MRT commuter with walking stick criticised after complaining that woman didn’t give up her seat

SINGAPORE: A male commuter who took to social media to complain about a woman not giving up her seat on the MRT ended up facing backlash, with netizens calling him out for acting entitled and making assumptions.

In a post shared on Sunday (Aug 3) in the ‘Complaint Singapore’ Facebook group, the man said he boarded the train at Aljunied station while using a “walking stick.”

As the train was crowded at the time, he said he stood directly in front of a younger woman who was seated, hoping she would notice his condition and offer him her seat without needing to be asked.

However, according to him, the woman kept her eyes on her phone and didn’t acknowledge him at all.

Frustrated, he snapped a photo of her and uploaded it to the group, saying he couldn’t understand why “some people do not have a heart.”

He later shared that another passenger, an elderly man seated nearby, eventually noticed him and kindly gave up his seat.

“Just because you walk with a stick doesn’t mean someone owes you a seat.”

While these kinds of complaints usually garner sympathy from the online crowd, this time, it invited criticism.

Many labelled the man as the “entitled” one. Some netizens also questioned why he was specifically targeting the woman when “she’s not even sitting in a priority seat.”

One netizen said, “She never committed a crime and never did anything against the law, it’s not even a priority seat. She paid transport fare same as you, so it’s fair. Your entitlement is not anyone’s responsibility, and you taking her photos without her consent and posting it here, you are the one breaking a law.”

Another commenter, a 70-year-old man, added, “Just because you walk with a stick doesn’t mean someone owes you a seat. Let’s be honest—expecting a lady on the MRT to give up her seat simply because you’re older or have a walking stick is self-fulfilling.”

A third pointed out that the woman may have been dealing with an invisible condition, which might explain why she chose to ignore the man with the walking stick.

“A person may look well, but they’ve what we called silent illness. It could be BVVP, body pains, knee issue, etc. Don’t just assume one looks young means they’re healthy,” they wrote.

In other news, an employer has decided to terminate the contract of her domestic helper after discovering through CCTV footage that her one-year-old daughter was being neglected while she was away at work.

In a post shared anonymously in the “Direct Hire Transfer Singapore Maid/Domestic Helper” Facebook group, the employer claimed that the helper spent most of her time watching television instead of attending to the baby.

Read more: Employer terminates maid’s contract after discovering through CCTV that her 1-year-old child was neglected