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Sebuah cerita seram sesuai untuk malam Jumaat ani…

Some years back, there was this BSP offshore guy who ordered a Toyota Supra from NBT. At the time, the Supra was the japanese equivalent to KITT from Knight Rider and this guy special ordered it in midnight black etc to match KITT.

Needless to say he was very excited when he was called one Thursday morning and told that the car had arrived. Since it happened to be his week off, he decided to hitch a ride to Bandar and work on the car registration.

After all the registration was settled, he of course drove around bandar lah, at the time Yaohan was THE place to lepak. He met some friends there and they basically lepak until late night.

At 11pm+ this guy looks at his watch and decided its time to head back to Seria. So he bids his friends goodbye and goes on his way. While driving along the old road to tutong (alum ada highway masa atu), he realizes its malam Jumaat. Kambang cia bulunya… Suddenly the road ahead turns foggy… He tries to think of other things and turns up the stereo.

Just past Tutong town, kambang lagi bulunya… and he senses something in the rear view mirror and he takes a look… Ada this lembaga putih and its tailing his car from behind!! The guy got so shit scared he floors the pedal and just absolutely guns it! He begins to lose this “makhluk” and sees that its no longer in his rear view mirror. He heaves a sigh of relief…

Just as he is about to cross the telisai bridge, the car engine stalls and dies on him… The windows roll down by themselves… By this time, the guy is shittin his pants and baca2 sudah… Before he knows it, the “apparition” is outside his window looking straight at him…

“ADA TISSUE WANG??”, screams the apparition. Horrified, this guy immediately hands over the tissue box he had bought earlier that day at Yaohan. The apparition grabs a few sheets and begins to wipe down his sweat. “LAJU kerita mu ani wang eh! Kerita apa kian ni??”, questions the apparition. “Sssssupra”, said the guy to which the apparition replied….

“LAJU BANAR EH KERITA ANI! BIASANYA KALAU KU MENGUYONG MUTUKA ANI AH, MANA SAMPAI KE JAMBATAN ANI!!”

Very interesting to note that a former top civil servant is now a regular contributor to The Brunei Times opinions column. His musings on Brunei affairs was a good read and I found myself nodding in agreement. It was not qute in the style of my friend Pat, but still, reasonably frank and direct. Unfortunately I only caught part 4. If anyone knows where I can get the rest of them online, pls give us a shout thanks.

Anyway, back to the musings, I do agree that within the civil service there is a lack of a sense of urgency. I am under no illusion that this trait is exclusive to our country’s civil service. Just check out Yulius Nurendra Efendi’s piece on getting a passport done in Indonesia, and you’ll be thankful that in Brunei, its not as bad (does that make it better?)

On JTB’s transition into TelBru, I agree that the corporatization has forced a sense of urgency into the workforce, but then again, in a relatively captive market, where you’re ensured of stable income, I’m not sure if that sense of urgency is sufficient to ensure competitiveness.

Try competing in a market where at least 90 companies regularly bid for the same projects and there are very few projects to go around, plus you have to factor in long decision turnaround times. In this scenario, you had better be service oriented and fast because if you’re not, someone else is gonna be.

Pehin’s point on supporting and nurturing SME’s is also one I agreed with. In any size economy, the keys to success for a business are the same, but the difficulty increases the smaller an economy gets, particularly if you are dependent on domestic (government driven) market. I am slowly coming to the painful realization that, “it takes years for successful SMEs, if ever, to grow, mature and bear fruits of job creation and income generation.”

Pehin’s final statement about strangling the geese which lay the economic golden eggs hits the nail on the head cos some of the geese are just about fully asphyxiated…

Update: Tracked down part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the series. All equally good reads and fodder for future posts I’m sure.