A tale of a coffee shop

Assuming there is a famous coffee shop called "Tua Zhong Kopitiam"

This Kopitiam is the best in the area, as it has the best stalls in Singapore. the tables are clean,it's services are very good and it has always been ranked top kopitiam to makan in amongst the kopitiams of the world. It has also has food stalls that are ranked tops by any measures and these stalls are run by the best hokkien mee fryer, best chay tao kuay maker, best fish ball soup etc

The owners of the kopitiam stalls hires a full team of managers to run the different aspects of the shops. They have a manager to take care of the health of the stall owners, a manager to defend the kopitiam against thief, a manager to developed the kopitiam into the kopitiam of the 21st century, a manager to keep up foreign relationship with other kopitaims and suppliers so that they will supply the shop with cheap coffee powder to keep the sales going. The managers of this kopitiam is being elected to to their positions by the customers and the stall owners. And the managements collects monthly contributions from the stall owners/customers etc to keep the various departments running smoothly.

One day, the General Manager realised that his team member's pay package is not up to par with the other kopitiams and if he doesn't do something quick he may risk losing his well oiled team of managers to food stalls which can pay these manager a higher pay. So he held held a meeting with all the stalls owners and announce that a decision is made to raise the pay of the managers.

Since the managers have been doing such a good job running the kopitaim for the last 40 years, all the stall owners, customers agree to the pay raise. The way to pay the managers is based on a average of the earnings of the top eight stall's takings in the the kopitiam.

After the decision is made, some of the stall owners and customers raised some questions,

Mr Ter Bak Che (owner of the Tok Kong Bak Kut Teh):

"Running a stall is differently from managing the kopithiam, the stall owners take on a lot more risk than the managers....if tomorrow kena some ban on pig import or mad pig disease, the stalls would face a risk of closing business. The manager (grant that he works very hard to ensure that the risk is minimum) would only get voted out of office every four to five years when the stall owners and the customer's vote. As we stall owners takes on the risk.....it is only right that we reap the rewards....should we actually give the managers some risk...to make them earn their pay rise?"

Mr Lim Goh Pee (Regular customers of the Kopitiam):

"I don't mind giving the managers a pay raise, and it is logical since they have worked hard to manage the shop well, but should the pay rise be based on something more than the average takings of the the stall owners, what about some kind of appraisals? some kinda of KPI?"

"for example, the manager in charge of the health and hygiene can get a pay bonus if by the end of the year (baring all the extraordinary incidents of Bird flu, SARs etc) there is an improvement to his scope as assessed against previous records and the international Kopitiam health standards"

"Maybe, like many stall owners and their employees, a portion of the pay is fixed and the big big bonus would come at the end of the year upon the assessments"


This analogy is what i used to explain the minister's pay rise issues with the kopitiam uncles at my office area. 40-50million (i may be wrong about this one)in total for the minister's pay may not big enough sum for the average public to gripe about. But a prawn noodle uncle who faces risk and returns issues everyday.....even a $10 increase in rent which his kopithaim ask for which they don't deserve is a lot.

Personally i think there can be a better way to reward our super hardworking, under appreciated ministers.

FATALOGY on Minister's Pay rise,