Lucky you! The reaction I got from public customer service in London was always hurried, stern with a tinge of annoyance.

Thinking long term is the task of an executive and not of an inspector. No matter how you classify people (ie intelligent or not) doing a job, a task is to be carried out as expected and prescribed and not arbitrarily.

“This does not only happen in Malta”

Oh! That’s all right then.

This line of reasoning really gets my goat.

“Inspectors are not paid to think long term. They are paid to apply the rule. Vide previous reply”.

Thinking long term comes naturally to normal intelligent people. You don’t have to be paid for it. Vide my post about the bus inspector in London.

Try Budapest, Hungary

Inspectors are not paid to think long term. They are paid to apply the rule. Vide previous reply.

Same applies.

Inspectors are not paid to use discretion. They are paid to apply the rule. If they use their discretion they would be breaking rules themselves.

They sell them a Gozo tour with no guide. Upon arriving on Gozo they have to meet someone carrying a piece of paper with the name of the agent selling the tour and taken around Gozo with no guide which is illegal.

When they come to board the ferry boat they discover that they have to pay for the ferry ticket and when they return to Malta they are left wandering around to find their way back to their hotel some of them actually taking the public transport in the belief that the voucher given to them at the hotels from, where a number of such bucket shops operate, entitles them to make use of public transport.

Believe you me this is a very common occurrence and the numerous complaints raised by the guides’ union about such and other infringements to the Malta Tourism Authority have always and I repeat always fallen on deaf ears.

Regarding the attitude of the bus inspectors it might have been a bit overboard but then again this does not happen only in Malta.

The problem with your reasoning is that you think very short term. Make them pay the fine and you get your pittance. Empathise with them and you win a good name for your country.

All tourists talk about the good and bad in the countries they visit. The last thing we need is bad and irreversible publicity. This apart from the fact that understanding it was a genuine mistake and empathising with people in unfamiliar surroundings is the decent thing to do.