Social Distancing Officer Allegedly Abused His Power By ‘Checking’ Shop Repeatedly & Asking For Free Service

Although many jobs have been lost and the economy affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic, new jobs are also created based on the needs of the society.

Many Singaporeans decided to take up the role, which entails walking around public areas and monitoring whether people follow social distancing rules as well as wear their masks properly at all times.

As the wise Spiderman once said: with great power comes great responsibility.

Sadly, some lose their sense of responsibility in the face of power.

Alleged Social Disrupting Officer

One such example would be this social distancing officer who was stationed at Century Square Mall in Tampines.

As shared by the owner of a store in the mall on Facebook page Sgarooo, the social distancing officer had allegedly entered the store multiple times every other day to “disturb” the staff, saying he was bossy and nosey.

Originally, the shop owner was apprehensive about sharing these incidents as he did not wish to run into problems with the authorities.

He had initially believed it to be a “one-off” incident but the officer continued doing it.

The officer would allegedly harass the staff with threats of writing reports and taking photos if they were to breach any measures, claiming that the staff had to stand 1-metre apart while they were serving customers.

Video Evidence

A CCTV video from the store was uploaded as well, showing the officer in question walking into the outlet to talk with the female staff.

When asked by the staff to sign in with Safe Entry, he refused, saying it was okay as he was a social distancing officer.

He appeared to be overly friendly, striking up a conversation with the staff while even sitting on the couch opposite her meant for customers.

The officer also asked her to polish his Tiffany Platinum bracelet for him multiple times.

The owner shared that the employee did it out of pressure.

The officer also made inappropriate comments such as “I like you la”, and professed that he wouldn’t write a report because of her help.

On a separate occasion, the officer allegedly tried to strike up a deal, saying that he would “close one eye” if he saw something amiss in exchange for them piercing his ears for free.

Previously, when a safe-distancing ambassador was caught not following the Covid-19 rules, he was immediately punished and fined.

People With Power Tend to Abuse the Powerless

If you know about the Stanford Prison Experiment, you’d find this act disturbing and yet at the same time normal.

The popular social psychology experiment, which was done in 1971, tried to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power by getting people of the same status to experience lives as either prisoners (powerless) or prison officers (with power).

It was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and certain portions of the experiment were filmed, and excerpts of footage are publicly available.

Needless to say, the results, if you’d even call it a result, were disturbing. So disturbing that halfway through the experiment, it was abandoned.

Why?

The people with power tortured and harassed those without power, so much so that some of those without power left the experiment because they couldn’t take the abuse.

While there is no official conclusion to the results, it shows something: with great power, you don’t just have great responsibility. You might abuse it as well.

Moral of the story?

If someone abuses his or her power, step up and report it immediately. If not, the abuse will continue.