Should we stand being inconvenienced for someone else's mistake?

A colleague of mine from Singapore had worked in Malaysia for 1 year and had to pay a hefty deposit to a mobile service provider (SP) to get a postpaid number. His assignment ended in January this year and, allowing time for the calls to appear in the bill, submitted his request for refund of unused amount in March. Since he does not have a postal address here, have used my home address for the service provider to send the refund cheque.

The refund cheque finally came in October, more than 6 months later. BUT, the surname was spelt wrongly. I finally found time to go to the SP's branch to get them to correct the error today. When my number was finally called, the customer service personnel confirmed that the surname was indeed spelt wrongly after checking the data in the account online. She had to go seek her supervisor's advice to decide what to do next.

When she came back, she asked if my colleague can fax over his I/C or passport for her to confirm the spelling. That's when I got puzzled and asked her "why?". Apparently, she need it to verify the spelling. So I said, "your company had to check his passport when the account was opened, the data in the computer shows the spelling as per his passport, and now you want him to fax over a copy of his passport for an error that is made by your accounts department? Let me speak to your supervisor."

This episode reminded me of what our JPN initially did, requiring the public to pay RM20 to have their religion in the I/C changed. Well, my wife was in JPN Putrajaya today with her brother and decided to check on the religion on her Mykad. The religion was indeed wrong and I told her to get in changed since she was already there. There is no charge for the change if it is for religion so at least JPN has corrected that flaw. I'm quite sure the religion on my Mykad is wrong too so I'll have to get mine done later.

As for the refund cheque, the lady finally advised that they will send a replacement cheque, which will take 1 month.

How does tax cut works?

I came across an old mail that I received some time ago. I thought I'd post it here to share with everyone.

You've heard the cry in the past "It's just a tax cut for the rich!" and it is accepted as fact. But what does that really mean?

The following explanation may help.

Suppose that every day, 10 men go out for dinner. The bill for all 10 comes to $100. They decided to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, and it went like this:
The first four men (the poorest) paid nothing.
The fifth paid $1.
The sixth $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The tenth man (the richest) paid $59.

All 10 were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner
said: "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."

So now dinner for the 10 only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

The first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But how should the other six, the paying customers, divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth and sixth men would each end up being paid to eat.

The restaurateur suggested reducing each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, thus:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off, and the first four continued to eat for free, but outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!". "That's right," exclaimed the fifth man.

"I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks! "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!". The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner. The nine sat down and ate without him, but when they came to pay the bill, they discovered that they didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of it.

That, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

Does this sound reasonable?

Who or what is a hot blogger?

I just returned from Singapore and picked up the Newpaper to read while waiting for my plane to depart. I came across an article about a primary school teacher who blogged about her private life which is on the risque side. The blogger's profession was uncovered as she inadvertantly linked some photos of her school's excursion to her blog site. There were quite a few opinions solicited on whether teachers should blog about things on the risque side. Here is the online version of the article, Oh Teacher Behave.

Meanwhile, I read Jeff Ooi's Screenshots where he wrote about Dawn Yang set to be the hottest celebrity blogger. There is even a website that ranks female bloggers according to their looks. I guess the voting must be done by guys.

Another blogger, Wendy or xiaxue. was quoted as saying that Dawn is just pretty girl with a blog site. Having gone through some of the blog sites of those listed in hottestblogger.com, I guess she may have a point.

I guess writing blogs is a bit like advertising. Why would one write if there is no one reading?

National Integrity Day?

When I read the tagline for this story, I began pondering. Have we deteriorated so much that we need a National Integrity Day to remind us how to have integrity? We even have a Malaysian Institute of Integrity set up just for this. I wonder what we have been teaching our children during moral and religious classes in schools. Webster defines integrity as "adherence to to a code of moral, artistic, or other values". Oxford defines it as "the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles". Have we deteriorated to such an extent that honesty and moral principles have taken a back seat that we need to have a national integrity day to instil back honesty and moral principles back into the populace. Does this mean that the moral and religious classes in schools have failed?

Perhaps our country have been very successful in leadership by example. I remember the phrase "kepimpinan melalui teladan" or "leadership by example". So if we say something and do something else, people will follow what we do, not what we say. Someone once said, "what you do speak so loud that I cannot hear a word you say".

This 1895 poem is a very meaningful piece of work by Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Perhaps there was more honour among men at the turn of the 20th century.