A much improved immigration dept.

Yups went to renew my passport today at the old Subang terminal 3. Surprisingly, the whole process was shorter than expected. Settled everything by 10am. I suppose they had to improve, given that this department is the one receiving the most number of complaints.

One thing they did to lessen waiting time was to only allow only those with the complete set of essential documents to obtain queue numbers. Smart move, cos you wouldn't see those ppl with missing documents going "ooh terlupa photostate IC la, tunggu kejap saya pergi photostate sekarang.." in front of the counter while the rest of the innocent "rakyat" continue their long wait and curse silently..

They set up a small photography cum photostating area at the side. This morning it was terribly understaffed. There was only one very harried looking man doing the job of snapping passport pics cum photostating cum cashier cos his assistant was running late. With two queues moving at snails' pace, the queue of mostly chinese had to patiently wait their turn. What majorly irked me was a chinese man of about 50 yrs old a few places behind me uttering (racially-targeted) profanity at the poor malay fella manning the booth, and quite loudly too. Its no wonder sometimes why relations between the races are bad when people behave in that shameless way.

Moving away from that showcase of awful behaviour. FYI, one can obtain a discount of RM150 on the renewal fee if you bring along the offer letter AND you're below 21 yrs old. I emphasize "AND" cos I didn't qualify. Oh well, at least I got it done, and I get to collect it tomorrow. I can almost envision your reactions - "huh? so soon??"
Yes, tomorrow I'll have a new nice and gleaming passport in my hands.