Newton's Law of Inertia

Because I still have to earn my keep, I have to travel to Singapore for meetings frequently. In between meeting, I usually swing over to Kuala Lumpur to park myself there. I keep a small pad at the Saujana resort. To-and-fro Singapore, Firefly is obviously most convenient for me. However, I also use the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur coach service that operates from the ground floor of the building where my Singapore office is. The coaches are clean and spacious and I can lay back to enjoy the smooth and scenic ride. 

But there is something always dread about this coach journey: the Immigration and Customs check-point at Johor Bahru. It reminds me one of the first lessons I learned in Physics in Form Five: Newton's Law of Inertia. An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. 

Year-in-and-year-out, you see the same mad rush, especially during weekends and holidays. Strangely, the authorities appear totally oblivious to the plight of travelers. The officers are certainly not derelict in their duty. You also don’t need a McKinsey to help solve the problem.

I suspect, like many things in Malaysia, everything boils down to this Law of Inertia! It stays in the same state because it has yet to be given a push by someone at the top!

And the someone at the top has not heard of MBWA – Managing by Walking About! 

Or is there more to it than meets the eye? We Malaysians are damn good in Conspiracy Theories, aren’t we?