At the risk of sounding like a Debbie Downer (or should I say Sad Somchai), there may be days when we question whether we're doing well or enough at our jobs e.g. making a typo and struggling to write something relevant and fun on a weekly basis. And once that feeling takes over, you can console yourself by looking for people who're at worse at their jobs compared to you, automatically patting yourself on the back. The good news is that you don't have to look far -- and I've done that for you, dear reader. These examples should leave you thinking, "I'm not that bad."
Bangkok Bus 4.0 (out of 10)
BMTA initially planned to install e-ticket machines and cash boxes in 2,600 buses as part of their rehabilitation plan. However, the boxes were scrapped last March and the machines were cancelled earlier this week. This is because the equipment is said to be unstable. Doesn't it make you wonder how such a big plan could be carried out without testing the system before actually putting it on buses? Beats me.
DIY Voting Booth
Thai voters were upset when they had to get in serpentine queues at the Thai embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to cast early votes ahead of the March 24 election last Saturday. Some 4,000 Thais showed up and had to endure the heat while waiting in the hot sun. To add insult to injury, there were only three voting booths. Embassy staff were quick on their feet and set up another DIY booth using a beat-up cardboard box, the picture of which went viral, obviously. Also, due to the huge turnout (which they should have known in advance), the embassy extended early election voting to Sunday. The entire thing made the Election Commission look bad for being poorly prepared for the very thing that should be their utmost priority.
The voting catastrophe could be avoided had people involved communicated with each other better. Like, "Hey, we have more than 4,000 people coming over, man." And "Oh, in that case, let me double the amount of voting booths." That sounds easy enough, right?
What a Difference an Enter Make?
An announcement of candidates for Bangkok by Thai embassy in London was a huge mistake seemingly because of an inopportune "press of an enter" on the keyboard. You may need a magnifying glass for this. You see, the rows that contain party names come last for all candidates on the table, but without double-checking, the party name row for candidates at the bottom of the first page appear as the first thing on the second page, making it seems like party names should appear before candidate pictures for the rest of the table. Therefore, this may cause voters to cast their votes for the wrong person.
An official important-looking document like this needs to be read twice or even thrice. We even check and test our memes before we publish them, for Buddha's sake.
P.S. Seriously, though. Why haven't we heard of anyone being sacked or made accountable for these fails? Where's the accountability? We can't be the Land of Maipenrai all the time, na.
