Hardly got the time to read news papers since I hadn't got much time to care about my appearance. Surprisingly, this news article in Sunday Times Life pulled my attention as naturally as though there was an unavoidable electromagnetic force. And I felt there was something to blog about.
This interesting article, maybe within expectation and has low "informational content" to some, revolved around recent criticisms toward Singaporeans, pin-pointing none other than their virtues of graciousness.
In my opinion, since the criticisms were generalised, I honestly feel the general lot of us are not as bad as what others are perceived about us.
It is a fact that Singaporeans are not expressively-demonstrating how or what a few are expecting of us (due to their past experience/encounters at their hometowns, backgrounds) or others commenting for the sake of doing so. Well, that's primarily because our early generations are guarded with strict obeservations of chinese cultures. But, thing is, we do not have any regulations on "graciousness" or was it a line in the "mantra".
If I ever have the chance to meet her, I'd have told her, "Please, honestly, I don't think you have the looks which most customers would require your service. Perhaps its your half-past-six attitude which customers wanna avoid you."
In respect to the above, the crucial part is to ellaborate on the differences between "salesperson", "sales assistant" and a "service-provider".
The first can be performed by any Tom, Dick and Henry or Jane, Lily or Mary. He/she is someone who has engage anybody who brings a foot into the shop and they have an infallible attitude that it's "gracious" to welcome and tag around the customer like scrotch-tape, and because of this, they expect the customers to react to such displeasing service.
"Sales assistant" are the objective role of anybody in the sales industry. They provide assistance only when the customers acquire implyingly or vocally expressed. They do what's within their duty of service. They still greet when the customers patron the shop but they establish respect for customers, maintaining distance from the customers so as not to perturb the customers in their browsing period.
Finally, the most adored are "service provider" (*slap slap, not talking about redlight or pornstars), these are sales assistants who go beyond the expected responsibilities of their jobs. They obeserve and understand their customer prior having their attitude and knowledge are efficiently employed to gain customers' trust, allowing for service values.
I shop alot. Greetings are ok. I always smile in acknowledgement and give a slight nod to show modesty. I don't like "salesperson" hawking around as though I am a prey. It irritates me when I'm browsing. The ace mistake is salespersons fail to give customers browsing time which otherwise led to their buying decisions after certain period of consideration. When you "bite" your customers, your pressence as a stranger perturbs your customers and it causes them discomfort and spoils their shopping. The next flaw is when I try to get attention and you fail to meet. That means you're not fulfiling basic responsibility. Of course, it's forgivable when there's more than 4 customers. But anywhere less than that, you're a goner man.
There are occassions when customers like to "ga ki lai" (self-service in Hokkien). Respect the customers. Service providers don't criticise about customers' attitude. Even uneducated cab-drivers don't think that of passengers. So I think the girl who feedback in the newspaper, I bet there's nobody around and you "bite" the customers. You fail to recognised the customer's browsing. Or you're just not professional enough to recognise the customer and complaining (no.. more like whinning) like Singaporean of "low tolerance".
Not refering to current affairs and legitimate world news, press are the inevitable culprit. They do selective publishing of surveys they obtain. Anyway, I've studied perceptive behaviours and social accounting. Both share a flawed that their empirical studies are often limited. The way article are phrases and headlined play tricks on the reader's heuristics. Here', let me share anchoring and changing heuristics. It primarily states that decision makers often based on first/initial impression and only make little adjustments with subsequent readings/materials pertaining to the same topic. Not only does the reader get attracted to read an article due to the large and bold-printed headlines, it often creates a first impression in their minds. Jackie Chan didn't specifically say "Singaporeans do not have self-respect (completely)". He meant "Singaporeans are do not possess enough self-respect." Not having and not having enough are two different thing. Readers are sensitive towards such inarticulated reporting. Remember, what you write/say has an impact on others. The responsible thing here is to question ourselves the consequences of releasing what we want to say, without compromising our freedom of speech. Generalisation are for immature arguist only.
There's nothing wrong with what Jackie Chan said. I personally feel he did not comment. That guy's merely raising an off-hand example to deliver what he's trying to say about Chinese. Well.. that guy's wrong in his example too la. We all know banning chewing gum is totally irrelevant to issue of self-respect. The government banned chewing gum because it was an environmental problem. And that led to successful "Clean and Green Singapore" campaign.
It is true Singapore is a government-regulated. I think Jack Neo's films have shown it all. What I need to comment is without regulations, there's gonna be greater disparity, more political frauds and less insecurity as compared to you-know-whom-I'm-talking-about. There was a comment about us living in a spoilt society. Think about it, certain regulations have affected us to be like this.
We are gracious (we have four races living together, what do other countries have). Just not polite enough if we compare ourselves to the Japanese. This is an inevitable fate as the nation continues to indulge itself to constant role-perceptions and deemed-standards under influence from world politics and international competitiveness, without considering cultural awareness. Like I said, there are no laws written in social-contract, double-laws, bible or mantra punishing people for deemed-ungraciousness. I don't think it is even mentioned in the Codex Gigas.
Relating back to the article, I do agree with a few comments therein about being "a matured-society". One of the gracious way is to keep our minds open and embrace any good or bad comments in the best way we can. We won't wanna take on a cynical countryman criticism, don't we.
This interesting article, maybe within expectation and has low "informational content" to some, revolved around recent criticisms toward Singaporeans, pin-pointing none other than their virtues of graciousness.
In my opinion, since the criticisms were generalised, I honestly feel the general lot of us are not as bad as what others are perceived about us.
It is a fact that Singaporeans are not expressively-demonstrating how or what a few are expecting of us (due to their past experience/encounters at their hometowns, backgrounds) or others commenting for the sake of doing so. Well, that's primarily because our early generations are guarded with strict obeservations of chinese cultures. But, thing is, we do not have any regulations on "graciousness" or was it a line in the "mantra".
If I ever have the chance to meet her, I'd have told her, "Please, honestly, I don't think you have the looks which most customers would require your service. Perhaps its your half-past-six attitude which customers wanna avoid you."
In respect to the above, the crucial part is to ellaborate on the differences between "salesperson", "sales assistant" and a "service-provider".
The first can be performed by any Tom, Dick and Henry or Jane, Lily or Mary. He/she is someone who has engage anybody who brings a foot into the shop and they have an infallible attitude that it's "gracious" to welcome and tag around the customer like scrotch-tape, and because of this, they expect the customers to react to such displeasing service.
"Sales assistant" are the objective role of anybody in the sales industry. They provide assistance only when the customers acquire implyingly or vocally expressed. They do what's within their duty of service. They still greet when the customers patron the shop but they establish respect for customers, maintaining distance from the customers so as not to perturb the customers in their browsing period.
Finally, the most adored are "service provider" (*slap slap, not talking about redlight or pornstars), these are sales assistants who go beyond the expected responsibilities of their jobs. They obeserve and understand their customer prior having their attitude and knowledge are efficiently employed to gain customers' trust, allowing for service values.
I shop alot. Greetings are ok. I always smile in acknowledgement and give a slight nod to show modesty. I don't like "salesperson" hawking around as though I am a prey. It irritates me when I'm browsing. The ace mistake is salespersons fail to give customers browsing time which otherwise led to their buying decisions after certain period of consideration. When you "bite" your customers, your pressence as a stranger perturbs your customers and it causes them discomfort and spoils their shopping. The next flaw is when I try to get attention and you fail to meet. That means you're not fulfiling basic responsibility. Of course, it's forgivable when there's more than 4 customers. But anywhere less than that, you're a goner man.
There are occassions when customers like to "ga ki lai" (self-service in Hokkien). Respect the customers. Service providers don't criticise about customers' attitude. Even uneducated cab-drivers don't think that of passengers. So I think the girl who feedback in the newspaper, I bet there's nobody around and you "bite" the customers. You fail to recognised the customer's browsing. Or you're just not professional enough to recognise the customer and complaining (no.. more like whinning) like Singaporean of "low tolerance".
Not refering to current affairs and legitimate world news, press are the inevitable culprit. They do selective publishing of surveys they obtain. Anyway, I've studied perceptive behaviours and social accounting. Both share a flawed that their empirical studies are often limited. The way article are phrases and headlined play tricks on the reader's heuristics. Here', let me share anchoring and changing heuristics. It primarily states that decision makers often based on first/initial impression and only make little adjustments with subsequent readings/materials pertaining to the same topic. Not only does the reader get attracted to read an article due to the large and bold-printed headlines, it often creates a first impression in their minds. Jackie Chan didn't specifically say "Singaporeans do not have self-respect (completely)". He meant "Singaporeans are do not possess enough self-respect." Not having and not having enough are two different thing. Readers are sensitive towards such inarticulated reporting. Remember, what you write/say has an impact on others. The responsible thing here is to question ourselves the consequences of releasing what we want to say, without compromising our freedom of speech. Generalisation are for immature arguist only.
There's nothing wrong with what Jackie Chan said. I personally feel he did not comment. That guy's merely raising an off-hand example to deliver what he's trying to say about Chinese. Well.. that guy's wrong in his example too la. We all know banning chewing gum is totally irrelevant to issue of self-respect. The government banned chewing gum because it was an environmental problem. And that led to successful "Clean and Green Singapore" campaign.
It is true Singapore is a government-regulated. I think Jack Neo's films have shown it all. What I need to comment is without regulations, there's gonna be greater disparity, more political frauds and less insecurity as compared to you-know-whom-I'm-talking-about. There was a comment about us living in a spoilt society. Think about it, certain regulations have affected us to be like this.
We are gracious (we have four races living together, what do other countries have). Just not polite enough if we compare ourselves to the Japanese. This is an inevitable fate as the nation continues to indulge itself to constant role-perceptions and deemed-standards under influence from world politics and international competitiveness, without considering cultural awareness. Like I said, there are no laws written in social-contract, double-laws, bible or mantra punishing people for deemed-ungraciousness. I don't think it is even mentioned in the Codex Gigas.
Relating back to the article, I do agree with a few comments therein about being "a matured-society". One of the gracious way is to keep our minds open and embrace any good or bad comments in the best way we can. We won't wanna take on a cynical countryman criticism, don't we.
