Adventures in paying

Today I went to Tagbilaran to deposit my payment for the Instructor Development Course (IDC). As usual, doing so wasn’t as straight forward as it should have been. I was planning on paying using my credit card which Western Union’s website stated as an option. The lady at the Western Union office said that I needed to pay cash. Since the amount I needed to transfer was more than what was allowed to withdraw in one day at the ATM, I had to get another cash advance.

I went to the bank I used before for a cash advance which was easy enough to do since I’ve done it before. After getting the cash, I went back to Western Union and deposited the money for transfer. To make my trip to Tagbilaran more worthwhile, I decided to see the new Jet Li and Jackie Chan movie “Forbidden Kingdom”. I was up for some good senseless action.

I got my ticket and was ushered into the theater 15 minutes before my showing started. To my surprise, the last showing was still running and was showing the ending of the film. Huh? I don’t want to see the ending and spoiling the movie. What’s the point of sending me inside while the movie is still running and people are still seated? Since I didn’t want to see the end of the film’s ending I waited in the hallway until it ended.

This gently illustrates the lack of forethought and good customer service I’m finding fairly common in the Philippines. I’m not saying Filipinos are stupid, just that, they are used to doing things their way which is different from how most modern societies are structured. However, as a foreigner from a modernized country, this can become annoying and even stressful. Though this instance isn’t a big deal, its frequent occurrence is starting to become annoying.


- jason