A slip of the hand. 8/26/2006
I managed to get my passport sorted out yesterday. My number was called, I walked up to the counter. I exchanged pleasantries with the officer behind the counter, and he handed me my new passport.
He told me to sign here, here, here and here. I was about to put my signature in the new passport, when a kid, about 6 years old, ran up to counter, jostled my elbow, grabbed his water bottle which he had left on my counter, and ran off. I muttered a “Hey”, and thought no more of it. Until I looked down, and saw that my signature now looked like something Andy Warhol might have drawn. There was a thick black line crossing the entire width of the page.
I cursed, and showed the page to the officer. He gasped, and muttered an apology. I asked him what we could do about it. He said he could give me a new passport for Monday. I said that wouldn’t be any good, because my flight was at 0900 Monday morning. He was really apologetic, since he knew it wasn’t my fault. He consulted his senior officer, showing him my now defaced passport, and the officer come over to me.
He asked if I could wait an hour or so, and they would give me a new passport. Since I didn’t have any choice, I agreed, and went off to find someplace to have coffee. I was fuming inside at the bad manners of this kid, who rushed off without even an apology, and no thought about what he had done wrong. There are times when I really feel that parents should be held accountable for their kids. They had never taught this kid not to interrupt adults, or queue up to wait his turn. All he knew what that he had to get what he wanted, and who gives a fuck about anyone else. Which is fairly typical of the mindset of some people.
I finally got my passport a half hour later, being invited into the inner office to do so. I sat down, and again received an apology from the officer, even though it wasn’t the department’s fault in any way. It is nice to see professionalism making a come back into the civil service, even if it is just in a small way.
- Posted in : Work Bitching
- Author : thesnark
Comments»
even if the kid apologized, it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. We don’t teach our kids to just apologize. We teach them not to do something wrong.
*aisehman, I feel so ‘yeah’ talking like a real parent.
Yea, for whats it’s worth, i really do think the immigration department is the nicest goverment department to deal with…
Like that kid, typical mindset of my PM, which is killing everybody else.
My first reaction was to say, “Hey, cut the kid some slack. He’s only 6, after all.”
But then I thought of my 6 year-old daughter, and realized that she would never be so impolite.
We have taught her better than that. So yeah, parents definitely should be held accountable.
Unfortunately, it seems accountability isn’t very fashionable these days. I’m glad everything
turned out for the best.
Ride well,
=gc=
It’s really nice for the immigration office to do so.
I just feel proud of how they handle the case. Kudos to them.
ow3ned by a kid, LOL
kiddo no longer afraid of the hairy bear? tsk tsk tsk. you are loosing it man, bwahahaha!
Who say Malaysian are rude? We are brought up rude anyway.
Maybe the kid wanted to know whether he was looking at a walking teddy? heh.
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