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Maid Permit, Passport and Contract Renewal 2021 – The Final Chapter

So.

Here I am. At the final part of this neverending Chronicle and my war against the overlords of inefficiencies, the dreaded Malaysian Immigration.

I left my home at 7.15 am to journey to Shah Alam PKNS for one last duel with this foul institution of neglect. Reached at around 7.45 and finally got my place in the queue to take the number and at around 7.55 am I was seated. So far so good – they actually officially open at 8 am but apparently they let you in early, so keep that in mind. By 8.20 the room was filling up and finally it was my turn. I thought we could end it within an hour or so.

The lady took all my documents plus the passport, cursorily looked at it, tapped a few things on her computer and then passed back to me and told me to pay. She said, take a number to pay.

I looked at the queue, the same queue I was in earlier, but now snaking its way along the corridor. Excuse me? I have to take a queue? Again? What’s wrong with my current number?

Yes, you need to go all the way back in line to take a DIFFERENT queue number in order for you to pay.

This is by far, the stupidest procedure of all time. Stupidest. Whichever imbecile that came up with this procedure deserves an award for being the biggest moron of all time, should be shot, hung and dried in the public square. But it was so expected (moronic procedures) of our Malaysian Civil Service, that’s it would have been absolutely shocking if they came up with a procedure that made sense or that reflected any signs of intelligence higher than an amoeba. Like for instance, transferring the same queue number you have in your hand to the payment queue. Or have another queue machine at hand to provide a fresh queue number for payment. Or just write the goddamn number onto a toilet paper. I mean, there could be a billion ways to resolve it but Malaysia chooses the absolute, most stupid way to solve it. This is because its the Immigration’s KPI to have as long queues as possible and as many people as possible sardined into a small non-ventilated room in order to show that they are ‘busy’ and ‘hard at work’. And it speaks volumes to the absolute idiocy of our civil service procedures – the ultimate shithousery to give to tax paying citizens. Its like they came up with these procedures while taking a dump.

To beat this god forsaken procedure, I would recommend the moment you get your first queue number, to immediately go back into the same queue again (which would have been built up) and then when you reach the front, just pretend that you have already gone through the first queue number and now you have to go for payment. Ask for payment queue number. They will give it to you. They won’t recognise you because they are generally not really vested in how ugly or good looking you are.  And there is absolutely zero communications between the officers. So now, you should have 2 queue numbers. By now, the first queue number should already be up, you jump right into their seat, get the lady to tap stuff on their ancient VAX computer and pretend to be frustrated when she tells you to re-queue again for payment. Then, wait for your payment queue number and voila make the payment.

Because I did not do that, I had to re-queue and then wait again – for another 2 damn hours. I observed a few things: there are 15 counters available and only 4 officers working in a room chokeful of human beings. Secondly, the payment counter is ONLY ONE. So it took 2 hours to go through number 14 people.  Also, the payment counter is not just for payment. Apparently it’s also for enquiry and such. Thirdly, the guy behind the counter takes his own sweet time to press for the next number. After completing one person, he sits there, staring powerfully at all of us pathetic idiots looking at him, imploring him to press the button so the number can switch.

Malaysia Immigration – you are the champion in shithousery.

I paid RM221 – Credit card only accepted, so don’t expect e-wallet or cash – and the officer said to me, “Normally, how long do you need to wait?”

I was a bit stunned. I wanted to say, “How the hell would I know?” but apparently he thinks I do this everyday for my living. I just shrugged, unsure what to answer.

He said brusquely, “Come back around an hour and go straight to Counter 15.”

And so, around 1.5 hours, a breakfast and a Teams Meeting later, I came back and went straight to counter 15. Apparently, there is no process here to collect. You just walk straight up to the counter, in front of all the disapproving looks of the people sitting down there like idiots waiting for instructions. You just ask the officer , I am here to collect passport of maid.

And he will ask your name, and pass to you the passport – the new one now has a VISA permit on it. Oh, if you had a passport cover before, it will be gone, because apparently they need to remove it to put the permit, and they never bothered to put it back. I rather wrap the passport in used diapers than to pass the passport back to these group of people to get the passport cover. No way.

I said thank you and actually bowed obsequiously like a Japanese, received it with two hands as if I am being awarded the Order of the British Empire from the Queen. They failed to appreciate my sarcasm and I scrambled away from this hellhole as quickly as possible.

There is a form for feedback below, I suggest all of us go into it and give an honest review of this service.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfm3oFALJ21Jb5TD5e409Z2xOQ3ydxqjJjFBCp8aIquw6EeLw/viewform?usp=sf_link

In CONCLUSION:

a) Go to the Immigration where your IC number and permit address is – if KL, then DUTA, if PJ, then PKNS Shah Alam.

b) Don’t go in the afternoon – go early in the morning. It officially opens at 8 am but loiter there from 7.40 am onwards. They may open early. Once they do, rush to the lift, kick anyone else who follows you in it and run like a mad dog to the office for foreign workers. I would give you directions but the whole area is crazy confusing. So just give in to your instinct and ask the Lord to lead the way to the right room.

c) Once there, take up the queue number for ‘kemaskini’ – which means modifying the passport. Immediately go behind the queue again and once in front again, ask for a payment queue number even if you haven’t kemaskini yet. If the officer recognises you, pretend you have an epileptic attack or just state you have a twin.

d) Remember to have all your documents at hand. Photostat your maid’s old passport front page and permit page, the new passport front page, YOUR IC front and back, bring your actual IC as well, bring your credit card for payment and ensure you have two documents:

  1. Permohonan Kemaskini Dokumen Pembantu Rumah – This document is as rare as golden bird shit. Apparently it cannot be found online, including their own stupid website> I got mine from the officer from Duta during one of my forays there. I’ve posted the jpg here in case you desperately need it:
  2. You need to write a ‘Surat Permohonan’. I wrote mine in English and it’s as follows:

Date

Immigration Department of Malaysia

To whom it may concern,

I, <your name>, IC No: <your IC> would like to request that the permit of my current house maid, <maid name> (OLD Passport No: <old passport no>) to be moved to her new passport number <new passport no>.

Thank you

<Sign here>

<Your name>

<your IC> <your contact>

d) After this, wait for your payment, make your payment and wait for around an hour before barging your way through the wall of people to counter 15 and say you are here to collect.

That’s it. Hopefully I never need to face these jokers again for the next ten years (my maid passport expiry), which by then, hopefully this ancient practice of mental torture and abuse called Malaysian Immigration will be improved for the sake of the generation to come.

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Do You Have The Balls for Golf?

When I first started this game almost 20 years ago, I never thought it mattered which golf ball you would play. To me, a ball was a ball. That was it. No one golf ball was better than the other, especially since I lacked so much fundamental of play – I can’t even hit the bloody ball, let alone decide which ball is better than the other. If it’s got dimples, I will hit it. That sounded a bit crass.

Over the first few years, from picking up random balls off the road, I developed an affinity to one brand in particular: MAXFLI. I just loved the font over the ball and teeing up with the bold MAXFLI word made me feel comfortable for some unknown and unscientific reason.

Look at that. That’s absolutely smashing.

I would use REDMAX as well and then later on, the MAXFLI REV and Fire series but by then the logo/font had changed to this stupid font

Which is kind of ugly, because X in golf means you didn’t finish the hole and you gave up because you suck. Having such a huge emphasis on the X just makes me super uncomfortable over the ball, like a premonition that this ball is going to go OB – which invariably it does.  The previous logo with the A being the emphases was well done.

By and by, I couldn’t source the MAXFLI balls anymore as my second hand ball seller, Mr Selan from KRPM slowly moved his way into the next life selling balls to angels playing golf up in the great unknown. I used to order 100 Maxfli balls in batches from him. Also, he told me that MAXFLI was getting more rare and suggested I move on to another brand like Wilson. He passed his business to his son, I believe, before I also faded from the scene around 10 years back as I stopped playing on Saturdays due to my young family.

I continued using random second hand balls after that, using whatever I still had in my cache of Maxfli and others. I opted to store my Maxflis more when I found out how difficult it was to get them. A few years back, I started using the Inesis 500 balls just because they were cheap and brightly colored. I was using an Inesis 500 soft ball when I shot 80 at the Mines a few years ago. However, after a while I noticed an alarming distance decrease whenever I used it, compared to other balls. It was then I began to take it more seriously – whether the ball I was using was indeed suitable or not.

I found a seller from LAZADA after that “Sports Direction” selling used Srixon Z star -XV and Z Star for around RM38 for 10. Which is a very good deal as these balls were excellent golf balls and I began using them – sometimes he had a Q-Star or TriStar in there and I used it with noticeable improvements around the driving and greens.

But they shut shop about a year back so I had to source out my balls again. I decided to just get new balls moving forward. I started with the cheaper ones like Srixon Soft Feel and Bridgestone extra soft because they come in Yellows. Played very well with them, I highly recommend the Soft Feel, for some reason, it flies incredibly straight. The Bridgestone one was surprisingly good around the green, but for driving, Srixon was very good.

I then purchased The Titleist Velocity ball which was basically the successor of the NXT.

It was touted as the longest golf ball ever and boy were they right. The Velocity was amazing to play with for a distance ball. Because I generally hit the ball short of green and try to roll it in, I didn’t need a high spin ball. I needed a ball to get down the fairway 230-250 meters. The only problem with Velocity was the price tag. At more than RM11 PER BALL, I was cursing everytime I lost the damn ball. I lost 2 at Sungai Long and One at KGNS. It’s frustrating because it was so expensive and I would be going all around looking for it.

I then purchased the Callaway Warbird which, at around RM6.50 per ball which made a bit more sense to the game I play. It’s still pretty long but for some reason I just feel the Velocity was further by a bit. Either way, both doesn’t come close to Srixon Soft Feel for straight flight.

So now, I would have a Srixon Soft Feel and one of the distance balls (Warbird or Velocity) with me. If the hole did not have hazards or was not narrow I would take up the distance balls. For holes where losing the ball may be a higher percentage, or a par 3, I whip out the yellow Srixons.

Either way, check these balls out , because as a hacker, I would strongly recommend against buying stuff like Pro V1 or Pro V1x until we get our game down to single handicap.

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Maid Permit, Passport and Contract Renewal 2021 Part 5

Update 7 July 2022: So I decided to use my lunch break to head over to Shah Alam PKNS building to see if I can sort this nightmare maid passport scenario once and for all. Its a long drive but I finally reached there, found a parking and found myself wandering around the hallways of this immigration, reminiscent of a rat looking for its way around a maze. This twisted building is even worse than the DUTA, because this just has hallways and a cacophony of human noises and human smells. It feels surreal than in 2022, we are still floundering in such terrible conditions for immigration.

I finally sourced where the maid renewals were done and duly queued again, and after around 40 minutes, I finally got to the front. What irritated me second most was that the person behind absolutely had no sense of personal space. You know those morons that stand draped over your shoulder and when you move forward in the queue, they just step next to you like they want to smell your ass? So I had a moron behind me breathing down on me, as if if he stood nearer to me, he could then be merged with me as a single human and he can get to skip one person in this God-forsaken queue in this God-forsaken hellhole called Immigration. Second most. Because what irritated me most was what followed.

Finally reached the immigration officer, a young man who had a sneering look on his face of a man who, at this young age, had lost all hope of any life renewal and now faced the next 40 years of his working life suffering behind this soulless institution called Malaysian Immigration Department. I explained to him and he said, “Yes, this is the correct queue.”

Before I could respond and celebrate, he continued, “But we are out of Queue Numbers. Come back again another time.”

It’s 2 pm. On a work day. They close at 5. There is 3 more hours of actual work hours. And you now say you can’t service because of no more queue number. What Godless country are we living in, that at 2 pm, these buggers called Immigration would mail it in and say, no more queue number.

NO MORE QUEUE NUMBER? In the year 2022??!

I looked at him incredulously and he just looked back in his dimly lit eyes, bereft of any empathy, sympathy or general signs of actual life. I felt, truly and I am not demeaning his work – I really really felt that I was talking to a zombie, or a soulless person. Because I knew whatever I said, was meaningless and he would only repeat himself. There was no processing capability, no ability to say other things or explain anything, just a mindless “No more queue number.”

I asked him, “What time do you guys run out of queue numbers?” – paraphrasing, “When does your lazy ass actually do any work?”

And I could swear, he gave a smirk of satisfaction, an almost sneering, inyourface you sonofab*tch useless citizen of Malaysia look to me, and half spat, half spoke :- “Morning, just queue early in the morning.”

This is Malaysia. And we all wonder why we get hated so much by Malaysians, Singaporeans, Zimbabweans and all citizens of this known world and also any unknown aliens not found yet in our galaxy. This is truly the most inept, useless, bottom of the barrel sort of service we’ve come to expect from our immigration.

The irony is that, the IC department is very good and everyone has great reviews. It’s almost as if the IC department is the blue eye department of the whole ministry, while the maid passport division is where all the $hit officers flow to like a diarrhea purge of the body. It doesn’t matter if you are from the Duta or Shah Alam or anywhere else, the immigration is truly a nightmare to deal with. I rather wish a thousand deaths by quartering on someone that to have to deal with the Immigration department of Malaysia.

So another day, another time loss, and still nothing to show for it. The war against the ever invincible Immigration Department continues.

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Maid Permit, Passport and Contract Renewal 2021 Part 4

So, after six months, I’ve decided to take on this monumental challenge to continue this game against the Malaysian Immigration – the impossible task to renew my maid permit/passport.

So far, to recap the previous season of this Squid Game competition with the Immigration – I successfully, renewed the contract, tackled the terrible mess of the Philippines government online booking, navigated through the embassy and getting my maid contract renewed and her passport sorted, with the new visa permit on her extended old passport. We also went and collected the new passport. So now I have the old passport with the valid permit and the new passport. These are not easy tasks. But these will be considered a walk in the park compared to what is to come, that is to put the new passport into Malaysia’s immigration system and move the permit from old passport to new. For that, I need to look into:

Defeating the Malaysian Immigration Department. The Bane of all Efficiencies, the Destroyer of Hope, the Betrayer of Good Service, the Devastator of Time, the Unholy Master of all that is Good in this Country, the Forsaken Overlords of the Queues and all that is absolutely Useless In Malaysia. They are the very definition of Malaysia’s government service, which has a the highest ratio of waiting for service to human lifespan found in the entire Universe and Heaven and Hell.

The first foray to defeat this Ruthless Monster, I went to the Duta immigration. I didn’t really know what to do actually. I tried to get an appointment through their immigration website. https://www.imi.gov.my/. Firstly, because the website has been actually designed by gerbils, the navigation makes no sense. In fact, it’s easier to navigate Dante’s Nine Circle of Hell compared to the site. No where will we find any useful information. And each page is designed to put the reader to sleep, with tons of absolutely garbage information that serves zero purpose. So I don’t know. I couldn’t get any appointment so Trusting in the Lord Almighty to give me strength and faith, I took up the two passports of my maid (the old one with the visa and the new one) and went bravely to the imposing fortress of this Monster – the Duta Immigration in KL (opposite Publika).

I already had my share of nightmares getting my passport sorted earlier. In fact, I wake up in cold sweat at night still, tormented by dreams of falling into a neverending queue of silent screaming humans waiting for eternity. Seeing the building still puts me into shivers.

I bravely went up and yes, there was a queue in front of the passport section for helpers. It’s right opposite the passport renewal for Malaysians, which had its own queue snaking down the countryside and far into the abyss. For my queue, it wasn’t supremely bad. Just about an hour.

So after one hour, I managed to snake my way all the way to the front. I explained to the absolutely disinterested officer that I need to do this and that for my maid and she just pressed the queue button, Mickey Mouse Steamboat Willie playing in her mind, no doubt. She pressed, pressed. And pressed again. I finally saw life sparkling in her eyes as she looked up, unsure what to do, as this was out of her SOP to press button. The Automaton spoke, “Oh. Nasib you tak baik.”

This meant, “Oh you are unlucky.”

It’s not something you want to hear. Not after you waited in queue. It’s like The Angel Michael saying that once you reach the Pearly Gates and about to enter Heaven. That’s just not cool.

I asked her what happened. She explained, well the queue machine is broken. It’s hanging. So I asked her what to do. She just chuckled and she went off. For a long time. So now everyone behind me, all 50 people are looking at me disapprovingly, thinking that I was causing the ruckus with a silly request. All of them tapping their foot, grumpily looking at me and wishing me death and dishonor to my family name. DAMN IT WOMAN! Release me from this HELL OF WAITING!

After 15 minutes, which I have picked up my phone and stared intently at the blank screen to neutralise all the cruel stares I am receiving, she returned. This time with an accomplice. They fretted a bit over this cursed machine and finally got it to work, much to the significant relief of everyone waiting. We were all ready to Hi-five each other, the way that the movies show when the rocket to space is launched successfully and the asteroid the size of Brazil hurtling to earth has been destroyed. Great perils share this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers – so say the great Victor Hugo. We were strangers no more, we were survivors of the dreaded beast of Malaysian Immigration. We have slewed the wicked —

“Oh. Ini tak boleh guna.”

So sayeth the Automaton behind the counter. This is where the rocket crashes and burns to a billion pieces and everyone in the launch room stares at the screen in utter horror.

What does she mean?

She explained, in rebooting the queue system, the whole number has been mixed up and now she would have to manually work out which is next in line to those who had already taken the queue number. She said ‘already taken’ in a significant sort of way, that I needed to ask what she meant.

She sighed and told me, you can’t take the queue number anymore. It’s over. All of us waiting, especially you poor devil who had come all the way to the front – you need to go home, rest, recuperate and come fight this injustice and sorry excuse of a government another day.

In the year 2022, when I was a kid, I thought we would see hovercrafts, hoverboards, and flight to the moon. Instead I now witnessed an even greater event – time travel. We have been magically transported back to 1962, before any system was invented, where people would just have to wait in queue like a lottery number praying to the gods that lightning does not come and kill you. There was no backup plan. There was no business continuity. The entire country’s backbone for immigration is dependent on a shitty little queue system that if rebooted meant the end of all service.

What the Fuzzballs.

Malaysia, you have outdone yourself. This is me slowclapping you. I couldn’t even be furious with her. All over the room, there was a warning there would be a 2K fine and jail time for anyone ‘obstructing the officer from doing their job.’ which translated, if you throw a fit, tantrum, raise your voice or as much look funny at the officers, you are going to be guillotined. They have faced these tantrum throwing buggers before who had dared to challenge their inefficiency or their general lack of humanity. Throw tantrum? We’ll throw you in our dungeon, you ungrateful ba$tard!

There was nothing to do but pick up my crap and creep away, defeated.

Day 2

You would think this whole nonsense would end here. But after going through a bit of counselling and psychiatric help, I took up the courage to go again, this time, smartly going around 1.30 pm as I knew these government denizens went about their lunch from 1 to 2.

When I reached, there was already a reasonable line waiting for the lunch break to open. I duly got into line. No more waiting like an idiot.

This time, they opened their doors, we filed in like the gulags and got my queue number and sat, waited for around 15 minutes and then went to the counter and explained to the officer what I needed to do.

She took a minute or so and took my documents, passport of my maid and my IC. She passed me back and without even looking at me said, “You are from PJ, you cannot do your maid passport here. This is for KL.”

I looked behind me, half expecting a TV crew to come and say, “Gotcha!” or some sort of reality show playing pranks on me. I slowly tried to process it. I said, “Wait, I did my passport here. Right opposite. I also previously did all my maid renewal of Visa here. ” I also did my IC renewal here. My two sons, born of blood from me and now carrying my name to posterity, were registered here, their birth certificates were gotten here. If I had to die, I would want to be buried here. This was the location of my entire history of my life, this sacred piece of $hit called the Duta Immigration. How can it be that now, you, Angel of Death, play such a cruel trick?

She said, “Oh, for your passport ok. But maid passport please go Shah Alam. We cannot do it here.”

I know she can. IT cannot be that in 2022, Malaysia is still damned to be stuck in some sort of slippery timewarp where $hit cannot get done because their system is not linked/connected. I pleaded again, “Come on. There must be a way.” Why was this not highlighted in their damn website? Why was this not put as a requirement? Does the Malaysian Immigration think we are all psychics able to read their stupid policies and stupid procedures or navigate through the vomit of information contained in their dungpile of a website? How absolutely bereft of any common, uncommon, cow or goat sense is our good old Government? WHAT THE FLAMING FUZZBALLS is  going on??!

“There must be a way.” I say again. Life finds a way. There must be a way, this cannot be the end. There MUST be a way.

Yes, if I was a VIP, prime minster, a government politician or any of these slippery characters that crawl out of their holes sometimes to run our mess of a country. Yes, if I had connections or drink coffee with the Immigration bosses. But No, because I am none of these, I am condemned to lose my fight with this hell-bound creature called Malaysian Immigration again. In fact, Hell’s immigration department would probably even lose to Malaysia, that’s how good we are in torturing our tax paying citizens.

So there. 2 days wasted and nothing to show. I am defeated, I am destroyed once more. I need to rebuild my life and my shattered confidence once again. I leave, a broken shell of human who once had life, dreams and aspirations – all dashed by this wicked institution called Immigration.

To paraphrase the famed Thomas Hardy (not the actor) in his most famous novel of all: “Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with me.

Do I dare go to Shah Alam? I will let myself mentally recover for one week first before I pluck enough courage to go again. Stay tuned.