i now think that some secondary school teachers, especially the ones who have spent their whole lives teaching, are absolutely poor examples for our kids (yes, including my unborn children in the future) on what the real world is like....

background to this: i got an incredibly annoying phonecall today from this young teacher demanding that i go down to her Jurong West school to collect cash payment for some goods that i delivered to some of her fellow teachers last week. they had each made individual orders after i went down to do a demonstration on a product and the consolidated amount was substantial enough (> $200) for us to provide free delivery of the goods to them. when i sent down the goods to them last week, i had the orders neatly and individually packed, with individual invoices requesting for payments to be made via cheque written to our Company's name. so it was pretty clear how they could pay.. i couldn't understand why they still needed me to go down just to pick up the payment...

her excuses? the teachers did not have postage stamps and envelops... or worse still, the teachers didn't know how to pay by cheque 'cos they were "not professionals like us"... or even worse.. this tops it all... she and "many of the teachers" wondered how i could "differentiate one cheque from another and who had paid and who had not"... durrrrhhh???? i told her that differentiating a cheque is like differentiating one ang pow from another in a wedding... write their name on the back of the envelop lor! but then she cooked up more and more exasperating excuses like (a) the teachers were worried the cheques would get lost in the mail and (b) the teachers were not willing to pay the 22 cents extra for the postage.. hello? did they think my petrol would cost less than 22 cents??? even when i told her the only solution is to come down to our shop to pay us directly, she sounded shocked and confused... durrhhh???

i worry for the future of our nation...