Just went for lunch and ate my usual economy rice (经济饭 or 菜饭 - basically just rice, sometimes fried noodles or fried beehoon at your choice, and 2-3 dishes which you pick from a set of 15-20). Potatoes and veggies are my faves! Only $2.50 for 3 dishes, swap in a meat occasionally for just 30cents more!
12-12:45pm was usually the peak time (most dishes clear out after 1:30pm). So today I ordered this plain potato with minced meat in gravy dish. There wasn't much left, so I thought the auntie would just give me half of it or all that's left. Well she didn't give me half. She didn't give me all either. She gave me almost-all-minus-2-pieces-of-potato, literally! And the way she done it was quite deliberate. Such a strange mentality, I thought. It's quite unlikely that someone else will order that dish just for that 2 pieces of potato. So for what purpose would that 2 pieces of potato serve in that big and rather empty plate?
I could only come up with these explanations:
1) She seriously thought someone might want to order that 2 pieces of potato (she put the plate back in place).
2) She wants to snack on it later.
3) Giving me the remaining 2 pieces will cause the value of my order to exceed $2.50. Therefore, she feels she cannot give me more than what I pay for.
It's not that I want to pick on something so minor, not as if I care if I got 2 more pieces of potato. (I don't even count when I eat!) But I just can't wonder why such mentality exists, which is the fundamental problem at hand. Put it in a bigger issue and scale, it could become worse. What would a world be when people start thinking why should I pay $2 each for recycling bags when others can get 'unlimited' plastic bags for free?
P.S: If you are wondering what happened to the chicken rice stall at my workplace, I really don't know. It's just gone all of a sudden for 2 months now.
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