It Was Only 10 minutes For Me

When I walked into the post office on Saturday morning to claim my petrol rebate, I was expecting to see a long beeline of people lining up waiting to collect their monies. It is only reasonable since we are only taking back what is rightfully ours to begin with and RM625 is no small sum more so thousands who are entitled for it. Anyway, I choose an obscure post office tuck away in a least expected area where most are unaware that a post office can be found in such a publicly accessible location i.e. Puduraya bus station. I was hoping the beeline would be like 20 to 30 people.

Source: http://eeveehow.blogspot.com/2007/08/puduraya-place-that-i-must-visit-before.html

Instead, to my surprise, I was the second "customer" being served with no beeline. A lady with a sweet smile approached and asked if I am here for the petrol subsidy. I said yes and she gave me a form. She told me to fill it up and take my number. Being kiasu, I took the ticket.

And surprise, surprise, the whole think too me less than 10 minutes and I was elated to be handed with RM625. Did I hit a jackpot in terms of getting quick and efficient service from a quasi government department?

Meanwhile, my wife walked in not too long after. By then, there were about 3 to 4 other customers after her who intend on getting their subsidies too. You can see their happy faces. One even commented after getting the ticket that before he could sit down, his number was called. Things were moving quickly.

After my wife collected her petrol rebate, she told me the courteous and chatty counter person told her that apparently, there was a long queue before we walked in. Perhaps it was prophetic or just being cynical, apparently the system did go down for 30 minutes and the crowd left. We were lucky to walk in shortly after the system came back online.

In some ways, we are glad to be served so quickly (Praise the Lord for that!). But imagine the poor souls who have to wait for hours waiting for the post office to open in other places only to be told the system is down. My friend told me when she went to the Old Klang Road Post Office at noon, her ticket number indicated she has to wait for another 300 people to be served first. And there weren't even 300 people there!

While waiting, she casually chatted with another petrol rebate claimer and found out that lady took her number at around 9.30 am (who was still waiting for her turn then). That lady told her that most people left and came back later. Then, the lady was kind enough to give her a ticket. She looked and realised it was only about 30 plus people ahead of her. The lady apparently took two numbers by accident. As a result, my friend only waited for half an hour. Needless to say, she thanked the Lord too...:)

But to be fair, true to what Pos Malaysia said, we took about 3 minutes to be served at the counter. Pos Malaysia deserves our appreciation for that.