"Titip": A truly Indonesian phenomenon?

"Titip".

This is a common word in Bahasa Indonesia. I can't seem to find the equivalent word in English that carries both the literal meaning and the spirit behind the word. Therefore, let me illustrate the meaning of the word using some examples:

1. Your buddy is going to the library and you ask him the favour of returning a book you borrowed from the library. That's "titip".
2. Your room mate is going to the grocery store and you ask her the favour of buying you a quart of milk while she was there. You give her the money to buy it, or reimburse her later. That's "titip".
3. Your friend is on his way to some foreign country and you ask him the favour of buying some specific souvenir. Again, you give hm the money or will reimburse him later. That's "titip".

So, perhaps you think that "titip" is something that shows cooperation, close relationship between friends and that it does not involve monetary (or other) gain. You are not wrong. Except that the word "titip" is also an euphemism to other, less savoury variants. Some examples of which follow.

1. You are supposed to attend a plenary meeting, but you prefer to stay at home. So, you ask your friend who is attending the meeting to sign the attendants list on your behalf. Thus you are "physically" absent but you are "administratively" present. That's also "titip."
2. You are supposed to file in some papers or get your vehicle licence renewed. You don't want to go, so you pay someone to do that for you. That's also "titip."

Now, all of these are a fact of life for us Indonesians... and this is not why I'm writing this rambling essay. It's that recently I've got a slightly annoying experience with this "titip" thing. 

You see, a couple of days ago I was at the Tax Office to file in my annual tax report. Doing so some 3 weeks before the deadline usually means that the queue is almost empty. And since the actual process, assuming your papers are in order, takes less than 3 minutes, I was expecting to be in and out of the Tax Office within 15 minutes or so. I was in for some surprises.

The first surprise was that there were already 10 people in the queue ahead of me. That's unusual, but since there were 2 desks serving the queue, I thought that it would still take me less than 20 minutes to finish my business. But then there's the second surprise. The queue was barely moving after more than half an hour. What's happening?

Well, the first problem was that some of the people didn't have their papers in order. The second problem was that some of them were senior citizens unfamiliar with the process. Double trouble, that. 

But the worst problem was one gentleman, who was filing in a stack of some 50 different tax reports. Apparently, lots of people "titip". As efficient as the desk clerk was, it still took quite a long time to process so many reports. And this one gentleman was only counted as one person in the queueing system, naturally.

So you see, this "titip" stuff really mess up my nicely done queueing-theory-based timing! Had the gentleman been assigned 50 (or whatever) queueing numbers, I would not have entered the queue in the first place! But, no! He's just one person. But so many "titip". I ended up spending 45 minutes in the queue, before it's my turn for the 3-minute process.

"Titip", in its original spirit, is perhaps good. But not when it has deviated from it (I believe the gentleman got paid for doing that), or when it is not done in moderation. It ruin somebody else's schedule.

So, next time you see somebody doing something like this, please do me a favour and tell him or her to stop doing that. I, you know, "titip".