I’m sitting here in McDonald’s at the Mall at 9.15 in the morning. I’ve just had a good breakfast, and I’m sipping my cup of tea while looking at my white laptop. I’ve got my Mac hooked up to their power supply, but it is unlikely that I will stay here longer than 9.30am. I’m merely whiling away time on my one-hour parking, hoping that the traffic would considerably clear up by the time I make my way out, although that possibility is very low. My Mac shows that I’m connected to McD’s WiFi, but Firefox has yielded nothing, indicating that the network isn’t connected to the Internet.

I was here this morning to renew my business licence which I would admit, I foolishly forgot to renew. It was due in August, but this year I forgot simply because I didn’t have any time markers. By time markers, I mean the period of time which is signified by something going on at that time of the year. The last two years, I was working in a school, and August had a one-week break which was the only time I could go to renew the licence in this quarter of the year. This year, being on my own, I completely forgot because I was on my own with no holidays to remind me of my limited time to get official work done. I only remembered because I heard an ad on the radio which announced the ease of getting official things done online now.

I did check out that website, but couldn’t find any information about renewing business licences, so I think that website was only good for certain official work. So today, being the first free morning since I remembered about my licence renewal (last week was Hari Raya holidays), I fought traffic for about half an hour just to get to the Commission of Business Registration. I came prepared. I had a book to read, and my laptop to get work done. I expected to wait, because last year, I had to wait 2 hours for my business licence to be released. I already thought that was very good, because the year before, I had to wait more than a week.

Last year’s process was like this:

1. Go to the open counter outside, get a form.
2. Fill up the form, then go back to the counter to get a number.
3. Go into the waiting hall, and wait until number is called.
4. Hand in form, pay licence renewal fee, get receipt.

Because I came early last year (just after 8am), 1-4 was done in about 5 minutes. I was told to come back in 2 hours, and I was very surprised because the year before, it would take a week or more. I didn’t register my business licence on my own though, I paid a tout to get it done for me.

I was glad I didn’t use the tout this year, but I had to while my wait for 2 hours so I went to the McDonald’s downstairs (which was thankfully open - 24 hour McDonald’s are very recent, only started last year) and got some my own paperwork done before I went back upstairs to collect my licence.

So this year, fully expecting the same process, I got to the commission. However the process this time is:

1. Go to the open counter outside, get a form AND number.
2. I saw my number was the next one, so I went into the waiting hall and found my number due already! I went up to the counter and explained that I had only just arrived and hadn’t filled up the form. The lady didn’t even complain as I quickly filled up the form, which thankfully, was very short.
3. Paid my renewal fees (I renewed for 2 years this time!) and the fine (I expected it to be RM60, but it was only RM30).
4. Got my business licence AND the receipt.

And all the above in less than 5 minutes!!!

Kudos to the government for really improving their agencies’ customer service. I was impressed by last year’s quick service, but they obviously took pains to improve it even more. They have really taken advantage of Information Technology.

Last time renewing a passport would take 3 days, then 24 hours, then 2 hours. I wonder if they can do an on-the-spot renewal now, just like the business renewal?

(I went home to post this, as McD did not have Internet access)

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