where is the line between complacency & negligence.

“If you generate the culture that nobody wants to make mistakes and (is) afraid to do something for fear of making mistakes, that - as Dr Goh Keng Swee used to say - would be the biggest mistake of all,” said Mr Lee.

This statement would depend very much on the context of the so-call mistake. Taking initiatives to improve, trying out new ideas or ways and learning from failures, I believe is the more relevant context of the so call “making mistakes”.

In this toilet break case, the mistakes are definitely not acceptable. By not following up with a miscommunicated renovation work, CCTV that were not functional and a string of stupidities. Finally, to let the detainee (now celebrity) pee in his privacy behind close doors is definitely not the type of mistakes that any sector, whether private or government would encourage. Such blunders committed is as good as leaving your service revolver or rifle at a public toilet!

The public wants a sincere apology, not some well-crafted statements and clever use of words to push the blame to complacency and in turn to Singaporeans at large. It is not surprising that many Singaporeans wants some head to roll since we are the indirect pay-masters of all these civil servants who are taking it easy.

To a large extent, it is true that we have ourselves to blame for the state we are in since we voted for the people who are in control. Who else do you want to vote during the elections? If there is anywhere to punish the prevailing party, it is at the voting box.

I think NETS is quite hard up for cash. See Mr Brown’s entry: http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2008/04/dear-nets.html

An excerpt from CNA’s “Empathy, diverse viewpoints needed in policy-making”

On hindsight, the LTA could have consulted “a little bit more, whether it’s the commuters or the taxi companies”, said Ms Tan, 32, a Public Service Commission overseas scholar. “That cannot pre-empt all the problems. Hopefully, that would help them get a better sense of what people actually want.”

Mr Lim, also a scholar, said empathy was a “critical” quality for a civil servant, particularly when it comes to policies impacting the needy. In fact, his wife, a lawyer who “is probably one of the biggest critics”, is his perfect sounding board for any policy ideas he has. “If I can’t defend it to her, there would be problems,” Mr Lim, 33, said in jest.

I guess the ability to empathize is not properly measured while selecting these scholars who may have high IQ and necessary “inter-personal” skills for interviews. Perhaps, these people (who are drivers) responsible for endorsing their under-researched policy are those who can never imagine what it is like to take a cab, and possibly been pissed by a taxi driver on the road at some point in time.

Honestly speaking, the outcomes and possibilities of enforcing such policy are not exactly rocket science and anyone with a decent amount of common sense can imagine what can happen. The lack of empathy shows that the system here works more with IQ than EQ. In any case, to make a taxi behave like a bus in the CBD is nothing ingenious or intelligent.

http://cameh.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/education-corporation/ a well-written and interesting entry on our education system. As I am still reading “What Happy Companies Know” by Dan Baker et al, I can’t help it but link the concepts and contrasts of businesses driven by fear vs that of love in our own education system.

Given the young impressionable minds who are going through our system geared towards winning competitions, for the majority who do not thrive on winning, it is reasonable to assume their motivator is fear. Fear of not winning, fear of not doing well comparatively, fear of not living up to the system standards. Then again, I might be over-generalizing and victimizing our youth too quickly with my opinions and views without proper statistics.

Hopefully, the highlighted badminton CCA (Co-Curricular activities) incident is just one of the minority incidents. It is fair to assume the parent who invested training for the 2nd son for badminton did it out of the child’s interest instead for the sake of the CCA system. Unfortunately, as system evolve, we are left to wonder if the original intention of CCA has turned into yet another metric serve to fuel unhealthy competition.

Even though our young society managed to enjoyed economic success in a short time, we really have to consider NOT engaging in things out of fear, but from appreciation and understanding why we are doing what we are doing.

This is one major screw-up that we have to live with. Suppose if Mas Selamat is still Singapore, would he walk around with his attire or put up some sort of disguise?

No offense, but the likelyhood of disguising himself as a woman does not require a PhD to figure out. Getting a woman head-cover is a good start for him… and to assume he has no resources on this island is simply underestimating the adversary.

I understand the racial/religious sensitivity of this issue. However, naively putting up posters of his plain face is simply conditioning people to look at the wrong way.