National Embarrassment

Until today I still can’t understand why the officers at government agencies’ can be so unhelpful and unfriendly.

I’ve gone to the Royal Malaysian Customs (at Kelana Jaya) today to make an enquiry at one of its department called “Perjenisan”, suggested by a librarian from MATRADE since they don’t have the information that I wanted.

I told a junior officer, X, I wanted the product code for ‘software’, and agreed with her that it’s the product code used for import/export purpose. I’ve enquired also if there are any different product codes under different headings. She didn’t quite get it and repeated what I’m requesting from her senior, Y, who happened to be passing by. Y first asked which company I’m representing and I told her it’s a consulting firm. She immediately commented “Consulting firm ah? I lemah lah!” (I don’think this make sense if it is translated into English, I think it shows that she couldn’t care less), and she walked away!

I was really pissed and asked myself what does she mean? Did she ignore me because I’m from a consulting firm? Or was it because she did not have time for a consulting firm BUT have time for other types of firms? Or worse still was it because she’s plain lazy? I just cannot stand this! This is not the first time I’ve gone to a government agency and got treated like this. At least I should be informed whether she could help me or not, not ignoring me like this. Nevertheless X was there to answer me, but with no smile! Then again, I was wondering if I should forgive them because I was asking them in broken Malay (My Malays sucks! and my experiences have been the juniors normally can’t understand English). Is it a communication breakdown between us or plain laziness or their part?