12/07/2011

A dull Sinkie joke

This joke will always make a come back whenever there is a price hike in public service. For so many years whenever the public transport operators announced a fare increase, you will hear Sinkies saying it is okay if the service is improved. And if this logic holds true, the service quality of our public transport must be better than any premium services in the whole world. But the sad truth is that the service quality will remain the same everytime. Any improvement will be cosmetic and will not last more than a few weeks.

Now we are looking at the impending taxi fare hike next week and some Sinkies are already bring this joke back. They would not mind if the fare hike will also mean better service. And this joke will be the joke of the town until next week, then forgotten till the next fare hike.

When has any fare hike or salary increase brought about improvement in the quality of services? Even when people got million dollar pay hike, the quality of service is still the same or may even get worst. Sinkies better get use to this joke and acknowledge that it is just a joke.

The only one that is serious in making people pay more for better services or quality is Vivian Balakrishnan. Recently he is calling for the upgrading of professionalism in hawkers. See, improve, be more professional, these must come first. Then when the quality and services are better, the announcement for higher prices will be accepted willingly. This is a big deviation from the norm, that high prices mean high quality.

But this time the official reason is higher cost. Nothing to do with quality of service. And the increasing demand of taxi services due to increasing population, which should translate into more income, is not even talked about.

I must say that Vivian got it right this time. Improve first and price hike later. As for the dull Sinkie joke, I am wondering whether the joke is dull or the Sinkies are dull. I know Sinkies are famed for being daft.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Correction...Only the 60.1% Sinkies are daft...

Anonymous said...

How much does he knows besides knowing how to waste money?
Not his money mah.Cannot come out with better idea and keep repeating the same old story.
Ask him to go private sector and see whether he is worth so much.
You never feel how his face change when he had difficulty answering a student on TV meh.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

I detest the ego of the Vivian Bully-kitchi.

I am all for improving quality -- but it should be voluntary and come from the boss of the enterprise. But this fucker is like a slave driver.

He is no EVERYONE'S self-appointed BOSS even though he has never run a hawker stall nor worked as a cabbie.

What an arse.

Anonymous said...

To kill two birds with one stone over whether the joke is dull or the sinkies are dull, just call it dull sinkies cracking dull jokes.

QED

Anonymous said...

"And the increasing demand of taxi services due to increasing population, which should translate into more income, is not even talked about."
When the recession fully hit here with jobless FTs balek kampong, they can then have the excuse that demand has fallen and they need to yet revise upward the fares to maintain the taxi drivers' incomes. But they never have to reduce the taxis' rentals despite yearly record breaking profits. They own this place and so they can always squeeze more rents from the rest of the people who cannot do without them (how else to explain the 60.1%?).

Ng Eng Hou said...

This is a real sick joke. When fares or prices of anything are to be increased or raised, there're all sorts of excuses. Last time,it was for the purpose of providing better services. Now they know saying the same thing sound ridiculous,since this is never going to happen. How is there the incentive to improve services when prices are raised beforehand? The motivation to improve services will be dull or blunted by the preempted increases. Now for this round of fare increase, they're suddenly so kind to say this is for the benefit of taxi drivers. Reminds me when they last raised the GST from 5% to 7%, giving the excuse that this is going to help the poor.Of course, by now, we should know how much of the increased GST has effectively helped the poor. How much will this round of fare increase help taxi drivers? Judging by what they said they were used the increased GST to help the poor people, I don't have too high hopes of this going to help the taxi drivers or the commuters.

We're All Being Screwed Up Big Time Again & Again

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi Eng Hou, welcome to the blog.

Though we think that this is a sick joke, some sinkies are taking it very seriously. More on better services in the ST forum. And they really believe that you pay more and the service will improve.

The ah peh will still be the same ah peh in the driver's seat. Maybe they should bring in the mei meis to drive taxis then there will be some improvement in the service, with some training in professionalism thrown in.

Anonymous said...

Your wish for meimeis to drive taxi in Sin may just come true. Some of the lady bus drivers get plenty of smiles from male paxs.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Some are saying that the taxi fare hike is a prelude to the management's pay hike. Now this isn't difficult to figure. Whenever there is a hike, just trace the path of the revenue and it is easy to guess where it will end up.

Sinkies are getting smarter. Want a pay hike, want big bonuses, get the average sinkies to pay mah.

Anonymous said...

Actually, really, no lah. the fare hike is for taxi drivers. The management only get big bonuses when the profit is good. This can only come from higher rentals from the taxis and not from fare hikes.