This is really long, but please bear with me.

Before today, I've always believe if you are nice to people, people would eventually be nice to you. Since young, my schools taught me to give and give and give some more. I remembered one teacher once told me, "If you do good stuff, good things will happen to you." As a kid, I obviously believed her and grew up giving a lot. In fact, way too much.

We were also taught how nice and sweet a country we are, and what polite and generous citizens we have. I have never expect this thought to change. As I start stepping into the working world, I slowly discover the ugliness of this city. Maybe because I travel a lot. I've been to places enough to realise how ugly people here can get.

Just this morning, I was on my way to work when I encountered a few dramas. I know how bad this society is going down the drain and the only nice people left around are the elderlies. But just this morning, all these respect towards our senior citizens changed. I can't condemn everyone, because I know there are still nice people out there. But trust me, people I met today does not deserve a single bit of respect.

As I was making my way towards the train station gantry, this old man, probably around early 70s, kicked the back of my feet. I turned around checking if I had tripped him, and upon knowing he's fine he shot me down with a sentence that sent a bunch of nausea down my throat. "Don't look at me. You were blocking my way." was what he said.

I wasn't on my earphones, and I was walking extremely fast due to the fact that I was late for work again. I honestly don't understand how I can block his way when I was walking extremely fast and in front of him the entire time.
Even if I really did block his path, the least he could do is to say excuse me.

Obviously pissed, I turned around quite a couple of times to make sure that dude don't try to attack me again. And I walked even faster just so I can get him as far away from me as possible. But he wasn't too happy with the fact that I kept turning around to look at him, he started getting louder and louder shouting, "You don't look at me!!" "I tell you you don't look at me!! You block my way!!" in Chinese. I was so glad the train arrived the moment I got to the platform. It saved me from the entire ordeal and embarrassment from what the uncle was doing.

And I thought this was as far as my disgust towards ugly humans could go.

Now, on the train. This didn't happen to me. I was right next to the old lady. She board the train at the next stop after mine. The moment she got in, she immediately hunt for a seat. There obviously isn't any. Then there was this girl, sitting on the reserved seat...... Yep, as you would have thought... Poor girl got targeted. One thing I've learnt about this country is that you should never ever fall asleep or listen to music when you're on the reserved seat. Always be alert enough to stand up anytime before someone "stomps" you.

So aunty decided to ask the girl, "Hello hello, can I have the seat thank you!"
Girl was listening to music, and sleeping. Probably not an early riser, she seems to have slept for quite a few stops.... Didn't hear aunty's request, ignored aunty. So aunty continued to probe, "HELLO. Can I have the seat?!!!!"
I swear it was so loud the entire train was staring at that girl.
When it didn't work, aunty did something so exaggerating I am loss for words.

She went straight into the girl's face and started asking her. The girl probably felt the aunty's breath and got shook awake. She jumped a little when she opened her eyes because the aunty was so close to her. Poor girl got forced off her seat because shameless aunty wasn't too happy. And then aunty started snoozing happily like nothing happened, leaving the girl all embarrassed.

This incident once again proved to me how ugly people can get. Not a single sign of gratitude, instead she sat down looking all smug. I remembered once when me and Ryan gave up seats to a couple of elderlies back in Japan, they thank us by giving us 4 buns. And they constantly thank us whenever they have a chance to. They were even nice enough to say bye to us when we were alighting the train. Japanese would probably have a heart attack if they ever visit this place. The amount of ugly people is too high to be measured.

And then, at work. We always encourage our customers to call us to check stock before coming down to make and transaction.
Today a couple of customers came down without calling and unfortunately, we ran out of stock for the item they desired. So one of them was kicking up a fuss mentioning how hard it is for them to get here and how far it is yadahyadah, and demand us to do something about it. They came down all the way, and they demand to receive what they want.
Truth is, we were really out of stock and there's nothing we could give. There were a couple of other customers there at that time and one of them decided to add oil to the already burning fire. And then they started hurling vulgarities at my colleagues, saying how incompetent we are and this is not what we should do.
I wish I could provide more details, but I do not wish to get blacklisted by another company for breaching of privacy.

So at the end of the day, we had to arrange special delivery to that guy because he was being so hard. I really think there shouldn't be any compensation for us to do on our side. It was his blunder for not calling to check before making a trip down, how is that ever our fault? It irks me to see how these people try so hard to make life difficult for part-timers like us just because they are rich enough to be splurging for us to earn.

Speaking of phone calls, people can also be difficult through phone calls too. I swear I've never met anyone as unreasonable as this lady who called. Her first sentence on the phone was, "So my husband went down today and you said there isn't any stock. If you guys keep having no stock then my voucher expire how? Are you going to be responsible? Are you able to answer for it?"
I explained to the lady that she has to call the person who issued her the voucher to extend it since the stocks are from them and it's not with us because there isn't any stock now. She continued trying to make me shoulder the blame and I got so infuriated I threw the phone over to my manager.

Somehow I had become the random target for the bullet of verbal violence because she is unhappy her husband went home empty handed. (What?)

So guys, now you know... When your girl gets you to collect something on her behalf, and it is not there, get her something else.

It makes me sick knowing that we are now living in a deteriorating world. Living in this ugly society filled with the darkness of humanity. A place where everyone complains about every single thing and even efforts made to make here a better place. It disgusts me even more to know how some people try so hard to cheat their way out of national service. I've always believe NS is the part of life where you'd learn the most, enjoy the most and probably miss the most in time to come. Because comparing to the society, army might actually be a better place that gives you a secure rice bowl. But then again, who am I to judge?

As if all these ugliness isn't enough, we have yet another bunch that loves to hurl hate anonymously into cyberspace just to tear down one's self-esteem. It's disgusting to know how bad cyberbullying is here in this country, yet nobody does much to change that fact. Instead, people are encouraging it, and I was once invited into a Facebook group filled with such bullies, posting random profiles up, selecting their next target out of those suggested.

Looking at how the later generations are changing, it makes me sad to know my kids are going to grow up here with such ugly hearts as their future mentors and role models. It makes me even more sad to know our earlier generations are not doing any better in setting an example for us.

As part of the service industry, I really wish all of you to know even one small thank you could make our day at work.
I try to be happy and treat everyone the same everyday. But it is getting extremely hard facing all these increasingly frustrated Singaporeans and continue going unappreciated by the crowd.

I finally understand why our Courtesy Mascot quit.

On 15 May 2013, Singa wrote a letter of resignation stating that he is "too tired to continue facing an increasingly angry and disagreeable society".