world-class? my foot.

i shudder to think what will happen if i were on one of those trains that were stuck on thursday. maybe i would have been a hero since i would try to force open the door. there are 2 camps here: one believes that the transport operator should not be blamed since these are one-off (contradictory in itself) incidents. the other believes that the transport operator should be censured and i belong to this camp.

first of all, the proponents of the 'forgive and forget' camp were probably a) not on the trains and b) never had to take the train. in today's business times, a housewife (?!) commented that singaporeans should forget the incident and move on. i wonder how many times she has to take the train and why did the paper even interview her. train rides are getting increasingly crowded despite so-call changes made to improve efficiency. trains are supposed to arrive 3 - 4 minutes apart but there have been lapses.

fortunately, perhaps, there were not any pregnant women about to give birth or old people susceptible to heart attacks. there was another disruption to services today (which explains the jam on stevens road). so that's 2 major disruptions in 3 days. a minor hiccup? considering that these happen during the busiest time belts (evening on thursday and morning on saturday) of the week, i think some interesting statistics will turn up if someone (not me, but maybe the transport minister or the ceo of the transport operator) does the maths of the economic impact of lost man-hours.

let's face it: public transport in singapore is not world class, not by any measure.

the powers that be have been issuing cautious statements that can be written by a journalism student straight out of school. no mentions of accountability. it will be interesting to see the fine meted out to the transport operator this time.

on the economic front, things are happening. at last.

1-month hiatus

november passed and i didn't post anything in that month. wow. anyway, was kind of busy with 2 trips (philippines and hong kong).

work - 1 colleague just left, another's leaving, 2 new ones have joined. there's probably going to be a slight change in office dynamics so let's see how that pans out. had 2 pretty good trips and hong kong was really rocking. our development there has been fantastic over the past few months and the people there are really kicking it up a few gears. very happy with what i saw and heard. also, managed to see more of hong kong this time when they brought me around. it's funny how differently you view hong kong as a tourist and then as a tourist with a local guide.

another fantastic piece of news is that as a region, the portfolio under my care is growing by leaps and bounds (almost twice that of last year). far be it for me to claim credit but it feels good to be part of this achievement.

and oh yeah, christmas is approaching since this is december with chinese new year not far behind. have many photos to add but i guess those can wait.