Scolded in Singapore: "Wasting time!!"

Chances are if you've lived in Singapore, you've probably had the welcoming experience of getting scolded by the locals here. It might come from a cashier, taxi driver, customer service, concierge, fast food worker, or just a random person on the street, but you've had that experience. And you might not know when or who or where you're gonna get scolded next, but you sure as hell know it's coming.

Most times when it happens, you get pissed at it. But I have realized if enough time has passed, they make for good stories for my blog. So here's one.

So last year I went to Funan Mall to accompany my friend who wanted to buy a camera for her sister. Generally, I tend to stay away from places like Funan and Sim Lim because I know even though they generally have good deals on electronics, there's a good chance to get shouted at by one of the shopkeepers. It doesn't help that Sim Lim also looks and feels as shady as that Indian guy who tries to hypnotize you along Orchard Road (which is a story for another post).

Funan Mall - Buy something or GTFO.

Nevertheless, we go to Funan and picked a random shop to start our hunt for the best deal. This first shop gave us a price of around $1100ish, which I thought was a good deal. So I told the lady thanks, but we'll go and have a look around the other shops first. So off we go. We go around the mall asking out the price of this camera and almost all of them gave us something like $1200. So we go back to that first shop that was willing to sell for $1100ish.

We go there and we say we wanna buy, so she opens the box and lets us inspect and look around for a bit. While we're inspecting the thing, I ask and make sure that the price is $1100ish. And now she tells us its $1100ish + tax which makes it $1200. I'm a bit annoyed, but by this point I'm too tired to be looking anywhere else, so I say alright. We go to the ATM, get $1200 in cash, and come back to the shop.

All we needed to do was hand her the money and take the camera. But before she wraps everything up, she asks us if we needed the screen protector. So I tell my friend to call up her sister and ask her if she wanted the screen protector. As it turns out, her sister had already bought the camera the day before and forgot to tell my friend.

My friend suggested we lie to the lady and tell her we'll be right back and bail. But I thought the poor lady would be waiting for us the whole day, so I decided to just tell her the truth. I thought it was no big deal since we didn't cause the shop to lose anything and we were literally the only customers there. I told the lady what happened and apologized profusely. She's now confused about the whole thing and tells her boss. I then apologized to the boss. Profusely again. I must've said sorry like 10 times by this point. The boss looked at us, but didn't say anything, so we walk away all the while still saying sorry.

So we turned our backs and walked away thinking the whole thing is done and over with. From the back of our heads we hear "WASTING TIMEE!!". It was the boss. We ignored him and walked faster.

See, I get that he would be pissed. We did waste his time. But how much time did he really lose over us? Probably 10 minutes tops. And it's not like he had any other customers in line, me and my friend were literally the only ones there. So what's the use of shouting at your customers? Cuz it sure as hell is not gonna make me come back there ever again. In fact, if he hadn't had said anything, it is very possible that I'd go back to that shop the next time I need something, but now, even if they were the only shop in the world that sold cameras, I wouldn't go back there. I'll just learn to draw really well.