Tuesday, September 16, 2003

mistaken identity

yup, it's back to the hell hole for me. after a week's worth of blissful idleness, i'm back to college, back to work, and back to a possibility of screwing up my finals. but i shall not whine. if i do screw up it's my fault.

talking about screwups, my father was somewhat involved in a mistaken identity screwup by one of the ministries in malaysia. you see, he needed a "good citizen" letter to secure his new job in macau and so, like a good citizen, he applied for one and left for the island.

his letter never came.

so, my mum called up the ministry...and was shocked to learn that his application was *horror* rejected! good gracious. must admit that i was shocked too. my father - faithful government servant till 10 years ago and who returned to government service for 2 years (i think) before his new position in macau - a criminal?

that's so absolutely absurd!!!

after a whole day of anxiety, my mum called up bukit aman, got hold of a police whatchamacallit guy who told her that he also felt it "odd" for a distinguished gentleman like my father to have a criminal record. turns out there's some dude out there with the same name who's been naughty and his records were mixed up with my dad's.

right.

the first questions that come to mind are: did they bother to check with the IC numbers, which was the most sensible thing to do? no. did they bother to recheck the files since they found it "odd"? no.

it was a very good thing my mother called them up asap or else a letter of rejection would have been issued and my dad would have to go through a painful appeal plus risk his job. in the end, after much bugging and rushing, my mum got the letter - which consisted of a paragraph stating that my dad had "no adverse records" with the government - in her hands 4 days from when she recieved the shocking news that my father was not a "good citizen".

the ordeal left my mother rather drained, and it was rather painful for me to see her go through it, without being able to be of much help. it made me think about how everything could have easily been avoided had they either checked my father's records using his IC rather than his name (how absurd!) or double checked when the pieces clearly did not fit.

it's just a case of when you think "certain people" could not screw up any worse, they just go and prove you wrong.

special thanks to the guy at bukit aman who helped calm my mother down, and also to the lady at the ministry who was patient enough to endure my mum's bugging.

(tagboard's still up. click "past".)

lishun at 10:08 PM

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