Here in Malaysia, boleh means "can." Can you give me directions to Timbuktu? Boleh! Can you email me the document? Boleh! Can you fix my electricity issue? Boleh!
Now, sometimes, things really do happen - documents arrive, reservations get made, directions are correct. But, if you are dealing with a contractor of any sort in this country...Boleh is the equivalent of "Maybe, but not likely, but I'll try...until it's lunchtime...and then maybe I'll be back next Tuesday to try again, but don't plan on it being fixed."
You might remember my washing machine repairman who read the manual - starting at page 1 - as he attempted to find my issue.
My latest problem is the 2nd floor breaker box which keeps flipping off, causing the first floor box to switch off, leaving us with no power. Tuesday some bozo showed up and insisted he had fixed my problem. And for 36 hours he had, until 10:30 Wednesday night - well, you know what happened. No power.
So Caleb and I slept on the couch (because as long as I leave the power off upstairs, the ground floor will stay on) and Grayson slept in his little sweatbox of a room.
Sleeping on the couch has left me in a most foul mood and resulted in a Facebok rant with the hashtag #bolehmyass.
I will now be using this hashtag all the time when I have my "Malaysia moments" - and I encourage my friends to do the same.
#bolehmyass
No comments:
Post a Comment