THERE I WAS the other day, sitting at my work table at home looking for some paper as a make-do palette for painting a model sailing ship when my son dropped just what I needed in front of me.
It was a survey questionnaire from the Hong Kong Government entitled 'Customer Service Excellence Award Scheme 2001-02'. It told me I had been selected, through random sampling, to choose which three out of 28 are my very favourite government departments.
They would certainly have to be departments I liked. The questionnaire did not give me much choice. For each one it offered me only three tick boxes. They were marked: Satisfied, Very Satisfied and Extremely Satisfied.
Just to emphasise the point I was given some additional tick boxes for each of my choices. They were: (1) Good staff performance, (2) High working efficiency, (3) Understanding customer needs, (4) Convenient to use its services, (5) Innovative/creative (really, it's true) and (6) Others specify. This last one was followed by about enough space to write the words 'Get lost' but not much more.
To ensure I would fill in this form and send it back to Tiptop Consultants I was told that 15 prizes would be awarded by draw to respondents, 12 of them for HK$500. Wowee! I cannot be quite sure what the top prize is, HK$2,000 I think, but there is a big smear of brown paint on that part now.
What is the Civil Service Bureau up to? The results of this survey are certainly not intended only for private circulation in Government. A paragraph marked 'Consent' clearly states, 'except where prohibited, participation in the lucky draw constitutes entrant's (sic) consent to the publication of his or her name and image in any media for any commercial or promotional purposes, without limitation or further compensation'. Note that word 'image'.
If you send the questionnaire back they have the right to take a photograph of you and publish it in newspapers or on television as someone who says the Hong Kong Government is doing a wonderful job. You are, at the very least, 'Satisfied'. Tick the box for 'Extremely Satisfied' and your risk of being selected for this draft increases.
