The company had not booked a direct flight, I had to transfer in Bangkok and the agent had not dared to count on a transfer time of less than an hour and had booked an onward flight almost 3 hours after touch-down. The plane out of Amsterdam was early however and at the transfer desk they told me I could catch an earlier flight to Singapore, which I did.

My boss had told me he was going to pick me up though so after arrival I immediately tried to call him but remember 1991? Mobile phones existed but were the size and weight of small bricks and expensive so neither I nor my boss had one and so began my hunt for small change, which was the easy bit; After having found a phone and the hotels phone number my first real test with Singlish came. I should tell you here I always had high grades for English in school, including verbal and had never encountered serious trouble making myself understood before.

So I called the hotel, identified myself (I thought) and asked for my bosses room. The lady at the other end asked me to wait a moment and then replied and said “Sorry, but Mr. [my name] has not checked in yet”. This was no surprise to me since I was still at the airport but it wasn’t what I had asked and thus started a fruitless attempt to explain that I was Mr. [my name] and that I was looking for my boss. After several minutes and running out of ways to say what I wanted I thanked the lady and decide to take a taxi to the hotel in the hope of catching my boss there.

The taxi ride was uneventful and I checked in and found out my boss was not in the hotel. After freshening-up I went to the lobby bar to wait there and ordered a beer (no idea what is cost). After I finished it I ordered another and the waitress asked me if I wanted to order another. Getting to grips with the fact Singaporeans seemed to have trouble I repeated that yes, I wanted to order another beer.

After having finished my second beer a third was delivered and I thought, ‘why not’. After having finished my third I started to feel a bit woolly in the head from lack of sleep and the waitress put a fourth beer down. I said I did not order it and that is when I learned about ‘happy hour’ and the concept of 1-for-1. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth I drank it and met my boss some time later entirely relaxed.

Needless to say I didn’t make those mistakes again … in Singapore. It’s surprising how simple things can make you trip sometimes, no matter how prepared (you think) you are.

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