One of the best things about life in Taiwan's cities is the convenience. Its urban centers are sleepless. One can buy groceries, food or fresh coffee, withdraw or wire money, send or receive packages, buy concert or traffic tickets and pay bills 24 hours a day at a nearby convenience store. Its restaurateurs and shopkeepers are trained to treat customers like kings and queens. Even the mom-and-pop eateries typically provide highly customized meals to customers old and new. Bus routes between major cities run almost constantly. Last but not least, the nation is known worldwide for its universal health care provision. These are just some of the reasons why Taiwan ranks high in standard of living indexes — despite relatively low average wages.
All these conveniences, however, come at a price, often paid by staff working overtime or businesses cutting corners, leading to customers getting a raw deal. Most of the time customers are none the wiser about this price. Go into a convenience store at rush hour and you will find its employees juggling the duties of shopkeeper, postmaster and barista, with customers expectant that each of these jobs will be handled in a speedy and orderly fashion. One will also find that the number of staff in a convenience store does not increase when more responsibilities are given. In short, these shopkeepers are constantly asked to do more in less time. And when the inevitable happens — when wait time increases or when a customer's demands are not met — it is the shopkeepers who deal firsthand with the consequences. In a much-reported case, an angry customer emptied her iced coffee in the shopkeeper's face because the coffee was not made to her specifications —even though the store promised no tailor-made service.
Similar rage from people with excessive and unreasonable demands is seen also in emergencies rooms across Taiwan. These services are frequently misused by non-emergency patients who can't be bothered booking an inpatient session. These patients, or their accompanying family members, get annoyed because they are not treated on a first-come, first-served basis. Emergency medical staff are yelled at, sometimes even attacked, because they let people with life-threatening conditions skip the line and make walk-in patients with a common cold wait.
Eventually the cost of these conveniences will have to be passed onto the people enjoying them — and with a bigger price tag. The recent fatal tour bus crash has revealed an inconvenient truth: While people may be getting cheap and convenient services, sometimes they could end up paying for these with their lives. Investigations point to the possibility that the accident, which killed 33, took place because the overworked bus driver may have lost focus due to tiredness. He had been working 14 days in row prior to the accident and he was on his 11th hour of driving for the day when the accident took place. In cases like this, the human cost of convenience manifests itself. The exodus of disheartened health care professionals to other countries or less demanding sectors such as cosmetic surgeries is also taking a toll on the quality of medical care in Taiwan.
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