Serious talk ah, who in the office actually sat down and thought this beverage container deposit scheme was a brilliant idea for normal working people?
Every single day during lunch, I walk down to the kopitiam, buy my standard canned drink to survive another afternoon of endless corporate suffering. Immediately, boom—10 cents extra charged upfront. Okay fine, 10 cents won’t make me bankrupt, but the execution is so ridiculously stupid I cannot even begin to comprehend.
You mean to tell me I eat my cai fan finish, drink my iced lemon tea, and now I’m supposed to carry this sticky, drippy, sugary empty aluminum can around like some trophy?? Carry it back to my office desk ah? Put inside my work bag so my laptop can smell like sweetened tea? Or am I supposed to use my 1-hour lunch break to play Treasure Hunt: Find The Reverse Vending Machine under the 34°C Singapore sun?
Knn yesterday I damn dulan, I decided okay fine, I go find the machine. I walked round and round the nearby mall like a lost ghost. Finally found one machine hidden at the back of the basement, near some obscure loading bay area. Guess what? SCREEN GREY OUT. “MACHINE FULL / UNDER MAINTENANCE”. Wa lan eh, instantly my blood pressure spike to 200.
So what are my options now?
Option A: Keep carrying the dirty can around like an idiot until I find another working machine, wasting another 20 minutes of my life for 10 freaking cents.
Option B: Give up and go throw the can at a bin elsewhere. So I basically got slapped with a random 10-cent penalty just because the recycling system failed me.
Option C: The absolute worst option—leave the empty can on the kopitiam tray return area. BUT THIS IS THE BIGGEST SCAM SIA. The kopitiam already charged me 10 cents extra when I bought the drink right? If I leave the can at the tray return, who takes it? The kopitiam! They gather hundreds of cans at the end of the day, dump them into the machine in bulk, and pocket ALL OUR 10 CENTS.
Siao liao, so the kopitiam gets to earn my 10 cents for doing NOTHING, while I get penalized for eating lunch? Become a free money-making scheme for them ah??
Honestly I beh tahan already. It’s not even about the 10 cents, it’s the sheer principle and bad design. End up nobody is actually saving the environment, we are just paying extra money for extra inconvenience and funding the kopitiam’s side hustle. Rant over, back to slaving at work.
TL;DR: Pay 10c extra for canned drink -> carry sticky empty can around during lunch break -> machine either missing or broken -> end up throwing in normal bin or leaving at tray return where kopitiam earns my 10c for free. Sibei waste time.