hee hee. su-lin is telling me about training to be an election officer, except bukit timah will never be contested, so she needn't remember any of it. although she is learning to say "bu hui ting" in all the major dialects so that if tottering old people come up to her she can direct them to someone else. mm hiaw tung, is how you say it in hakka, she tells me. and that she can say it in hokkien and cantonese and presumably teochews will understand the hokkien. heh.

and now she is telling me about how to handle difficult voters who shout at her.

me: so how do you handle ppl who yell at you?
me: be polite while signalling for a policeman?
su-lin: oh! there are four ways of saying no!
su-lin: they form the acronym nope!!
m: which four?
s: i forget.
s: o is the optional no ... i like that :)
m: what do you mean optional no
m: like, i prefer not to?
m: no, i prefer not to, please do not! and excuse me, what are you doing?

m: what if you cheated on a blind person's vote?
s: no one would know, actually.
m: so you could.
s: technically yes
m: except that as a civil servant you're morally upright
s: but i am impartial and honest
s: exactly!