A coin has 2 sides

I was having lunch at Chevron House today, while waiting for my colleague to come back with his food, I overheard a conversation among 3 young executives with an average age of about 25.

Their conversation was about the lifestyle of young people nowadays. Remember the article on Sunday Times that had featured Ms Agnes Lin???

Yup, these 3 young executives were talking about her. They were discussing among themselves how spoilt she was, etc. Having witnessed how our local press media failed to feature huge crowd at the alternative party's rally or rather chose not to, I had learned to only judge after finding out both sides of the story.

'The Online Citizen" did an excellent job in sort of clearing Ms Agnes Lin's name.

So while waiting for my colleague to come back, I could not help it and thus decided to do what I often did during my house-to-house visits; ground work. I went forward to the young man (because he was talking really loudly and was bad-mouthing Ms Agnes Lin) and said....

"I'm sorry to have disturb your lunch, however sir, I would like to point out to you that this article that you had read might not be complete or what Agnes had said. 'The Online Citizen' did an interview with the ST reporter with regards to this and the reporter admitted that she had omitted certain information from that interview. Hence, the omitted information could have turned Ms Agnes Lin into Singapore's most detestable teen."

The young man was very shocked at my abruptness, he then asked me what the hell is "The Online Citizen"?

"Google for it... sorry but my point here is understand both sides of the coin before making any judgmental statements."

At that instant, my colleague came back. I smiled at the 3 of them and went off to get my food.

This incident once again confirmed my belief that ground work is essential. Besides reaching out to people who are not internet savvy, we also get to reach out to these groups of young individuals who probably thought that whatever they are exposed to everyday is right. We need to open up their minds to accept new ideas and voices.

I did not regret the decision to go up and talk to this young man in fact I felt normal ...hahaha! I guess it must had been the amount of house visits and selling of 'Hammer' that had made me acquire thick-skin :) or probably my past profession. Whatever it is, I felt great that I had talked some sense into 3 young people today!