While the officer from Boon Lay Social Service Office should not have used such harsh words, I sympathise with him and hope the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) will not be too hard on him ("MSF responds to complaint against officer who told man 'we don't owe you' during argument"; ST Online, Dec 4).

The public is getting more demanding and the civil servant's job is becoming more difficult.

Every time a member of the public is unhappy that their request is not met, they will threaten to complain or post any unpleasant encounter on social media.

Civil servants are merely doing their jobs and should not be subjected to abuse by unreasonable members of the public. More needs to be done to protect our civil servants from abuse.

Patrick Tan Siong Kuan