My printer is ALIVE.

It is creepy and eerie when your printer starts 'cleaning' its cartridges in the middle of the night when you are sound asleep.

I need to drink. I think I do.

Read sometime on The New Paper today.

A reader wrote in to complain that when her family together with their domestic helper came back from Malaysia and was at the Woodlands Check Point, their maid wasn't allowed access through the "Singapore" passport counter. Her point was that, when questioned about this, the immigration officer asked them to look at the signage. Her main query is why didn't the officer used his discretion and allowed their maid to clear through the same counter with them and they had to wait another 20mins for her to rejoin the queue at the foreign passport counter. She claimed that for the past 3 years, her maid was allowed to pass through the Singapore passport counter.

Well, firstly. It is pretty straight forward I guess, she is holding a work permit and not a Singapore passport holder. Rules are rules, discretion is another thing. 200 other officers might have been nice and used their discretion to let your maid through the Singapore pp counter. The #201 officer is just been following the rules and going by the book. He is not wrong, is he? Just doing his duty.

But being highly a educated Singaporean as you are, you should have no problems differentiating between the meaning of Singapore and Foreign right? Furthermore, the purpose of have Singapore passport counters is to smoothen and speed up the process of clearing the immigration for Singaporeans. By letting your domestic helper who is not a local queue with you is in fact an act of selfishness.

Next question,
How much discretion should be used when discharging official duties?