The Reluctant Estate Manager from Temerloh

In the last article, we talked about how quickly things can change within a short period of time. We talked about how a team from almost losing a soccer final game to becoming a champion, all within minutes. Therefore, whichever way we look at it, we must never let our guards down nor must we ever be complacent. I know - words of wisdom are always easy to say but they become a challenge when put to practice. I am going to share with you a real story regarding turning things around at the final hour. I will call the story, “the Reluctant Estate Manager”.

A few years after I was called to the Malaysian Bar, I was asked to represent an Estate Manager who was charged for harbouring illegal foreign workers. There were only two foreign workers involved but nevertheless, he was charged. If I recall correctly, the penalty and sentence then was a minimum of RM500.00 and the maximum was 2 years imprisonment. The Estate Manager was an elderly man who was in his 60s at that time. Being a junior lawyer at that time, I was handed this file as it was a case with very low chance of winning as far as the defence was concerned. During those days, it was common for junior lawyers to be given cases with very little hope for success. This was to send a message to the junior lawyers that preparing for hearing was no easy feat and to remind young lawyers to never have the mindset that handling a court case is a walk in the park, ie: expecting to win all the time.

By perusing the facts of the case, it became apparent to me that the defendant had more or less a “gone” case as it clearly shows that he had contravened the law. I asked my senior legal colleague why doesn’t he just plead guilty and we can plea bargain with the prosecution. My senior colleague informed me that route has already been suggested, explored and has in fact (informally) proposed to the prosecution where it was agreed that a minimum penalty of RM500.00 would be imposed. However, the Estate Manager was reluctant to plead guilty. His employer was even willing to fork out the fine of RM500.00 for him and also gave him the assurance that his job, seniority and salary will not be affected but nothing could change the Estate Manager’s mind. So, here I was, been given the file with no hope of winning and told to conduct the trial in a small town called Temerloh in the state of Pahang. At that time, I was the most junior lawyer in the law firm and none of the other lawyers would want to make that long drive to Temerloh, stay overnight and return the next day. Those days, the road to Temerloh was pretty winding and narrow, so it was a norm to leave a day early so that we would have enough sleep, wake up fresh and be ready for trial the next day. It also happened that the trial date coincided with the “Ramadan” fasting period so it wasn’t an easy drive to Temerloh with heavy traffic on narrow and winding roads.

I remember that I left for Temerloh from the office right after lunch and did not arrive until close to 7.00pm which was about the time for “breaking fast” during the Ramadan period. All the eateries and restaurants were crowded due to the “breaking fast”, so I went to the bazaar and bought myself 20 sticks of chicken satay and brought them to my small room in the motel for dinner. While eating, I was flipping through the file but still couldn’t find any points or silver lining that can help me in the trial tomorrow. Resigning to the fact that the case more or less would be a “goner”, I turned in early and went to sleep.

Next morning, I woke up really early, had a cup of coffee, checked out from the motel and left straight for the Court. In the Court, I met the Estate Manager face to face for the very first time (though we have spoken numerous times over the phone). He was indeed an elderly man in his sixties at that time, soft spoken and a decent fellow. I have read his biography and he has been a long and outstanding employee with his Company. The reason his employer was taking an interest in his case was because of his past track record as well as they knew that there was no malicious intention on the Estate Manager’s part. The Estate Manager was just ignorant of the law but that is no excuse when it comes to legal consequences. Since I was early, I sat down with him and talked to him about some personal stuff just to get to know him better like his years of service in the Company, his family, hometown, etc. I found the Estate Manager to be a frank, loyal, responsible and a polite man. I then asked him the million dollar question which is “Why did you hire the illegal foreign workers?” He said he didn’t know the foreign workers were illegal. To him it was simple - he needed casual workers to work in his estate and so he just engaged them. He paid them daily and went on with his normal routine. I then asked whether he had checked the foreign worker’s ID or passport. He said he did not as in the village where the estate is situated, everything is based on trust. It was a simple answer from a simple person which made the case even harder for me. I then reiterated to him about his legal position, how the law sees it and his chances of winning which are rather slim. The Estate Manager informed me that he knows his chances are very slim but he wants to go all the way in the trial even though he realised that it doesn’t make any sense to me or anyone else. I then asked him the all important question which is “why are you doing this?” This was what he said, “Do you know how humiliated I felt when the police came and handcuffed me in the middle of the night in front of my workers and villagers? They treated me as if I were a big criminal. I am the Estate Manager, holding a respectable position in the estate and the village. People look up to me and now I have been humiliated in front of my own people. Therefore, I will not make it easy for the police or anyone else to pull me down like this!” I could empathised with the Estate Manager. My next question was “How many immigration officers were there?” He replied, “none”. When I heard his reply, my eyes lit up and suddenly got excited. I told him I need to check the Immigration Act on a particular section. After reading the section over and over again, I informed the Estate Manager that I might be able to get him off, though it would be a long shot. I quickly had a chat with the Deputy Public Prosecutor and he agreed to adjourn the case to allow me to make a written representation to the State Legal Advisor for the charges to be dropped.

You see, at that time the Immigration Act specifically states that only the Immigration officer or a person with a written authorisation from the Immigration Department, could arrest a person for harbouring illegal foreign workers. In this case, there wasn’t any immigration officer nor was there any written authorisation given to the police. Therefore, I made my representation based on those grounds and the charges were later dropped by the prosecution against the Estate Manager. Not long after our case was closed, the Immigration Act was amended to include the police as well in arresting a person for harbouring illegal foreign workers.

As you can see from the above, the Estate Manager’s fortune could turn around in a matter of minutes because in this case, there was a technical error in the arresting procedure. We were also rather fortunate as the Estate Manager’s story was told rather casually just minutes before the Court convened. So, what I have learned from this experience? Always, expect the unexpected, one can never be 100% sure of everything!

Inspirational stories on positive turnaround in a short time span

Many of us would have experienced challenging moments in our lives where things are not happening the way we hope or moving the direction that we want. In moments like this we tend to look for inspirational stories to lift our spirits up and motivate us so that we can move forward. It is also moment like this that I remind myself that major things or occurrences can happen in a short period of time. For example, who can ever forget the 2005 UEFA Championship Final between AC Milan and Liverpool? The match was nicknamed the “Miracle of Istanbul” (after the place where the final match was played). In that final match, AC Milan was leading 3-0 against Liverpool when Liverpool made a sudden comeback by scoring 3 goals within 6 minutes in the second half and eventually won the match in penalties shootout. This is a perfect example on how things can turnaround within just a short span of time. When Liverpool’s chances of winning the UEFA  Champion 2005 was almost nil, nobody could predict that Liverpool could score all 3 goals within 6 minutes. It was simply unbelievable.

Few days ago I was watching a video clip on YouTube featuring the Korean sensational singer, Psy performing “Gang Nam Style” in a concert in Singapore. I believe the concert was held a few years ago when Psy just became a worldwide household name. What fascinated me was when Psy told the crowd that he was in Singapore exactly a year ago (ie: a year before the concert). The crowd went wild and excited when they heard that Psy had visited Singapore previously. Psy said he came to Singapore as a tourist a year ago and never did he in his wildest dreams ever imagined that he would return to Singapore to perform as an international artiste in exactly one year later. It is strange to see how things can turn around in just a year - from an unknown to an international superstar. As a tourist, Psy was probably just wondering along the streets of Singapore aiming his camera at beautiful sights and then the following year, he had all the cameras aiming at him!




Being focus and seeing it through!

Just imagine you have a brilliant idea, then you decided to act on it and when you are making headway, suddenly a better idea came and then you became distracted. You then decided to act on that better idea and while acting on it, suddenly another better and brighter idea came about and you decided to leave all the other better ideas behind and act on the new one. By continuously doing this, you would have already left what would have been two great ideas behind. This is what happened when we are not focus and never feeling satisfied. As the saying goes, it is better to focus on what you have rather than what you don’t. By the time you decide to return to your original idea, it may already be too late as someone may have already taken and acted on that idea. This is true especially when it comes to relationship or when you are negotiating and then returning to your earlier offer.

In relationships, how many times have we come across people leaving their spouses or loved ones for someone new and then again to return to their loved ones when they discovered that the “grass is not greener” on the other side. When the person returned to their spouse or loved one, there is no guarantee that their return will be accepted by their spouses or their loved ones. There could be several reasons for this, such as no one wants to be “Plan B” which include the spouse or the loved one or perhaps the spouse or loved one has already move on and found someone better. Therefore, focus on what you have rather than looking for someone new!

As for the second example of negotiating and then returning to your earlier offer, I can relate to this rather well as it happened to me many years ago. It took me sometime to change my mindset and kicked that old habit of not being focus. Let me share with you one of those incidents. There was a time when I was browsing in one of the shops selling electrical appliances. I was interested in one of the items and had every intention to purchase it. I got hold of one of the salespeople and enquired about the item, its warranty and the price. We negotiated or rather haggled on the price until the salesperson accepted my offer. However, before I could conclude with payment, something else caught my eyes. I decided to abandon the earlier item and enquired about the new item. It was rather obvious that the salesperson wasn’t as enthusiastic in explaining to me as before. This was probably due to two reasons. One, the salesperson probably found that I wasn’t a reliable buyer and two, I may be perceived to be on a “shopping” or “fishing expedition” to gather information on products and prices and had no intention to purchase the item. By the time, I have decided to buy the first item, someone had made an offer to buy that item at a price higher than my first offer. It was too late for me. Seeing that I had no choice, I returned to the second item and made an offer. This time the salesperson drove a real hard bargain and was hard fast on holding on to the price. Being an experience salesperson, he knew that my options have now been restricted, therefore he had the upper hand. Secondly, he knew that like human beings with huge ego, I did not like losing out from the first item and he knew that I would go all out for the second item to reclaim my huge ego which I lost earlier. He made it really challenging for me and subsequently I bought the item. I was happy with the item but I think I would have got it for a far lesser amount if I just focused and saw through the negotiation earlier.

Before I end this article, let me share with you a humourous incident which happened to me a couple of days ago relating to “being focus”. One of the things that we do in our house is that we switched on our dishwasher after 10.00pm every night. Why 10.00pm? Well, that is because 10.00pm is the off peak period when it comes to electricity usage charges. Before going to bed, my wife asked me to switch on the dishwasher after 10.00pm. At that time I was really sleepy but forced myself to stay awake until 10.00pm.  I waited till slightly after 10.00pm then I went to bed. Next morning, my wife informed me that I did not switch on the dishwasher the previous night. I had to laugh out loud when she said that because what I did the previous night was indeed silly and laughable. I waited and forced myself to stay awake till 10.00pm and then switched off all the lights and went to bed forgetting the reason why I need to stay awake till 10.00pm. You see, I did not focus on the task but rather I focused on the time. So, sometimes focusing on the wrong thing may get you into trouble. That was definitely a lesson which will remain with me for a very long time!

Culture shock - then and now (Part 2)

This is the second part of the article called "Culture Shock- then and now". If you recall, in the first part of the article, we talked about how a person experienced culture shock 30 years ago where technology wasn't as advance as today. In this article, we will look at culture shock in today's world. In the earlier article, we look at the crucial phase for the new migrant (or in some cases, the long stay overseas visitor) which is known as the "negotiation phase" or the "awareness phase". This is the phase that will determine whether the person will choose to continue staying in the new country or to return to his or her country of origin. The symptoms of "negotiation phase" would be where the person will start missing everything that is familiar to him such as family, loved ones, friends and the availability of food from his country of origin. In today's world of advance technology, we have many apps that will assist us in bridging contacts with our family, loved ones and friends irregardless of where we are. We have apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, Tango and Skype that will enable either texting, phone calls or video calls to our family and friends. Most of these apps are free and even if there is cost involved, it is relatively low. For example, in Sydney, I have an app that will enable me to call places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia for very little fee. The best part of the app is that it will display my mobile number on the recipient's telephone screen. This would allow the person to know that the call is indeed from me and it is a genuine call. As a matter of fact, the telephone call which I make from Sydney to Malaysia will cost me less than what I would have paid should I make the same call from Malaysia even though it is deemed to be a local call. That is how advance technology is in the modern world. In certain developed countries, there are telephone plans that will enable the person to make free unlimited international calls to certain countries. Just imagine the kind of convenience that we have today compared to 30 years ago when I had to queue for that 1 minute free phone call courtesy of AT&T in the US. Today, wherever we are, we can just pick up the phone and make a video call or phone call to our loved ones or friends without the need to think about the cost or convenience. This definitely helped the person when he or she is missing the family or loved ones. As for news from home, gone were the days when my father had to snail mail the local Malaysia newspaper cuttings to Los Angeles. Nowadays, we can read almost any newspaper in the world by just pointing and clicking our mouse on the computer in the comfort of our home in our new country. In fact, I seldom read hard copies of newspaper nowadays, it is all online news for me. Communication is definitely an ease to many of today's new migrants or long term overseas visitors compared to those who migrated years ago. That would certainly cushioned the "home sickness" that one would experienced when one moved to a new country.

I remember when I first left for overseas some 30 years ago, there were a lot of teary farewells. Family and friends would be missing us and vice versa. Due to the distance and expensive telephone calls, we knew that we would not be seeing or contacting each other for a quite a long time. However today, I see many parents sending off their children in the airport without teary eyes. There were laughter and happiness all around. Sometimes you could even hear the parents reminding the children, “don’t forget to “tango” or “face time”  us when you reached your destination”. Some parents would even go as far as telling the children to check out online airfare from time to time and if there is a cheap flight, to go ahead and book for a home visit. What a contrast from 30 years ago where it was a privilege if you could travel to your country of origin once every 3 years. Traveling by plane today is just like taking a bus to your destination.

As for the availability of food from the country of origin either in terms of restaurants or ingredients, many countries have a wide range of international cuisines and ingredients to make your favourite food from your country of origin. Sometimes they may even carry items from your country which cannot be found easily in your own country. For example, a few years ago, my friend Tan Chin Huang introduced me to a unique coffee called “Durian coffee”. Yes, as the name implies, the coffee with “durian” essence. The only place that I know that sells this type of coffee in KL is a grocery shop behind Tung Shin hospital. However, not far from where I am staying in Sydney is a huge Asian supermarket and you can easily find “Durian coffee” over there! I remember my father telling us that when he first landed in Australia in 1959, there was only one Chinese restaurant in Perth. The name of the Chinese restaurant was called “Kong Meng”. Though the name of the restaurant sounded Chinese but in actual fact, it was operated by an Italian family. My father told us that the food wasn’t that great but if there was rice, that was good enough for him.

So, with all of this technology and convenience from your country of origin in your new country, one would think that it is easier to settle down as you can get anything from your country of origin within your reach. True? Well, not quite. By having too many things from your home country would place a person in a state of complacent. In other words, there is really no need for the person to explore new food or culture of that new country because everything from his or her country of origin is there for the plucking. I was informed by a friend of mine who used to work in the Malaysian Student Department in the US that Malaysian Government used to send hundreds or perhaps even thousands of students to a couple of universities. Due to the large number of Malaysian students in those universities, they decided to form their own “village” or “kampung” where all the Malaysians would congregate and live in one area. The students would eat together and stay together and there was no need to go outside of the comfort zone. All of this happened from the first day that the student arrived at the US airport. I met one of those students and this was what he related to me:-

“The first day I arrived in the airport, I was met by one of the seniors (“senior” here would mean one of the Malaysian students who had been in the university longer than him). The Malaysian Student Association would charter a bus to meet the new students at the airport and then take the students to their accommodation which was like a typical Malaysian hostel. Everyone would be speaking Malay and personally, I don’t feel any different whether I was living in Malaysia or in that accommodation”.

I was told that during weekends or holidays, the Malaysian students would spent time amongst themselves either going to movies or doing things together. By the time they have graduated, apart from obtaining a US degree, there was nothing very much socially or culturally they have learned from the United States. In fact, some of the students would returned to Malaysia without showing any improvement in his or her competency of the English Language. All of this was due to being too comfortable and there wasn’t any motivation to learn and explore new things.

I hope you enjoy this article, our next article in relation to cross culture will be what we call as “homogenous race settlement area”. “Homogenous race settlement area” is where a particular race or nationality living in a single area in a foreign country. A common example, would be places like “Chinatown”, “little Japan”, “Korea town”, etc. Until then.....

Just becareful when conveying message - "Camel" or "Kumar"?

We have talked about the importance of communicating and relating messages. As many of us know, the probability of a message getting lost is rather high when it is conveyed from one person to another and then to a string of other people. There is a popular game called “Chinese Whisper” where a message (normally it will be a paragraph of words) is shown to one of the participants without the knowledge of the other participants. The first participant then conveys the message to the next and then the next person will convey to the next person and so on. By the time the message reaches the last participant, the last person would be asked to reveal what was the message. Most of the time, the message revealed by the last person would be significantly different from the actual message. This game prove to me two things. One, message can be interpreted differently by different people. This is due to most of us having selective hearing. We only hear what we want to hear or what we think is important, the rest of the message will be ignored. Secondly, by interpreting and giving a different meaning to the message, this indirectly create what is known as “rumour”. We all know that “rumour” tends to spread like wildfire especially if it involves scandals or matters that will start our tongues wagging! Therefore, it is important to get the message correct and to reveal it as a whole rather than selectively.

Yesterday, I was watching a documentary on television which involved a few American explorers in India. In that episode, one of the American explorers was asked by an Indian person to seek a guy by the name of “Kumar” who lives in the town. This American explorer then proceeded to inform one of his colleagues that they needed to look for a guy name “Komahl”. Then that colleague informed another one of the explorers that they needed to look for “Kamal”. By the time, the message was conveyed to the last American explorer, they were all looking for a person by the name of “Camel”! The last American explorer then remarked, “Who or what are we actually looking for? A camel or a person?” I was sitting on the sofa and laughing my head off as this is a perfect example of “Chinese Whisper” where message gets lost rather easily! So whenever someone should ask you to convey a message to another person, just remember the “camel” episode and make sure you take down every single word. Have a good day, everyone!

Stories about being Flexible (2)

I hope you like the article “Stories about Flexibility” which was posted a few days ago. As promised, here is the second installment.

Story No. 3 - The Lecturer and his “ice breaking” game

Last week, I attended the “Legal Practice Management” course at the College of Law in Sydney CBD. Lawyers in the State of New South Wales who intend to venture on their own and start their own legal practice must attend and complete the course. There was a good mix of both young and senior lawyers. I found the course to be very useful and informative. The College of Law did a fantastic job in conducting the course- they provided good materials (both in hard copies as well as in a USB stick) to read and a nice solid folder to put your materials in. I am not saying this merely because College of Law has its advertisement  in my blog, I say it because I do mean it sincerely!

On the first day, we had 3 speakers talking about interesting stuff and then we adjourned for an in-house lunch. When we continued with the afternoon session, we had this lecturer who came in and told us that he wanted us to play an “ice-breaking game”. The participants looked at each other in amusement - thinking whether the “ice-breaking game” was just a time filler or did the lecturer really wanted to get to know the participants? Keeping in mind that each lecturer only had 90 minutes to deliver his/her session and furthermore, an “ice-breaking game” so late in the course didn’t make much sense. Furthermore, by that time most of the participants already knew each other. This was all rather puzzling to me until I discovered the real reason the following morning. According to one of the participants, this particular lecturer normally conducts the first session of the course, therefore, it is understandable to have an “ice breaking game” at that time since everyone is new to the course and it would be a good time to know each other. However due to a scheduling issue, the Coordinator of the course had to switch the lecturer’s session with another lecturer’s session, thus pushing back the particular lecturer’s session to a later time. From what I have experienced is that this particular lecturer must have a pretty standard and rigid pattern when he conducts his session. It appears to me that it doesn’t matter to him what time of the day his session is conducted, irregardless he would just follow his usual pattern. A person who is flexible and “open” would probably leave out the “ice breaking game” and go straight to conducting the session making it relevant and useful. A flexible person would also take into account the time of the day and the class environment at the given time so that the session can be tailored to suit the mood and the need of the class.

It is my view that dealing with a person who has a rigid or set pattern is easier compared to an unpredictable person. The reason is because it is easier to predict the person’s next action and you will have sufficient time to plan your strategy to engage that person.

Story No. 4 - Madam X and CPF

My mother’s good friend whom I shall call here as Madam X lost her husband to old age some years ago in Malaysia. She managed to obtain the probate and the assets were distributed accordingly. However, a few years later, she received a letter from Singapore’s Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board notifying her late husband that he still had some monies with CPF. Madam X came to see me with the letter from CPF and asked for my  assistance. I informed Madam X that legally, the Malaysian Probate would need to be resealed in order to claim the monies from CPF. Keeping in mind that Madam X is an elderly lady and works in the school canteen, traveling would be quite a hurdle for her. Therefore,  I informed her that I will contact my friend who is a Singapore lawyer and seek his opinion.

I explained to the Singapore lawyer of Madam X’s predicament and the lawyer said he would do some research and come back to me. A few days later, the Singapore lawyer informed me that it would be better for Madam X to come to Singapore and personally see the officer at the CPF Board in order to resolve this issue. The Singapore lawyer volunteered to accompany Madam X to the CPF office and his services would be pro bono. I appreciated the Singapore lawyer’s kind gesture and informed Madam X the good news.

A day coinciding with the school holidays in Malaysia was set for Madam X’s visit to Singapore. I guess I was more anxious than Madam X with regard to this matter. I was on the phone with the Singapore lawyer frequently to follow up on this matter. On the appointed day, the Singapore lawyer and Madam X went and see the officer at CPF. It took quite some time before Madam X called me to inform that everything had been settled. Didn’t quite understood what she meant, I immediately called the Singapore lawyer and this was what he explained. The officer at CPF was very helpful. The CPF officer told Madam X that normally they would require a probate in order to release the monies. However, as an officer, he has some discretion and in order for him to exercise that discretion, there must be three things that need to be satisfied. One, the proof of identity of Mr. X. Two, Madam X was legally married to Mr. X at the time of his death and three, the death certificate of Mr. X must be produced. Fortunately, I have asked Madam X to bring all of the original documents with her to Singapore, just in case if the documents are required to be sighted. After the CPF officer examined all the documents, he informed Madam X that he is satisfied that Madam X had met all the 3 conditions and therefore, would be exercising his discretion to release the monies to Madam X.

I was very impressed with the way the CPF officer handled the affairs. He wasn’t rigid and he knows when to be flexible when it comes to exceptional circumstances. Of course, in order to be given that kind of discretion, a lot of confidence and responsibilities have been  placed on the officer by his employer. To quote the famous line the Spiderman movie, “With power, comes with great responsibility”. I once asked a retired senior government officer, “why can’t all governments give their officers flexibility and discretion when making decisions?” “Wouldn’t this cut all the red tape and get things done quickly?” The retired senior government officer replied, “Giving government officers flexibility and discretion can  easily open up to abuse of power or even worse, it may lead to corruption. Therefore, we always have in place a standard operating procedure for the officers to follow so that their decisions will be uniformed”. In other words, rigid but seen to be fair. There are always two sides to a coin. Personally to me, as long as the person is taught that it is okay to be fair and flexible, I think flexibility should be the flavour of the day. What do you think?

Stories about being Flexible (1)

Some of us grow up in a rigid environment that involved a regimental or a disciplined lifestyle. For example, everything must be done in a certain regular pattern. For instance, my father is a stickler when it comes to restaurants. He prefers to eat in the restaurants that he is familiar with rather than exploring new restaurants. His reasoning is, “Why go and look for trouble when you know this restaurant serves good food?”. It makes sense but at the same time, it also restricts future options. Another example is my son who used to follow to a strict pattern when it came to timing. When he was a young kid, the nanny used to feed him lunch at 12.00pm, bathed him at 4.00pm and dinner at 5.30pm. For a long time, he sticked to this “schedule”. I remember when he was 6 years old, we were out somewhere quite far from home, suddenly our young son asked us whether we could be back at home by 4.00pm? We were surprised and asked him, ‘“Why?”. Our young son replied that he needed to be home by 4.00pm to shower. My wife and I burst out laughing but we when we saw his face, we knew he was dead serious and nothing was going to change his decision! So, we thought we needed to change his mindset and teach him that it was perfectly fine to be flexible in life as long as your objective remains the same. I was reminded of the analogy of an airplane and its destination. The analogy is that “The destination remains the same but the flight path may change”. Why the change? Well, it could be due to bad weather or strong turbulence that requires the plane to divert from its usual route. However, the destination will always remain the same. Therefore, being flexible is a good thing to have in our life. I have a few stories about flexibility. Here are the first two stories, the rest will be in the next posting.

Story No. 1 - The Stewardess with the food cart

Someone told me a story about a particular airline that prides itself with its inflight service. When it comes to serving meals, the Stewardesses would push the food cart and ask the passengers, “Would you like chicken or fish?”. In other words, the passengers have an option of having either the chicken or the fish meal. For some reason, on that particular day, the fish meal was very popular and they ran out rather quickly. My friend didn’t know about it. So when it came to my friend’s turn to be served, being ignorant, he requested for the “fish”. The stewardess very politely replied, “I am sorry, Sir, we ran out of fish, we only have chicken”. My friend responded, “No problem, I will have the chicken then”. After serving the “chicken meal” to my friend, the stewardess pushed the food cart and went on with her usual mantra, “chicken or fish!”. My friend just shook his head as he couldn’t understand how could the stewardess rambled the same line when she knew very well that they already ran out of the “fish meal”. My friend informed me that perhaps the cabin crew have already been instilled this sort of training and delivery lines into their heads so deeply that flexibility no longer applies when it comes to serving the passengers. Another school of thought could be that it was a way of pleasing the passengers by giving the perception that options have been given to them when in actual fact, there wasn’t any. To me, the second option doesn’t seem plausible as it could be deemed to be deceitful and I am sure airlines would not do that.

Story No. 2 - “The Standard Operating Procedure”

About 15 years ago, a friend of mine came and see me because he wanted to take a housing loan from the bank and needed someone to assist him with the loan documentation. As some us know would know in Malaysia (not sure if this is still the case or not), in order to prepare loan documentation, the law firm must be in the bank’s panel of solicitors. I informed my friend that I am not in any of the bank’s panel. My friend said that he had already checked with the bank officer and he was informed that all he needed to do was to give a letter appointing my firm as his solicitors and my firm can prepare the loan documentation for him. He also informed me that the bank had their own loan documents, so all I needed to do was to purchase them from the bank’s head office. The next day, I sent one of our staff to the head office to purchase the loan documents. After a couple of hours, the staff returned from the bank empty handed. He said the bank needed a letter from the law firm authorising him to purchase the loan documents on its behalf. So, I quickly prepared the letter and gave it to him. My staff rushed to the bank and came back again empty handed saying that  the bank couldn’t find the letter from my friend appointing us as their solicitors in their file. Therefore, they requested for another letter. Getting frustrated, I called up my friend and related to him what happened. My friend asked me not to worry, he would go to the bank’s head office himself and get those loan documents. After that, he would bring them straight to my office. A few hours later, I received a phone call from my friend sounded very agitated. This time, it was me who asked him to cool down and tell me what happened. This was what he said, “The bank would not allow me to purchase the loan documents even though I am the borrower and the client”. He said to add insult to his injury, the bank required the following documents before they can sell the loan documents to him:-

1. The original letter from him appointing us as his solicitors; and

2  A letter from my law firm authorising HIM to purchase the loan documents on our behalf.

My friend told the clerk that since he is the client, why does he need a letter from his own lawyers authorising him to purchase the loan documents? Thinking that the clerk may not quite understand him, my friend said he tried to put it in layman’s words to the clerk, “I am the “boss”, why do I need a letter from my own lawyer authorising me (the “boss”) to buy the documents?”. The clerk had no words to say. The clerk took out a checklist and showed to my friend that he was merely following the “standard operating procedure”. The list has got a list of things that require a tick. If one of the box is not ticked or marked, the clerk will be in trouble. My friend emphatised with the clerk but he just shook his head in disbelief on how rigid the bank could be. Some flexibility and common sense would work well here.

I remember another incident where I went to collect the original title deed from the land office. I was told by my colleague to bring both the firm’s rubber stamp as well as my lawyer’s rubber stamp in case the land office needed verification. When it came to my turn to collect the original title deed at the land office, the person attended to me asked “Where is the law firm’s letter authorising you to collect the original title deed?” I informed the person that I am the Principal of the law firm and I have the law firm’s rubber stamp, my lawyer’s rubber stamp, my business card and a Photo ID to proof who I am. In Malaysia, all law firm’s letterhead must have the name of the lawyers printed clearly. Not only that, the names must be differentiated whether they are partners, consultants or merely employed lawyers. The letterhead in his file as well as mine clearly showed that I am the Principal lawyer in the firm at that time. The person still refused as he was merely following “Standard Operating Procedure”. I refused to budge as I waited a long time for my turn to collect the original title deed, so I continued to make him see where I was coming from (ie: common sense and some flexibility). Finally, the person relented and told me very clearly, he is making this exception only ONCE! Next time, he will need a letter and to put it clearly, “this is NON NEGOTIABLE in the future!” Will talk about other stories in the next posting.