Boleh!

Telekom Malaysia just set a new standard and opened my eyes wide for the stark difference between my beloved country, the Boleh-land, and England.

See, in England, when I want to change the ownership of an internet account to my good friend Mr Eg, this is what we would do:

1. go to the service provider with my pal Mr Eg

2. inform the nice and polite person at the customer service desk, say, Ms CS, about our intention

3. provide identification* if needed

4. put down our signatures on the form Ms CS printed from her computer, which is linked to the centralised database from any branch in the U.K.

5. say "nope, that's all, cheers!" when being asked if there's anything else she could help us with

*if photocopy was required, Ms CS would do it for us F.O.C. instead of sending us to the overcharged photocopy service like departments of Malaysia government do

The whole thing would take 10 minutes top and we would never have to fill in our name, birthday, gender, et cetera on multiple forms. Once the information was entered into the database the very first time we registered, we never have to do it again. No stupid entry like asking for your year of birth then ask for your age.

And now, here's what we have been through when my father wanted to transfer the ownership of his Streamyx account to me, basically, we just wanted the bill to be in my name instead of my father's.

1. went to Telekom Malaysia office with my father

2. informed the polite lady at the number/information desk about our intention, first in English then in mixture of English + Malay

3. waited for the polite lady to enquire her superior in rapid Malay

4. took a number and waited while the superior got someone else to handle us

5. the gentleman assigned to handle our request called for us and we repeated our intention, yes, in English then in mixture of English + Malay

6. being told we have to terminate the current Streamyx account in my father's name, wait for 30 days, then sign up again with my name

7. informed them again we just want to change the name of the account holder so that it's billed to me instead of my father, do we really have to go through all the termination and reapplying process, with a 30 days gap without internet?

8. the gentleman asked us to wait while he consulted his colleague (no prize for guessing what language it was in)

9. his colleague consulted the polite lady at the number/information desk, who again consulted her superior

10. no dice, that's the way the system is, they said

11. thanked them and "no thank you" them, just keep it as it is

Whole thing took 25 minutes, achieved nothing except being truely amazed by the ridiculousness. Wah lau, seriously boleh!

Think I will just apply for a new broadband** account, and terminate my father's when the new one is ready.

**or whatever the service provider tries to pass as broadband in this country. I had fibre optic connected straight into my modem while I was in England, the real broadband

Only thing is to decide which service provider and package to go with, not that I have many choices in this country.