Pihak Berkuasa Air(PBA) rude counter staff

This morning I went to Pihak Berkuasa Air (PBA), the corporatised water authority of Penang to connect the water supply to a premise. This was my second trip for the same reason.The day before, PBA had told me I could not apply to connect the water supply as I had not brought with me the relevant documents, the latter being the latest Cukai Pintu of the address concerned. I failed to see the relevance of this document in connecting the water supply until PBA told me that the water supply can only be connected by and registered under the premise’s owner.

Imagine my dismay when I found that PBA’s computer system were “offline” today, my second trip to PBA office at KOMTAR. I asked if my application can be done manually.One of the counter staff answered sarcastically “Can’t you see the sign saying “computer offline”. I then asked how they went about with applications in the days before the advent of computers. The same staff retorted “Don’t talk about the days before computers”. Inconvenienced from red tape and rudeness as such should not be tolerated and I asked the staff for his name ( Encik Ijir, I think). I pointed out to him PBA’s Mission Statement clearly spelt out on a huge poster just directly behind him.

And what is PBA’s Mission Statement? Well, its “Friendly ,Caring and Responsive”. Under “Responsive”, the statement reads : “strive to attend to all your needs in a timely manner”.

I told him this Mission Statement is laughable as my experience this morning showed me this En.Ijir is Neither friendly nor responsive! His colleague( a rather more polite girl) apologized and told me that this En.Ijir is “not feeling well today”. I wonder how En. Ijir behaves when he feels well.

Comments anyone?