A local netizen lambasted Mustafa Centre for an unpleasant experience that he had with one of the shop assistant.
This particular assistant was a foreigner from PRC. He was unable to converse in English with the netizen. To top it off, the staff was also very unhelpful to the netizen's simple request, which was to be referred to the section where charcoal pills are sold.
You can read his full exchange here:
Earlier at Mustafa Centre:
Me: Hi do you have charcoal pills?
PRC staff: Semor?
Me: I’m looking for charcoal pills.
PRC staff: Wo bu zi dao. And then he just stood there ignoring me.
Me again: Do you have any staff here who speaks English?
PRC staff: Semor?
Me: English English! Speak English! And he just stands there ignoring me.
I asked him again loudly and this time, the customers turned to see what was happening and some even gave that annoyed look at the staff.
He then replies something in Chinese which I couldn’t understand and points to the counter staff.
Me: You’re working in Singapore and you don’t know English. Well done!
Approached the counter staff and she angrily directed me to the cosmetics department to look for a Sales staff to get charcoal pills.
I had to go a few rounds to find for a Sales staff who brought me back to the pharmacy side to get the pill for me.
The netizen was clearly frustrated at not being able to communicate his request to the staff.
He made it clear that he was not a racist and that this was a matter of poor service by foreigner staff who can neither understand nor converse in very basic English. In a country like Singapore where the main language of work is English, this is unacceptable.
Dear SG Gov,
I’m not racist or against people from China but FOR GOD SAKE! Hire people who can speak English at the very least! From ordering food at a coffee shop to this, it’s getting worse by the day! We Singapore or Chinapore? What’s our first language?! Nowadays, I see a lot of non-Chinese kids taking Mandarin as their second language just because it’s the majority and so that they can get a job in companies who hire “CHINESE SPEAKING ONLY”. Shame on you!
Dear Mustafa owners,
I know you have an unbelievable pool of customers coming in and out of your shopping mall 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But don’t let that get to your head. Please hire staffs who are friendly and helpful. Not staffs who don’t know how to speak English, reply us in Mandarin or just ignore us or worse, direct us to wrong departments! it’s time you taught your staffs some manners!
#ithellaamorupolappu #wobuzidao #kaninala #seruppuparakkum #upyourgame#mustafacentre #sggov #ministryofmanpower
The netizen's rant is well-placed. We need skilled people to work in Singapore. For someone employed in the service sector, that skill is the ability to communicate effectively in very basic English.
They also need to be trained with the right customer-service skills to be more customer oriented, so that an incident like this does not happen again.
