I finally let out what I have been keeping inside all these years. Thanks to a letter from LTA.
The letter was supposed to have a NETS Motoring card attached, but the card wasn’t included. It wasn’t just us, a friend also said she received the same letter without the card. I told KS that someone’s head was about to roll. That was when I recounted the incident back when I was working as a lowly executive. The one where I had unknowingly mailed a reply to a letter by a disgruntled company owner without affixing a stamp.
In Singapore, if you mail anything without a stamp or insufficient postage, the mail will still reach the recipient, but the recipient may be asked to pay for postage. Yes, it happened. Disgruntled company owner got asked to pay for the postage and of course, he had to kick up a fuss about it. I mean, fair enough to feel that way.
A bit of back story as to why I even made that mistake. The mailbox in the building was just metal box with no indication that it is an official mailbox. I thought it was just a drop box for all mail — that someone would collect the mail and frank all the mail in the back office before mailing them out. In my previous temporary job, it was like that. Everyone would pile their mail at the side of the franking machine and someone would get the mail franked before mailing out. I assumed it was the same here. So, I dropped the letter in. (Yea, shouldn’t have assumed and just asked someone.)
Of course, disgruntled company owner is also a CB and unfortunately, with this incident, he was bound to make it into one huge drama. You see, this fella, through our feedback channel, had already demanded to speak to the CE over some complaint he had. The letter that was mailed out was a polite reply. Coz of my mistake, the case couldn’t be closed and his demands had to be some what met. Well, my boss got to know of it and it obviously got escalated to the Director and finally the DCE (who eventually met with that fella).
Not long after this incident, the Director resigned from his job. He was a very nice guy whom I respected and I couldn’t help but feel that I might have caused him to resign. Some might tell me not to overthink things. But even if that wasn’t the sole reason for him resigning, I felt it was the final nail to the coffin. I carried this guilt inside me for all these years (about 10+ years) and never told anyone until now.
Perhaps it is time to let it out and let it go. Everyone has moved on, things have changed. Perhaps I can also forgive myself for what happened.
