A couple of weeks ago I went over to a hawker center near my new house to have dinner. I ordered fish & chips, and asked for tomato sauce rather than the chili sauce that Singaporeans
automatically add to every meal (grr), and then I ate it and I left. Not very memorable or exciting, right?
Well, I went back there again today, and when I went to order, someone there immediately recognized me and repeated to me my last order from weeks ago, including which sauce I wanted and what my drink was. It was good, because I didn't have to even make the order myself, but it was also a bit creepy. Was it just that the man had an exceptionally good memory, or was it that my superhuman charisma in ordering my meal last time left a lasting impact on his life? Probably a bit of both.
I can understand being recognized - out of the thousands of visitors to a hawker center each day, <1% of them are white with brown hair and a funny accent, though that still doesn't explain how he remembered my exact order from several weeks before. I know that a good memory is a positive trait in a worker at a hawker center (a sort of outdoors food court, for those tuning in from outside Singapore), since if you can remember a customer and make them feel welcome at your stall, that's one up on all of the other competing stalls, but it got me thinking - how much talent is being wasted on such low-paying jobs as "waiter" that could be used at the tertiary education level?
A memory as good as that one would be a godsend in many jobs. Assuming that it carried over to mathematical formulas, that man could be a calculus wizard, or a high-level chess player, a game which hinges on your memory of your past experiences playing. Maybe some of our most talented people are currently just janitors or selling tissues on the street, because they never utilized their true talent. Just thought that was interesting. :3
