In this technology age, do you know what do people nowadays like to blame on? The system! One sentence: "the system has problem", people push all their responsibility and blame it on the system.

In fact, these people are the one at fault. Let's look at the situation I faced this afternoon.

I received a letter from Traffic Police Dept to say that my testdate has been rejected and test fee will not be refunded. The reason for rejection is multiple booking found at CDC. How can it be? I did the cancellation and booking the other day at CDC counter! Thus, I contacted my instructor and was advised to head down to CDC to ask them.

When I was there, I met an officer and told him about it. He told me to wait for their supervisor, 1 of the senior officer I presume, as he is out for lunch. It was 1pm and he will only be back at 2pm, so I left to do my stuffs. I returned to CDC at 4pm. 3 officers were about to walk out of the tester's office, 1 of them told me to wait outside for the supervisor. I was made to wait for half an hour. Finally an officer attended to me.

I told him the issue and added that I did the cancellation and booking at the counter.
Officer: It's not our problem! We are just testers. It's the counters at level 1.
Me: But my instructor asked me to come here.
Officer: Huh?! Your instructor? Who is he? He shouldn't ask you to come here. He should know such thing. Why did you cancel the testdate? Instructors like to ask you all to cancel when the date is near. (trying to find fault with instructors)
Me: Because I have yet to finish my course of lesson.
Officer: Since you have booked the testdate, you should have put in effort to learn. (now he is trying to find fault with me)
Me: I'm still studying, I'm busy with my school work. Plus, I have paid for the new testdate.
My eyes filled with tears. I was so frustrated.
Officer: You should call this number. It's the system's fault. The system is at the HQ, we can't do anything. Call this number and ask for their advice.

So I left that office and called my instructor. That officer came to me again.
Officer: I know already. The system doesn't allow you to cancel and book together.
Me: But they used my IC number to cancel and book, if that's so, why they still allow me to book.
Officer: No, the system won't know. You should have cancelled first.
I was like "then may I know what the system for?", but I was too angry and on the other hand, my instructor was on the line.

I must say that the officer doesn't know much about how the system works. If the system doesn't know that I have a testdate, when I did the booking, then I won't be able to cancel and book at the same time!

My instructor, who was on the line, asked me to book another testdate and just paid them another 20 bucks. He said that the easier way out. But the issue now is not about the money, but it's my principle. I want to make thing clear. What if I book another testdate and they send me another letter to say that it's rejected?

I left CDC and called the Traffic Police Dept. A lady attended to me. She told me that there are some updating problem with the system. She checked for me and told me that my testdate will still be on the 20th Jan 2009 and the previous one has been cancelled.

See! You know what I mean. Everyone will just push the blame to the system! In fact, the people are at fault! Why? I believe that this is not the first time they faced such an issue, thus they should know that the system has some drawbacks and should do something that work with the drawbacks. If they know that the system couldn't update concurrently, then they shouldn't have allow people to cancel and book on the same day.

Thus, in conclusion, I must say that it's people (especially the users), not the system, who is to be blamed.

I wasted almost my entire afternoon on this issue. I'm going to lodge a complain or maybe a feedback on what they should do in the near future.