More Money For Police

Last week has to be a week to remember. Everybody got pay rises. NS men, bus drivers, road sweepers, even domestic helps who will take the extra money in lieu of the mandatory day off per week. As usual, those excluded from the windfall will recall the quote about how the PM will "spend  my time thinking what's the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes".

The best deal was for the Home Team, a.k.a. the boys in blue. Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade and Industry Mr S Iswara announced new a starting salary of up to $2,370, while those who did not serve NS will be paid $2,140. In addition, a sign-on bonus ranging from $8,000 to $10,000 has been introduced, in the style of Wall Street bankers. To encourage staff to stay on, a uniformed officer can look forward to a handsome retention package of $34,000 to $50,000 under these revised payment schemes, surely a variant of the golden parachutes enjoyed by top performing CEOs. Let's hope these guys put the money to good use, such as investing in self improvement courses.

A friend received a scary letter, complete with threat of hefty fines and other punitive measures, for making nuisance calls to the police help line. It turned out that the Emergency Call applet of his Android smart phone was overtly touch sensitive, a mere brush against shirt or pants pocket will dial the emergency line. Just Google "Remove Emergency Call Button" and you'll get a idea of how pervasive the problem is. Obviously our highly compensated Home Team can't discern an accidental occurrence from malicious criminal intent. Hence the suggestion for more education, particularly in IT awareness. What was unaccountable was how the default number dialed, programmed in firmware as 112, ended up as 911.  After patiently explaining to the officer who penned the threatening missive, the response he got from the technology challenged retard was, "Okay. But next time don't do it again."