sometimes you know it when the government doesn't put much thought into the planning and execution of things. small things.

like how there are loads of citizens with potted plants outside along their HDB flat corridor, and that when you hire foreign workers to repaint flats during renovation and construction works, you're not paying them to shift the potted plants when they have to paint the walls?

either way it's stupid, cause it's sad/unreasonable to make their foreign workers do extra work that's totally not supposed to be part of the job- but to get the owners of the plants to come out and do the shifting themselves is just gonna get them feeling incredulous and pissed. and of course, to pay extra workers just to do the shifting themselves doesn't cut -

simply because these extra costs incurred aren't even really that necessary.

but what pisses me more, really, is that they don't even bother to inform you when they're painting.

just a note, say 'we're painting on these days, it would be nice if you shifted your shoe racks and plants to the other side of the corridor first' would suffice.

just yesterday afternoon prior to the painting, my sis and i were sleeping, so my mother couldn't bear to wake us up. Rather luckily 2 foreign workers helped my mom shift the whole row of plants. But of course in the afternoon we had to shift them back, and my mom, my sister and i had a really smashing time doing it.

then it suddenly hit me (commonsense knowledge from doing dp sets and rag) that they'd probably want to do an enamel layer as well, since they'd only done the emulsion layer, which looks rather unfinished but then horror of horrors by the time i realised this we'd already shifted back all the bloody 20x potted plants including this bloody-incredible-massive one.

alarmed, i approached my mom about it but she just brushed it off,

and said they'd probably not want to do another layer (but really?).

and then today, it came.

=(

and this time there are no nice foreign workers to help shift the plants, since they're understaffed today.

just me, and my dad, who just brushed off the whole incident and proceeded to continue to check out all the functions of his newly-bought camera. he's such an ass sometimes. (just sometimes only, ok. but this is definitely one of them)

i didn't really know what to do cause the worker looked damn helpless as he walked off to another block to inform the residents.

so i gave in to my conscience and started to shift the plants alone.

because i couldn't help but give in to the nagging thought that it's really not the responsibility of these foreign workers to do these things- it's not their job! like cut them some slack already. they're getting such second-class-citizen treatment here...

then the worker, walking back, saw me doing it and in the end we ended up shifting the plants together.

it wasn't that hard, or horrible,

but sometimes that's what it's all about isn't it?

a little giving in, some cooperation,

and a lot of understanding.

[p.s. on hindsight i am now feeling incredibly relieved that our old shoe cupboard that used to be outside along our corridor has retired. imagine shifting that! and twice. HEH.]