Gintai could be you or me....

Gintai could be anyone of us. In fact more than a few readers without his name recognition had lived his ignominy before. Many more will tomorrow. I had seen it happened to ex colleagues across companies I had worked, so had wifey and my friends. Welcome to Singapore.

Policy makers look at each of us as digits. They make the tragic mistake to ignore that even as we stay rational, we ultimately connect to issues through human interest stories. Gintai's plight is one such powerful story because lots of us can see ourselves in him.

Public transport, telcoms, healthcare, utilities so many things here are privatized. Their priority is to make as much short term profits as possible serving monopolistically public goods with a brutally commercial agenda especially if the entity is listed. If you are a politician allowing this to happen you must be damn stupid. The senior management of these companies will pocket the huge pay and bonuses often exceeding ministers' salaries but given enough time when service and delivery falls through cutting corners and insufficient investment, the people will kick the government over this.

Although Gintai would not publish the reasons for his termination, he did not keep it to himself either. Eventually the stories will worm its way far enough for more than a few people to surface them publicly. Good luck SMRT because those stories would missed the mark and make you out to be far worse. You had an unrealized asset in Gintai but in your silly fears and poverty of imagination never knew how to leverage it.

Update: October 24, 5:00pm

Indeed reading this report on Gintai sacking, I still think it is reasonable guess that the company was out to get him. Still read like victims in other work places. In the past nobody cares too much as we could usually find another job and sometimes even better one, but this is  no longer true.

The point is if Gintai gets the sack, so should quite a few other train drivers. Why was he chosen for this ignominy? Often it reduces to if you get along with the boss or  bosses and if they like you. Seen it too many times.