NOVEMBER 17 — You think about climate change a lot when your air conditioner has stopped being cold and your heat-addled mind becomes convinced you will soon transform into a sentient puddle of sweat.
My broken appliances aside, I am thinking of the many other things that are broken — like the day the Grab app decided to stop working in all its South-east Asian markets.
Perhaps for a while taxis rejoiced but for the many people who had gotten too used to the convenience of ride hailing, it was a calamity.
The thing is though, again we are reminded of the Malaysian allergy to that thing we call a contingency plan.
My internet contingency plan is to have broadband internet from Provider A and a separate mobile data plan from Provider B so that I will not be wholly dependent on either.
It seems like common sense but alas, this is Malaysia where we do not discourage but advocate for monopolies ― like God, there can only be one because true success is apparently making the competition disappear like our recent prime ministers during actual crisis.
Grab and Touch N Go are two such monopolies that shouldn't exist in the first place. The former is now the dominant ride sharing platform and the latter is what we're stuck with at toll booths.
It is 2021 and still Touch N Go refuses to allow people to just reload their cards online. Sorry but having worked in IT I refuse to believe it can't be done ― doing so would just upend their problematic business model, more likely.
Grab's profiteering also hurt many food businesses who had to pay the company a hefty sum to use delivery services ― forcing many to up their prices, passing on that extra cost to consumers, many of whom did not have safer options.
You would think, really, that we might have figured some things out. Instead we see employers forcing their workers to go back to the office and Klang Valley has become, again, a snarling mess of traffic.
I am struggling, really, to think of anything that has improved or been creatively dealt with thanks to the pandemic.
Instead it seems both the government and employers are hellbent on rewinding back to how we used to do things before the virus, except maybe with a few masks here and there and useless temperature scanners.
It is a false choice, to make people think they have to choose between lives and the economy ― there can be no economy when everyone is dead.
The ideal I think is to let go of the notion that we can live as we did before. We need to find that sweet spot ― that middle ground.
For starters, the government needs to mandate hybrid work ― have people take turns who gets to go to the office.
GIve incentives to employers for hybrid work ― maybe everyone works from home one day a week or by rotation.
Conferences ― as much as I know my event planner friends would murder me for suggesting this ― should keep being held online as well as in person.
Heck, run those at the same time so those who cannot afford the board and fare can still tune in.
It is also time the government really tightens its antitrust measures and stop enabling monopolies.
Monopolies starve innovation and stifle healthy competition; as limited as our market is, perhaps companies should stop fighting for ever shrinking pies and look outward to our neighbouring countries.
Like the never-ending repairs of my old rental house (that I think is trying to kill me) there are many things to fix about Malaysia.
I think we can start by throwing out the trash and start first by getting rid of the biggest Malaysian lie: that we can succeed without embracing all our peoples and their rights.
Let's leave outdated thinking behind and move ahead to a brighter future, preferably one where I don't need to rely on Grab to leave the house.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
