I REFER to Monday's article, 'Seat taken? Tissue can't be an issue'.

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I have to agree with Eng Soon especially if you are dining alone during peak hour. I am not practicing the 'tissue culture' by the way. Most of the time after buying my food, I had to walk around searching for seats with my hot bowl of noodles and hope that some young kids don't bang into me causing an accident.

I believe that this practice of reserving seats at crowded hawker centres & foodcourts with tissue paper packets stems from our fear of losing out. I do not believe that such 'kiasu' behaviour is only confined to our shores.

For New Yorkers, being shoved by others while entering a train during peak hours, seeing others 'steal' their cabs & general rudeness, are a way of life in their city. I have seen New Yorkers reserve seats at McDonald's using a folded newspaper, magazine, umbrella or baseball cap. How different is that from a packet of kleenex?

With 4.8 million inhabitants on our small island, finding limited seats at a crowded foodcourt during the less than 1 hour office workers have for lunch, is a daunting task. Those who eat alone have it worse, since there is no companion to reserve a seat for them. Would it be deemed better behaviour to leave a bigger item to indicate that your seat is taken? Perhaps a copy of the New Paper or a foldable umbrella would 'legitimise' the booking of the seat.

I have seen examples of 'kiasu' behaviour in western countries - including the piling of more food than one can finish during a buffet just in case there is none left later, filling up their empty mineral water bottles from the drink dispenser at a buffet, queuing up well in advance for freebies, taking time off from work to get the best buys at sales etc.

I believe that there is a genuine fear of losing out in any highly competitive society. Reserving seats at a crowded eatery (I'm not referring to restaurants) - regardless of the item used - is not uniquely S'pore.

i see. so, this 'tissue issue' is actually internationalized. :)

therefore, no big fuss about it.

anyway, according to a study (can't remember the source), if all patrons proceed straight to the stalls, make the purchase, sit down (any table) and finish the food, without reservations, the turnaround time is amazingly short!

There is definitely a tremendous inefficiency in the seating section of any foodcourt when seats are left vacant while reserved for patrons who are queuing up. However, there is also tremendous value for reserving seats, as friends can spend time together over a meal, and have the assurance of a seat upon receiving their food from the hawker.

There are also different customer types present - (1) friends intending to eat together, (2) friends that are more interested in eating quickly (and heading elsewhere for their cuppa kopi/tea, etc.

In balancing these competing demands, and in better serving the different customer segments, I'd suggest that foodcourt operators consider segmenting their seating, so that during peak hours, a section of seats (~10-15% of seats) is set aside for (a) no reservations, (b) no reorders/waiting, (c) expected mealtimes of up to ~15minutes. In such a section, one should then expect patrons to eat quickly, vacate their spaces quickly, and patrons who have ordered their food without reserving a space in the foodcourt can find a seat here quickly. These seats can be marked on the ground with a green line, or a catchy campaign with an "Eat N Go" table stand can be placed on such tables - these areas should explictly identify the value proposition that people commit to - "I do not reserve seats at this table", "I Eat & Go!"

A model such as this would mean that friends would shift their lunchtime interactions to other spaces, such as park benches, or go for slow walks together, rather than occupying "hot" space in foodcourts, and impeding others from having their meals in a timely manner. Surely, there'll be lots of other good spillover effects to the surrounding shops. :)

yah, i agree, i don't understand why those students are making such a big deal about it and even trying to eradicate it when in fact the tissue-choping culture is one of the few things in Singapore that spontaneously evolved, was not prescribed in any way (just like singlish, which some people are trying to eradicate too). besides, it's an economist's wet dream!

alternative is to revert to olden days with stalls employing hordes of servers while lunch eaters seat down and order their food like in a restaurant la....but then you will have even more FT working around taking orders (only in mandarin) and delivering food.....may those students too free with nothing better to do can try this out as holiday jobs (no pay)......hahaha

Perhaps we should discourage people from eating in groups during busy lunch hours because they (i) keep the seats unoccupied while they buy their food, (ii) tend to chat or to wait for one another to finish. This leads to inefficient utilisation of the seats. Everybody should just eat and go and chat over their coffee or cigarettes elsewhere. The operators will see more profits too.

I don't see what's the big fuss about using tissues or whatever to reserve a place. After all, these people arrived before the others.

It's akin to saying that you cannot use your body to form a queue to "reserve" a place to be served!

we have a lot of brilliant student, right ?
Why not borrow the ( proven ) and practical idea of that supermart trolley system.
Put a dollar in and remove a key, the seat will fold up, when return with foods, put foods on table, insert key, retrieve dollar and set fold down for sitting. Objection ?