myfortunekitty.com

I applaud this news I read yesterday on the papers. This is an extract from the story at Asiaone (http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/Office/Story/A1Story20091203-183610.html).

FOR senior accounts officer Sharifah Juma’at, a common grouse she has when out shopping or dining is with foreign staff who could not speak or understand much English.

A tweak in the labour policy in the third quarter of next year hopes to change that.

Work-permit holders in the hotel, retail and food-and-beverage sectors must pass an English- language proficiency test to receive the skilled levy status.

This was announced yesterday by the Minister of State for Manpower as well as Trade and Industry, Mr Lee Yi Shyan.

He said that employers who recruit foreigners proficient in English will need to fork out only $150 a month for the skilled worker - as opposed to $240, the levy for unskilled employees.

This gives companies in these sectors an incentive to improve their foreign staff’s language skills to enjoy lower levies and achieve cost savings, he added.

The announcement comes in the wake of a flurry of complaints by customers to the media about foreigners in the service sector who could not communicate with them properly in English.

I am not sure how many of you have experienced this for yourself, but having to deal with service staff who does not even understand basic English is absolutely frustrating for consumers like us.

These are two scenarios of what Hubby and I went through.

1) At a fast food counter: I asked for a burger set from a coupon leaflet I showed to the counter lady. She acknowledged my order and proceeded to pack the items. I was not sure if I have to tear out the coupon so I asked “Do you need this coupon?” She stared at me, paused for two seconds and said “You want this right?”, pointing to my burger set. It is very obvious that she did not understand what I meant even when I repeated my question again slowly. Finally, I had to make a tearing gesture with the coupon leaflet before she goes “yes yes yes”. Arrghh.

2) At a Japanese restaurant: I was looking at the menu for a ramen dish that Hubby had eaten the last time we visited the restaurant in November. So I waved a lady and asked “Is this the same ramen as the one promoted in November?” She stared at me, paused and don’t know what to say. After a few awkward seconds, I broke the silence and said “Do you speak Mandarin?”. She finally heaved a sign of relief and said yes. I had to repeat my question again in Mandarin before she could answer me. Argghh x 2.

I hope these service staff should have at least basic English proficiency before they can serve at the front line of our retail and food & beverage sectors. I am not trying to be difficult in speaking to them in English. Hubby and I speak English at home and it just comes naturally. Fortunately, I can still switch to Mandarin when I need to. But I am not too sure about how other races would react when they can’t even order a simple meal. English is a common language in Singapore. Don’t these foreign workers have to pick up enough knowledge of English before they can communicate to our friends from other lands too?

I also realize that these workers can rattle off the menu items (maybe they memorized them??) fluently, but when posed a somewhat different question, they are caught off guard. They say “Upsize?” and “Thank You” loudly and confidently. Haha. They can repeat your orders by reading them off the menus, but they can’t provide much value added services for the customers if that is all they can do.

I hope the change in labour policy do work in improving this situation in the near future. It would be great for us who are at the receiving end of such service. We have gotten so used to being understood in our society that when these foreign workers appear in our lives, we don’t expect them to make much changes to it. Call me pampered. Call me intolerant. But I am a consumer and I would like to be at least understood properly when buying my next dress and ordering my next sushi.

Disclaimer: I am taking the chance to air my grouses. If you have your own personal experience, feel free to share too.