Member of Parliament (MP) Denise Phua said that staff from
a government agency were verbally abused by highly-educated
residents in an affluent estate.
The MP for Moulmein-Kallang GRC wrote in a Facebook status
update on Thursday that these residents used vulgarities to scold
the civil servants, who felt discouraged after the incident.
Some who reacted to her Facebook post were sympathetic to the
staff who experienced such behaviour from well-educated
Singaporeans, with one saying, "We are a civilised society and this
is uncalled for."
Others have described such behaviour as part of a "vicious
cycle" where "difficult" civil servants abuse their authority and
consequently residents treat them poorly. The situation is then
worsened when these civil servants react badly to such
treatment.
One netizen, New Cow, recalled witnessing an incident
when a government officer insisted that that the co-owner in a flat
application must be present for the man to collect his house keys,
despite his wife being in the hospital to give birth.
As a result, according to the netizen, the man gave up his
chance to collect his house key.
In a comment to Ms Phua's post, local blogger Ravi Philemon
questioned the context of the residents' behaviour towards the
government officers mentioned.
He also asked: "Are they just disgruntled that residents hold
staffs of govt agencies to higher standards now?"
While she did know the context of the case, Ms Phua replied that
she would use this incident as a learning point to work on "two of
the most difficult life skills: giving and receiving feedback."
-- Yahoo!