http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/viewContent.jsp?id=60426
10pages of replies....
STOMPer C says that the students who were collecting donations were behaving inappropriately and did not take their task seriously.
This was in response to a post dated Feb 24, where a student claimed that he had been scolded for not bringing back a full donation tin.
In an email to STOMP today (Mar 4), STOMPer C says:
“I refer to the article ‘Student scolded for not bringing back a full donation tin’.
“I chanced upon this student’s complaints on STOMP and I must say that I am quite disgusted. I myself was present at the collection booth that the student describes; however, the scene which transpired was altogether a different one from what he has so woefully painted.
“From the very start of the day, the attitude that most of the students I saw displayed towards the event was nothing short of abominable. They were contemptuous and arrogant, many arriving much later than they had been instructed to come, filling the air with expletives and in a couple of cases, cigarette smoke.
“A good number of them had not even bothered to attire themselves in their school uniforms, and more than once we heard plans being made loudly to head to the nearest cinema for the day.
“Clearly, these students were intending to carry on with their weekend of fun in town. One of them had even brought his skateboard with him. Naturally, when they started trickling back to the collection point, their tins had not been filled. In fact, most of the tins that were handed to us were barely a fifth full. Tin after tin was turned in rattling a pitiful two or three coins inside. It was quite apparent that their handlers had simply emptied their own pockets.
“Our contributor claims that he spent five hours of ‘begging' that day. Perhaps he did. But some of the ‘begging’ that we witnessed consisted of students heading a few metres around the corner, out of sight from the collection booth. There those students spent their community service hours leaning against the walls, sharing cigarettes, pausing their conversations on their mobile phones only when people walked past to shout, ‘Donate money lah!’
“The contributor suggests that we seriously reflect on the lack of appreciation which was shown to these students. Well, I have done so and this is what I have to say about it. Are we to let these smug youths walk away with the CIP hours that they did not earn?
“It costs 60 cents to manufacture a tin. This does not include the cost of providing insurance and stickers – which were used as an artistic tool for students who took the liberty of creatively crafting them into permutations of varying shapes. Granted, the person who reprimanded the students may have been exaggerating somewhat that the money they turned in did not exceed 60 cents.
“But how much good will 65 or 70 cents do to an organisation whose survival depends on the goodwill and charity of the public? Certainly not when the public has not even been given the opportunity to do so while donation tins are accompanying cigarettes being smoked in an isolated corner. We even found a tin by the roadside, abandoned by a negligent student.
“These examples only brush the surface of the appalling behavior we witnessed that day. I can think of a plethora of reasons why CIP hours should be denied to these students, but I cannot list them all here.
“There were of course students who did take the task seriously and returned with reasonably filled tins. On some instances they were even filled to the brim, and I might add that they accomplished this in the drizzle that has been bemoaned by the friends of the contributing STOMPer.
“I am sure that the organisation is more than happy to express gratitude to these conscientious and genuinely altruistic students.
“That aside, I feel that it is my duty to defend the organisation’s side of the story, as the account that has been produced by the contributor is plainly one-sided. It reeks of malice and self pity, the intention to milk the sympathy elicited for all it is worth, with pretty words that have but have but a grain of truth in them.
“He has inflated, martyred himself, to dishonestly shame an organization that has been formed to help people less privileged than himself, hiding behind the shield of protection that his school is obliged to provide, rallying others to support the deceitful story he has spun.
“Is this what we have raised our children to become? Whining, whinging, dishonest and spiteful?
“If this is the ‘feeling of contribution to the society’ that the youth today adopt, I fear for us all.”
10pages of replies....
STOMPer C says that the students who were collecting donations were behaving inappropriately and did not take their task seriously.
This was in response to a post dated Feb 24, where a student claimed that he had been scolded for not bringing back a full donation tin.
In an email to STOMP today (Mar 4), STOMPer C says:
“I refer to the article ‘Student scolded for not bringing back a full donation tin’.
“I chanced upon this student’s complaints on STOMP and I must say that I am quite disgusted. I myself was present at the collection booth that the student describes; however, the scene which transpired was altogether a different one from what he has so woefully painted.
“From the very start of the day, the attitude that most of the students I saw displayed towards the event was nothing short of abominable. They were contemptuous and arrogant, many arriving much later than they had been instructed to come, filling the air with expletives and in a couple of cases, cigarette smoke.
“A good number of them had not even bothered to attire themselves in their school uniforms, and more than once we heard plans being made loudly to head to the nearest cinema for the day.
“Clearly, these students were intending to carry on with their weekend of fun in town. One of them had even brought his skateboard with him. Naturally, when they started trickling back to the collection point, their tins had not been filled. In fact, most of the tins that were handed to us were barely a fifth full. Tin after tin was turned in rattling a pitiful two or three coins inside. It was quite apparent that their handlers had simply emptied their own pockets.
“Our contributor claims that he spent five hours of ‘begging' that day. Perhaps he did. But some of the ‘begging’ that we witnessed consisted of students heading a few metres around the corner, out of sight from the collection booth. There those students spent their community service hours leaning against the walls, sharing cigarettes, pausing their conversations on their mobile phones only when people walked past to shout, ‘Donate money lah!’
“The contributor suggests that we seriously reflect on the lack of appreciation which was shown to these students. Well, I have done so and this is what I have to say about it. Are we to let these smug youths walk away with the CIP hours that they did not earn?
“It costs 60 cents to manufacture a tin. This does not include the cost of providing insurance and stickers – which were used as an artistic tool for students who took the liberty of creatively crafting them into permutations of varying shapes. Granted, the person who reprimanded the students may have been exaggerating somewhat that the money they turned in did not exceed 60 cents.
“But how much good will 65 or 70 cents do to an organisation whose survival depends on the goodwill and charity of the public? Certainly not when the public has not even been given the opportunity to do so while donation tins are accompanying cigarettes being smoked in an isolated corner. We even found a tin by the roadside, abandoned by a negligent student.
“These examples only brush the surface of the appalling behavior we witnessed that day. I can think of a plethora of reasons why CIP hours should be denied to these students, but I cannot list them all here.
“There were of course students who did take the task seriously and returned with reasonably filled tins. On some instances they were even filled to the brim, and I might add that they accomplished this in the drizzle that has been bemoaned by the friends of the contributing STOMPer.
“I am sure that the organisation is more than happy to express gratitude to these conscientious and genuinely altruistic students.
“That aside, I feel that it is my duty to defend the organisation’s side of the story, as the account that has been produced by the contributor is plainly one-sided. It reeks of malice and self pity, the intention to milk the sympathy elicited for all it is worth, with pretty words that have but have but a grain of truth in them.
“He has inflated, martyred himself, to dishonestly shame an organization that has been formed to help people less privileged than himself, hiding behind the shield of protection that his school is obliged to provide, rallying others to support the deceitful story he has spun.
“Is this what we have raised our children to become? Whining, whinging, dishonest and spiteful?
“If this is the ‘feeling of contribution to the society’ that the youth today adopt, I fear for us all.”
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