The 4 million picture smile

I was at the airport today, helping a friend out with his night class assignment. He is taking an IT degree, and was conned into signing up for this particular course for which the sales rep had promised "no programming". Apparently ALL the classes were programming courses. Moral of the story - Sales reps lie. AND my friend is too trusting and gullible. *evil grin*

Well, the assignment being an online game and me being a web meister, I was asked to help him with the look & layout of the site, as well as the Java coding. We had met the night before for a couple of hours where I had done up some graphics for him on photoshop. Today, he needed help in customizing pages and changing HTML and pieces of Java code to achieve what he wanted. As he is currently starting to see someone, he spent most of his time messaging his friend while I did most of the work.

I was ok with it though. I'm such a workaholic. Anything and everything about publishing a web page or dealing with new technology fascinate me. So while he dutifully looked over my shoulder to observe and learn what I was doing while on the phone with his (to-be) girlfriend, I was having fun messing and experimenting with his code and layout which I do say with a sense of pride, worked beautifully.

So, while we were hunched over his laptop, we were approached by 3 journalists. They requested to take pictures of our smiles. At first, i only saw the 2 girls. They were pretty young and sweet and approached my friend for his picture. I was used to this (my friend has been described by my girlfriends as a hunk) as all the girls who were promoting or trying to market something would be swooning over him. Never mind that any of us gals were standing behind him, or even that we looked like we could well afford their products more than him (hehe), he was the one who got their undivided attention.

So, I half ignored them while still publishing my code as they snapped a picture of him. Then one of the girls turn to me and asked me for one too. Curious, I asked what it was about.

"Oh, we have to take pictures of smiles from 4 million Singaporeans. And we will pick the one with the best smile. If you win, you will get this prize." She passed me a brochure of a full scale massage chair. And then suddenly they were joined by this really cute, blonde caucasian guy who must be only in his early twenties.

Anyway, I agreed to let them take the photo and while they did, I heard the cute caucasian trying to interview my guy friend. Being a typical guy on a weekend with nothing in his brain except his new girlfriend, he wasn't helping the frustrated journalist.

"So why do you think we are doing this?"

My friend went, "What? Doing what?"

"This competition. Why do you think we're doing this?"

"Oh, are you with them? I don't know. You just want pictures of our smiles right?"

Giving up, the journalist moved on to the next question.

"So why do you think Singaporeans need to smile more?"

"I don't know. Smiling is good isn't it?"

The journalist gave up and walked off.

I was laughing my head off on the inside, and as I was so amused by this conversation, I did not attempt to help or give him something for his piece.

I must say that while my friend is not the best person to interview, the journalist definitely needed to work on his technique. He failed to introduce himself and to associate himself with the other 2 girls who were creating awareness of the competition.

Secondly, he could not have been more vague in his questions. Having worked as a sub-editor for a local paper with a few journalists under me, I almost told him that he should go back to brush up on his interview skills. Never ask a general/vague question. If the interviewee does not understand your question, reword it instead of repeating it again and again. That doesn't help him get it if he didn't get it the first time. And always, always clarify your question, and lead the interviewee into the arena where he will have an idea of an answer for you.

My friend of course, knew that I was relishing in amusement at this useless interview even though my eyes were riveted on his laptop screen.

"Its going to be posted in a web page you know" he said.

"Oh really? Ugh. Shouldn't have let them take my picture then. I don't look good in photos."

"Oh come on, there's going to be 4 million faces up there. You think anyone's going to notice you?"

So he got his revenge. I'll be sure to have something the next time we meet for MY revenge...

PS. I wonder if the reason behind this competition were the results of the Reader's Digest World Politeness Survey that ranked us as the 30th polite country... or maybe its a scheme by dentists to make us self conscious about our pearly whites...