He took to Facebook to call out one “very rude, unreasonable and arrogant” bus captain.
Little did the Facebook user expect that instead of drawing sympathy or support, his rant would land him on the receiving end of a wave of online criticism.
It all started when he published a post on his personal account on Dec 16, detailing the encounter he and his friend had with the bus captain. His friend only realised he had misplaced his wallet after boarding the bus and this left them both scrambling for coins to pay for the fare.
Alas, they were short of 40 cents, and a 50-dollar bill was the only other currency the user had on him.
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In the post, the user wrote: “We were honest and told (the bus captain) about it. He embarrassed us by asking us to ask for coins from the other passengers… we felt humiliated.”
Irked by the bus captain’s response, the user said he would make a complaint with the bus company. In response, the bus captain replied that he would alert his supervisor to the incident.
This prompted the user to write about the incident on Facebook, as he explained: “When I told (the bus captain) that I would post it on social media due to our humiliation to beg for 40 cents from other passengers… his reaction totally changed and did not move the bus and kept trying to persuade us that it is not his fault.”
In his indignance, the user may have expected other Facebook users to commiserate or criticise the bus captain after seeing his post.
But in reality, the conversation took a vastly different turn.
The post was shared more than 700 times, and netizens spoke out overwhelmingly against him. Many felt that the bus captain had offered him a solution and was simply doing his job – which includes ensuring passengers pay up their fares.
Others also pointed out that it was hardly a humiliation to ask another passenger for 40 cents, and that there was no reason to feel shy or afraid to ask for help.
Following the backlash, the user has since deleted his post.
Apart from realising that there are better ways to address disagreements than to shame someone online, one hopes that he also realises that in his moment of need, there are definitely people around who would gladly help without needing to be “begged”.