Daily Lessons from Life 21 February 2010

"S'porean nabbed with 32kg of 'ice' in Thailand - Sun, Feb 21, 2010 The Nation/Asia News Network

THAILAND - A Singaporean man was arrested Saturday at Hat Yai railway station with 32 kilograms of 'ice' worth Bt76.8 million (S$3.26million).

Lok Chong Meng, 35, was nabbed riding the Bangkok-Butterworth express train with the crystal methamphetamine reportedly concealed in his luggage of eight wooden tea tables.

The suspect confessed that he took the consignment from Bangkok to be stored in the southern city of Hat Yai, where a client would pick it up and take it to Malaysia."

This is another case of Singaporean being caught with trafficking illegal drugs in recent time. Once upon a time, Singaporean almost never were involved such crime. It was even joked that if you want to get away with smuggling, it is best to hold a Singapore passport as most custom officers in other countries held Singapore in such a high esteem that it erroneously assumed no Singaporean will commit such crime!

Lessons for me are:

1. when you built up your brand, like Brand Singapore, and the brand is revered, the halo effect does rub off. At the same time, someone will take advantage of it to tarnish the hard-earned brand! One must never become complacent and fall prey to letting the guard down and ease off on continuous efforts to maintain the brand!;

2. when the brand attracted the wrong attention, unnecessary or overly careful scrutiny will be given to it and become counter-productive. e.g. like the Toyota (and to certain extent, the whole Japanese automobile industry) debacle created extreme caution on the quality of Japanese built vehicles while once it is taken as excellent without any reservation! The best approach is never to fall into this situation. Hence, the discipline to be self-critical and not fall prey to narcissism if very important. Conscious efforts and processes must be put into the check such human natural tendency!;

3. all efforts must be invested into damage control and recover lost ground in an open, two-way, and 'tough love is better' manner. Any naysayers must be removed if efforts to help them to see the need to change failed. All hands must be on board to take the necessary and hard remedial actions in the shortest possible time. Inviting outside 3rd independent parties to be on the review board will be helpful. 'No-hold Bar' discussion must be the norm of the review meetings.

May Singapore government tighten the noose on would-be drug traffickers in Singapore and continued to keep the 'we are being abused' in-your-face reminders to the citizens to be vigilant. Singaporeans can and do get roped in to traffic illegal drugs. Beware!!