Process for who?

To be truly customer oriented, companies need to look through every step of their processes and make sure that it is convenient to the customer. Sometimes companies forget and do things in a way that makes things easy for them, but is a great waste of time to customers who have to go the extra step. What an irony, instead of companies going the extra mile for customers, customers are penalized to ‘go the extra step’..

This company I deal with, specializes in providing courses related to service, like telephone skills for customer, how to write winning replies etc.. But the silly thing is, their admin sucks. Aside from wrongly billing me, their invoice comes in a very reader-unfriendly way. We got them to organize a number of courses for us to send our staff for training. When they bill us, the item they bill for is in a code that only they can understand, think ‘VA24536582’ - $7000.
Huh?
We then have to waste time to call them and note down exactly what this code means. And unsurprisingly, they have proven themselves to be not exactly customer oriented by not acting on our feedback of their un-readable invoice. Fine, we’ll sit on the payment.

A Bad Sale

Last weekend I was at Suntec City. Saw that there was a Muji sale in one of the events room. Went to check it out. Items after discount were still quite pricey. ($18 - $49 for clothes items). Why I say the sale is lousy – 1) No fitting rooms . It’s not as if their clothes were going at $5 / $8 , so they should let people try first before buying. 2) Without fitting rooms, how were people supposed to try on the clothes? Via an extremely narrow full length mirror – the one and only mirror. Totally frustrating, 3-4 gals were crowding around trying to get a view in the mirror. How inconsiderate of the organizers. 3) Muji is known for their good quality stuff. But I found that many of the knit wear felt scratchy.
Needless to say, I din get anything and also dissuaded my sister-in-law from buying.

Useless Plastics

Over the weekend, when I was shopping, I could barely use my credit card. I normally try to pay by credit card for purchases above $10. However, when my purchase amt was below $20, the retailer’s minimum payment for credit card was above $20. When I bought above $20, the retailer accepted credit card payment above $30. And when I bought $40 worth of goods, the retailer lagi better (NTUC), they accepted only 2 types of credit card – the NTUC OCBC credit cards. So out of the 6 purchases I made over the weekend, only 2 merchants accepted my credit card – Metro and café cartel.
Cash is king.

The inconsiderate bus passenger

Of the 2 buses I take to office from home, I noticed that passengers like to sit on the outside leaving the window seat empty. This is pretty inconsiderate because 1) the bus gets filled pretty fast, and people will have to squeeze into the inside seat, 2) those who sit outside are not alighting that soon, so again, it troubles other passengers to squeeze into the window seat.

Still, the ultimate in inconsideration came from this PRC passenger I bumped into recently. On this day, I boarded the bus (from office) and there were quite a few passengers who again occupied the outer seat, leaving the inner one empty. I march defiantly to the first lady and indicated I wanted to sit inside. Man, what she did made me puke blood.

I noticed that she placed her small bag of small oranges in the empty seat beside her. What?! Your oranges paid bus fare that they deserved a seat?
Never mind, she very very reluctantly and very slowly and carefully took her bag of oranges (Hello, those are oranges, not EGGS!!) away, and again at snail speed, shifted the paper bag below her, and barely moved her legs out for me to squeeze in. By then everyone was stuck behind me becos they were waiting for me to move into the seat then they can move to the back of the bus. Meanwhile, I GLARE and STARE at her with a very pissed off face, which unfortunately, all other passengers behind her can see, but she did not notice becos she did not look at my face at all. So anyway, since she gave me very little space to move in, I did not try to be polite either. I pushed my way in, pressing hard against her legs. Stupid woman!

Once Too Many

I am a stickler for timing, and I usually try my best to be on time. As such, one of the things that gets me pretty pissed is people who come late. If they are sincerely and genuinely apologetic about it, of course I will forgive them and be nice about it and feel less upset about their delay. If they have a very valid reason (caught in traffic jam), I also am understanding about it. So, it’s not that difficult to pacify me if you know u will be late rite? How late is considered late? I give 5 – 10mins grace. Anything more is LATE. Unfortunately, I realized that in being punctual, I am actually showing faith in the people I am meeting – that they will be on time. Regrettably, people I usually meet are close friends (since they are good friends, so we are more likely to meet up often). And very sadly, I always stupidly turn up on time to receive the ‘I will be late, you all go ahead first without me’ sms. It’s gotten to the point of 99.9999% predictability, and yet I refused to be late, and always turn up at the stipulated time. And even more unbearably, I tolerate this late behaviour of my good friends because they are my good friends and I dun want to scream at them. (If it’s my hubby, I would scream at him). And because I dun exhibit visible upset at their late behaviour, it seems to have gotten to the point of ‘it’s ok to be late’ and hence no apology needed. Just the usual ‘you all go ahead first’. How not to vomit blood when in the group of frens you are meeting, they all tell you ‘to go ahead first’ thinking the rest will be there on time (there are others who are punctual and who will then buffer your lateness). But if ur group is as small as 3 people? 2 people tell u that, what does the equation come to? One day I must reply them ‘Yes, I will go ahead first with me, myself and I.’

Technology at the Speed of Snail Mail

I got my Safra card recently – the spouse version. Discovered that I can book online for my $8 weekend GV movie tickets. How convenient. So I went online. As this was my first time logging in, I had to do the usual registration , fill in details, give them my email, and then a password would be sent to my email. That was Saturday night, I checked and checked my email, but nothing came in. I tried the ‘Forgot password’ button, hoping they will send the passwd to my acct, also no such luck. I began to get frustrated. How was I supposed to login without my password? I needed to buy tickets for a show on Sunday as it would be screened at GV Vivo where seats sell fast unless I buy 3 hours in advance. Still, no luck after 2 hours. Next morning I check, the password email still have not arrive. By then, I gave up and went earlier to Vivo to get the tickets. After that, I vaguely toyed with the idea of calling Safra for technical help on my password issue. But was too busy to do so. Til this morning (Tues), I checked my email, lo behold! The password email had come in, together with the reminders (those which I clicked ‘Forgot password’). My gosh, it takes their system 3 days to process a simple registration?
Faintz

How Protected Are You? II

I thought I probably have covered all my bases in buying insurance:
Life insurance – checked
Critical illness – checked
Savings insurance – checked
Accident insurance – checked
But not being the professional, it turned out that I overlooked some minor aspects. Basically, think of all the different ways we can die and whether we are covered:
From accident – yes
From critical illness – yes
From non-critical illness – ? hmmm.. what if the death was not due to the normal cancers etc that were defined as ‘critical illness’ in the policy? For instance, dengue fever…
Went to check on my critical illness term policy. Thank goodness it covers death due to all causes as well.

Geek Speak

From the Straits Times (Urban Section), 17 May 2007:

GEEK SPEAK A TO Z
Love it or H8 it, techie lingo is popping up everywhere. Here's a guide to deciphering it
A
AAR8: At any rate
ALTG: Act locally, think globally
B
BAK: Back at keyboard
Boring.com: implies something is a flop
CCBB: Can't be bothered
CYM: Check your mail
D
DIKU: Do I know you?
DYHAB: Do you have a boyfriend?
DYHAG: Do you have a girlfriend?
E
EAK: Eating at keyboard
EOD: End of day
F
FOFL: Falling on floor laughing
G
GAP?: Got a picture?
H
HB: Hurry back
HIG: How's it going
I
ID1OT: Idiot
IRL: In real life
J
JAM: Just a minute
JUADLAM: Jumping up and down like a monkey
K
KIT: Keep in touch
KOTC: Kiss on the cheek
L
LKITR: Little kid in the room
LTNS: Long time no see
M
M4C : Meet for coffee
MOOS : Member of the opposite sex
N
NBD: No big deal
NOYB: None of your business
O
OT: Off topic
P
PB: Potty break
Q
QT: Cutie
R
RBTL: Read between the lines
RLF: Real life friend
S
SIT: Stay in touch
T
TDTM: Talk dirty to me
TMI: Too much information
U
URWS: You are wise
V
VM: Voice mail
W
Wru: Where are you
X
XMe: Excuse me
Y
YKW: You know what
Z
ZZzz: Sleepy
Sad to say, of the 26 letters, I am only familiar with WRU and ZZzz. 2 / 26 = 7.7% I failed miserably at geek speak.

Cash Rebates vs Rewards Redemption

Instead of rewards redemption based on points accumulated from credit card expenditure, there are cards that give direct cash rebates based on amount spent. The Citibank Dividend card was one of the first (that I know off) to come up with this cash redemption scheme. However, it was not attractive to me because the rebate seemed very low ~0.5% of what you spent + redemption had to be accumulated to a certain sum ($50). This means I must spent $10,000 on the credit card before I can get back the rebate of $50. There’s no way I can hit a credit card expenditure of $10,000 in a year. Subsequently, POSB came up with the POSB Everyday card which promises ‘instant cash rebate with no minimum redeemable amount’. So I applied for the card. The 5% rebate for purchases at Carrefour was also a good deal. However, one question bugs me. They highlighted the various merchants that gave good rebates, eg: Carrefour 5%, SPC Petrol 4%, Watson 2%. But are ALL purchases eligible for cash rebates? After scrutinizing their website writeup, I noted that ‘Purchases at non-participating merchants = 0.3%’. So the answer is Yes. If you purchase at participating merchants, you stand to get higher rebates, while at non-participating merchants, you are guaranteed a 0.3% rebate. The catches:
1) For my UOB card, I can get a $20 voucher for minimum 600points (expenditure of $3000). That is about 0.67% rebate regardless of what merchant. Which means if I am going to buy from a ‘non-participating merchant’ of POSB card, I am better off using UOB card to pay.

2) POSB list supposedly 500 participating merchants, but most dun seem (to me) to be the really popular retailers. For instance, Chin Wah Heng Seafood , Hawaiian Barbeque (Turf City), Camper's Corner , Cenedela , Kindergolf? In trying to be the card for everyone, POSB does not have a focus, and any kuching kurat merchant + goods and services (eg Maternity, Golf, Kids enrichment) that I dun really need are touted. Which means I am more likely to purchase from a ‘non-participating merchant’ which goes back to 1).

3) Participating merchants are the ones that we can redeem the cash rebates. This differs from Citibank’s Dividend card which literally gives you back the cash. The cash rebate by POSB has its restriction because it can only be used at selected merchants. This is about the same as reward point redemption where we choose from a pre-determined selection of vouchers. Due to POSB’s lack of relevant merchants for me, I will end up getting cash rebates mainly for purchases at Carrefour and Watson. The selection is very ‘wide’ indeed.


Conclusion: looks like it’s still back to UOB to earn my dining vouchers.

Races in Singapore

As a Singaporean, we have known since young about the various ethnic groups in Singapore. There are Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and Others. These groups are distinct and most of the time, it is easy for us to identify them based on their appearance. Nevertheless, I realized I have taken this race issue for granted, as my knowledge was tested on an overseas trip. Cant remember which trip it was, but I do recall it was on a tour with other tour members who came from different countries all over the world. I usually go on F&E tours and join the local tours. So in one particular tour, a friendly Caucasian wanted to know more about Singapore, and the conversation broached to races. I mentioned that Singapore has the 4 main races, and the listener asked me, about Malays and Indians. As a Caucasian, his idea of Indian was the Red Indians in US. We easily clarified that these were people who came from India. As for Malays, he had never heard of this group of people. Who are they? This time, I was stumped. Hmmm.. a Malay is a Malay lor….. but of cos, that’s not a good answer when we are being the informal ambassador of our country. The second thing that came to our mind – people from Malaysia. Well, he bought that, and there was no further questions. But in my mind, I also felt this answer to be too sweeping. There are Malaysia Chinese, Malaysia Indians too.. I started to be more aware of the origins of Malay in Singapore. From what I gathered, most of them came from Indonesia, eg Java and Sumatra regions. But lately, I read in the papers, under Malaysia’s Federal Constitution, 'Malay means a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, (and) conforms to Malay custom’. From my observations, the language spoken by Singapore Malays is the same as that of Malaysian Malays, while in Indonesia, the Bahasa Indonesian language is slightly different from those in Singapore / Malaysia. So if Singapore Malays originated from Indonesia, why are they more similar to Malaysian Malays than Indonesians? Hmm… I see the same situation in Chinese. Singaporean Chinese and Malaysian Chinese are more similar than to their China counterparts though we all have our roots in China. My theory is this: maybe in early years, many Indonesians migrated to Malaysia and Singapore and in time to come, established their own identity as Malays. Since Malaysia and Singapore have historically been closely linked, it is no surprise that Singapore and Malaysia Malays share many similarities. Still, how best to explain to someone who has no inkling what is a Malay? Going by their religion (Islam) may make the person relate more to those in the middle east……

I am the first

I like to read other people’s blogs. And like many others, I also flock to the sites of popular bloggers eg: Singapore’s most famous blogger, Malaysia’s most famous blogger etc. Being famous and popular blogsites, each blog entry is usually followed by numerous comments from readers / fans / friends. However, one silly thing I noticed is that, many times, the comments are just non-constructive. Most of the time I dun read the comments, but inevitably when we scroll to the end of the blog entry, we would chance upon the first few comments. The worst belongs to those who finding themselves being the first to leave a comment, happily notes “Hey, I am the first”. It’s so meaningless and pathetic to proclaim yourself as the first to leave a comment in a blog entry and the content of the comment is to announce yourself as ‘first’. Of course, it is even more blood puking if you also chanced upon the second comment that goes “and I am the second!” Maybe it would be interesting to note and tally how many pathetic sheep counting commentors (sorry, no such word, but u get what I mean) are there on average.

Mean Spidey

Is Spiderman III better than the earlier 2 shows? I’m not so sure cos I dun remember the first 2 anymore. I think I like Spiderman 1, but not Spiderman 2. Part 3 isnt too bad too, cos there are more good looking villains. I dun like Tobey Maguire (as Spiderman) or Kirsten Dunst (as Mary Jane). To me, both r not good looking enough to be the lead actor/actress in A-list shows. I even saw sagging double chins on them at certain angles. And when they wanted to portray Spiderman as charming, aggressive and woman magnet instead of nerdy goody boy, Tobey Maguire did all sorts of groovy moves to make him seem slick, hip and cool.. But to me, he just CMI. Trying hard, but still din make it. The transformation was not convincing and he just seemed like a nerd trying to be cool. I watched Spiderman, but I like the villains James Franco (as Harry Osburn) and Topher Grace (as Eddie Brock) better. And Mr Sandman reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger....

Oh ya, there’s a lot of blockbusters coming up. Saw the trailer for Pirates of the Carribean – World’s End (part 3). Inside, Chow Yun Fatt tells the world ‘I’m a pirate from Singapore’.. LOL! I wonder how much did our government contribute to the show for this advertisement. What a way to brand Singapore.

Review old practice, dun just stay put

As I had just shifted to my own place, I needed to apply for utilities and telephone line. Water and electricity supply being the more urgent matter, I applied for that immediately after getting the house key so that I can do my house renovation. SP services allows us to apply online so that we can quickly activate the essential utilities while the hardcopy of the application form is then mailed to us subsequently. We then have to complete the form, return to them (in the self-enclosed enveloped) with a photocopy of NRIC of the applicant. The initial deposit was billed later on.
In contrast, when I wanted to apply for a telephone line, there was no ‘online submission’ choice. At best, we could download a copy of the application form to fill in first. But we still had to apply for it in person through the postal offices. Why so? I thought it could be because they needed us to place a deposit before activating the line. However, after I made my telephone line application in person at a postal office, I discovered that they did not need me to pay any deposit (it will be billed subsequently). The only use of this ‘in-person application’ was so that the postal office employee can verify my NRIC details before they submit the application form. What a screwed up process. Why cant they follow SP services to let us submit a photocopy of NRIC? Even if they had wanted us to place deposit, they could have opted for credit card deposit. This arcane practice of submission in person has no value-add, and only waste my time and the postal office’s time. It is sad that Singtel did not bother to keep up with the times to review their system, and allow this old way to stay even though it is no longer needed. These days, even the application of TV licence can be done online with payment through credit card. Singapore must be the only place where the government is even more efficient and customer oriented than the private sector.

nb: I emailed them thru their website to feedback on this application process. Its been 2 weeks and I did not get any response. Not surprising. Navigating through their website, you dun get a sense of 'customer oriented' / userfriendliness kind of feeling..

How protected are you?

Recently I started obsessing about my insurance coverage. Am I adequately covered? We all know that medical costs will only increase in time to come, and as we aged, we are more likely to contract some major illness like cancers and tumors. If I am stricken with some major illness, will I be able to afford private hospital treatment rather than government hospitals? (I used to think government hospitals are good enough, but after some bad word-of-mouth publicity + unfavourable newspaper coverage, I think my best bet of getting a cure s to go to a private hospital). More importantly, will I be able to afford treatment during my older years without depleting my retirement fund?

So I started looking around at the various health insurance plans. My first thought was to get a term policy for critical illness, then I can be covered for a big sum (eg $250k) while paying a small premium, ~ $600 per year. But then I realized the catch is, if your illness is major, but not critical (eg: cancer, but not advance stage), you will not get any payout of the insurance. How then, am I supposed to pay for treatment of major illness at the still curable early stage? I turned to look at hospitalization plans (something like medishield). These plans have generous payouts as long as you are warded / need treatment. Doesn’t even have to be major illness , which covers another loophole in the critical illness term insurance. For instance, if I get dengue and am warded for 10 days, it’s not serious enough to be able to claim under critical illness, but hospitalization insurance will pay because I have been hospitalized.

At a glance, the ‘A’ plans for hospitalization under the various insurance companies seemed really attractive. Unlike basic medishield plans, some of these ‘gold class’ medishield plans offer no limit on the amount of claim per day. For instance, you can stay in A class wards in the best private hospital, and the claim limit is ‘as charged’ rather than ‘up to $600’ per day for daily ward and treatment charges. Generous compensation is provided for surgeries, organ implants, cancer treatments and even additional payouts for major illness… ok, so I should be bulletproof then…

Not so. Let’s look at the minor catch first. 1) There is a limit to how much you can claim per year and per policy lifetime. Meaning, once u have exhausted the amount you can claim per year, you have to wait until the next policy year to claim (if u are still alive by then). And if you reached the overall limit you can claim, you can kiss goodbye to the insurance. Of cos, this is a small issue as most of the ‘A’ plans offer generous payouts for the yearly limit (about 200,000) and 1mil – 3mil for lifetime limit. We are not likely to exceed this amount.

The fine print is, before you even get to claim, you are killed by the deductibles and co-insurance. Co-insurance is a euphemism for co-pay. The bottom-line is, if you want to be highly covered for staying A class wards / private hospital, be prepared to fork out $3000 upfront + 10% of the remaining bill before the insurance coverage kicks in.

At the end of the day, we still need to have adequate savings to tide us through in the event we get major but not critical illness. The irony is that having early curable stage of a major illness might set us back more than the advanced stage (because the critical illness policy does not kick in at the early stage). My conclusion is, stay with government hospitals, avoid A class wards so that you dun deplete your savings in the event of major but not critical stage of illness.

I dun need this!

Stupid bank officer called me on my mobile
Bank: Is it convenient to talk to you now?
Me: What is it regarding? (I bet a million bucks that it is some sales pitch)
Bank: It is regarding this new cash credit offer we have
(aiya, I won my million bucks bet. but with who?)
Me: I dun need it
Bank: Yes but it is free right now if you apply
Me: I dun need it
Bank: Yes but we are offering you a credit limit 2 times your salary
Me: I dun need it, I dun need it…I dun need it (My mind went into ‘auto switch off’ mode, and I am about to yawn thanks to my repetitive and limited response)
Bank: Ok thank you bye.
Stupid bank officer just bulldozed my response away without comprehending. Hello?! You understand English or not? Dun need means dun need! I dun care what kind of good offers you have. What’s the point of free application when I dun need it?! If u offer me free coffeemaker + free blender + free voucher… I can still consider your offer. You think your ‘free application’ is a damn good deal that I will jump at the chance? Wake up your idea … other banks offer better freebies than you.

Must be too much coffee in the morning that’s making me so jumpy.

On another note, I am really apprehensive when it comes to dealing with POSB and DBS, since they used to be government banks. I imagine bureaucracies and lousy service when it comes to these 2 banks. Hence for years, I have not had any dealings with them. Due to the lure of the POSB everyday card, I sign up for it, n was enticed to get a DBS Black card because of the free coffeemaker stated in the brochure. Nonetheless, when I received my Black card, there was no indication of free coffeemaker at all. Called up the customer service who got back to me 3 days later at night (when I was asleep). I vaguely remembered the conversation that the promotion has ended, so I will not be getting the coffeemaker. Forgot if I had asked to cancel the card then. Nevertheless, I shall send a ‘feedback’ letter to them while canceling my card. After all, I dun need this card.

Refrying Fried Rice

Me to hubby: What is TMNT?
Hubby: ……………….. Ta Ma Te (ta-ma-de)
Me (triumphantly): Wrong! It's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
I never quite like them, not cute, not nice, not handsome, not pretty. Where’s the appeal? Probably because by the time they hit the market, I was past kiddy age and hence they did not appeal to me. But after so long, they are being resurrected, it’s like ‘chao leng fan’ (in Cantonese)…. Still, at their promo show in Marina Sq last week, kids were obediently superbly responsive to them (Do you want to see them? Kids: YEEEEESSSSS!)
I like the turtles in Finding Nemo better.

The demise of my favourite brand

Someone sent an email to me with these pics. Exactly what I have been thinking about.

I dun understand what Marc Jacobs was thinking about. What's with the layered unstructured and 'busy looking' clothes? And the bag.. oh gosh, really cheapskate.. what China people carries. Why cant he just stick to tried and tested bags with new colours? Eg: Multicolor LV monogram in pink. But then again, its good that the bags do not suit my taste. Then I wont have the urge to spend money.

Rainy Day Grouchings

It always rain at my office area in the early evenings. What is worse than a sudden downpour just when it's time to knock off? The answer to me, is a tie between a thunderstorm in the morning when it's time to wake up for work, or when you are about to step out of the house. The former makes you want to sleep in. Is this God's way of telling me I should take half day morning? There is a great sense of reluctance to get out of bed when you think about what lies ahead (braving a thunderstorm). Still, with immense hesitation, I pull myself out of bed. In the other scenario, just when you are all dressed up and about to leave the house, the dark clouds that had been gathering, break out into heavy rain with howling winds illuminated by lightning flashes and roars of thunder in the background. Oh gosh, is this the Mother of all storms? Going back to bed is not a choice since I'm all awake and had spent the last half hour dressing up, I did not want to waste my effort. Pai mia ah... having to get up early to work is already very cham, and now such tough hurdles to cross.

Fast fwd the journey, I finally reached office, and lo behold, there's no rain in this area! Thank goodness I still made it to work on time. I dun think my boss will understand my predicament (if I'm late) as it isnt raining at where she stays.

Sakura at Clementi Woods

This is a nice place to dine in. As the venue implies, the restaurant is in the midst of Clementi woods and there’s a nice greenery view in the daytime. But if u come at night, you will probably see more courting couples than greenery at night.








This is a pretty big restaurant with 2 levels, both levels have different types of food. A word of caution – dun go during lunch time. It was extremely packed. We were lucky to be dining at the upper level (only 2 -3 tables filled), while the lower level was filled. Even then, the queue for food, the jostling, going up and down the stairs.. and very long wait for our food from live cooking stations to come, made the dining experience less than pleasant. Since lunch is only from 12 – 230, you have less time to eat and especially so, when half an hour is gone, just waiting for your herbal soup / pan fried meats / satay to arrive. The toilet condition was the equivalent of C- by food hygiene standards too.. and beware of the slippery floor around the stairs.

Food wise, the standard, variety and quality is about the same as those that I have tried in other Sakura outlets. This outlet seems slightly better because there are more live cooking stations, than the ones I have been to (actually only Tampines Safra and Parkway Parade). What is available in the cook-upon-order items:
Dim Sum – few varieties only. not really cook-upon-order, just there is someone manning this station. I tried one item, not bad. But my colleague’s dim sum wasn’t fully cooked.
Grilled station – I saw satay, octopus and pregnant fish. Alas, after the long wait, u get only 2 sticks of satay / octopus / pregnant fish per portion.
Vegetable stir fries – din try. We could pick from green leafy veg, abalone mushroom and even bamboo clam to do the stir fry.
Pasta station – the cooked pasta was very hard.
Pan fry station – beef, lamb, chicken, dory and salmon. Beef and lamb were good. Salmon was too overcooked.
Herbal soup station – choose from herbal live prawns soup or herbal black chicken soup in paper pot.

Sentosa Flowers 2007

This CNY, as usual, I was so bored and had so much free time that I went to squeeze with the thronging crowds at Sentosa. This entry is all about flowers and colours as I specifically looked out for colourful and nice flowers. Unfortunately, it din really meet my expectations, I was hoping to see flowers that are in big and full blooms, eg: tulips and roses. Silly me, these flowers cant grow in our weather or maybe its not their blooming time yet.













Spot the 3 animals in these 2 pics













View from above




Lavendar flowers












Alice in Wonderland characters

My favourite bank screwed up

Not sure what's wrong with me, been finding fault with alot of service staff I come into contact with recently. Of cos, there were also many incidents of good service. For those, I would end up buying more things but I would not remember their good service. Like I mention before, good service is something we expect, and bad service is something we dun forget.

I do most of my banking transactions with OCBC and save most of my money there as well. As we are buying a place, we are also getting a housing loan from OCBC. Because the housing transaction was delayed time and again, we deactivated the loan, only to reinstate it recently in the view that the housing transaction might go through this time. The housing loan officer wanted us to fax over our CPF statements (3 month history). Why so? Our loans have already been approved earlier, now we are just asking it to be reactivated.

Some reason was given, which we accepted. Hubby asked me to do a 'print screen' capture of my CPF statement and email it over to the loan officer. I did so, only to have her reply via email that the bank's email programme doesnt allow her to view the file. (Its only a jpg file). Bo pian, I printed the 'print screen' version of my CPF statement and faxed over. This time, she responded 'Please kindly print out the page using the print icon so that the URL address is reflected at the bottom of the page.' HMMMph.... I login to CPF again, and printed out the CPF statement and faxed it over again.

One week later, H got a call from the loan officer. She wanted us to fax over our 6 months CPF history. WTF! What's their problem? If u think that two of us cannot pay back that meagre housing loan we took , just reject la. Need to make us go thru this trouble?! The loan officer did apologise and gave some crap excuse..

Still, I couldnt resist sending her a barb email :

Xxx, obviously u din get my hint that I hope it would be the last time u bother me with the CPF statement. For goodness sake, why do we have to do such a simple thing 4 times?! Explanations aside, if ur admin is not assured that we can be trusted to repay the housing loan, by all means, please reject us. We would be very happy to bring our business to elsewhere.
NB: I have faxed over the CPF printout from Jun 06 - Feb 07.

She responded :

Hi ________,
I apologize for the inconvenience caused, however due to our standard operating procedures, the correct income documents have to be submitted in order for disbursement of the loan.
Reason for the haste in furnishing the documents is due to the disbursement of loan on the 14th Feb 2007, as no delay is desired, i would want the loan to be disbursed on time.
My credit department is doing their job to ensure that the neccessary documents are in. As a front line staff, it is my job to get the documents from customers. Hope you understand.

Kindly note that the cpf statements which you've faxed over is the "Transaction history", not "Contribution history". I would have to trouble you to fax over the right documents again.
Your loan was signed in August 2006. CPF Contribution history submitted then was up to Jul 2006.

Due to the delay in dusbursement from the purchase of your property, therefore the need in getting the past 6 months income documents.

You're still a valued customer to our bank, your kind understanding is appreciated. I would be glad to pick up the documents from you personally if it is too much of a trouble to fax or email. Let me know the time and place to collect the Jul'06 to Feb'07 Contribution History printouts.
Thank you.

Hmm.. ok, that was a pretty well written letter. But then again, so what if i faxed over transaction history? Transaction history includes all contributions made. Which means, I am giving u more than u ask for, cant u pple be more flexible?!

Response:
Name of employer has to be shown and only the contribution history has records.

Conclusion: Never argue with the experts, u wont win. She's right, the transaction history does not show who made the contribution to my CPF account, so only the contribution history will do. I did not want to bother to argue why she all along did not tell me specifically must be 'contribution history' statement.. sian already.

Another Bad Service Experience

In Singapore, good service is taken for granted, because we are expected to have good service. Bad service is remembered and condemned. But I think , at the rate our service level is deterioriating, its better to reverse my mentality - take bad service for granted and remember good service. Otherwise, my life will be very miserable because every other day I will be bearing grudges against the lousy service staff.

Or maybe the service level isnt bad, but its just me that service staff have something against, which is why I keep getting crap service.. what is it about the way I ask "Excuse me, can I have this in size _ please ?" that makes them forget I'm a customer and to behave professionally to me?

The civil service is not the only one with poor service, private sector is guilty of it too. This time , the bad service occurred at one of Singapore's oldest and most famous retail store in Orchard road . How many retail stores come to your mind? I can only think of 2 - other than the one I am going to talk about, the other one is Robinsons. I think Robinsons is fine, their service has always been friendly and good.

So anyway, the incident went like this. I was at their shoe department and asking the sales assistant to get shoes in my size. I did so at different intervals, and asking different staff. On my last try (3rd time), i approached a different sales assistant, she took the shoes from me, shouted across to another sales assistant 2metres away standing near the cashier: "Hey XXX, this shoe, size 7!"
Where did she go wrong?

1) A not too happy expression at receiving my request, and no acknowledgment to me at all

2) Shouting to her colleague in a 'commanding' tone. It made me seemed like I asked the wrong person because though she is standing there, the shoes I took is the responsibility of the other girl, hence she 'buay song' to help that girl do her work. (this is my conjecture). This is similar to the concept of restaurants where each waitress is given specific tables to serve, so if the diners not at your serving tables request you to do something because you pass by, you do not serve the diner, but shout across to the specific waitress the request of her diner. Also, is this a kopitiam? Only in coffeeshops do you hear shouting "kopi C, Teh C, Milo Peng!"

3) Even if their duties had been carved out this way (each person in charge of different shoes), even if she din want to help even though she is standing there, or maybe she is the manager (I doubt it, from the attire), she could have walked over and tell the person to get the shoes. If she had been in a hurry (I doubt it too, because she was standing still, not running off when I approached her), she could have acknowledged my request "Please hold on, I get my colleague to serve you"

I wonder if the day will come, where I will a) straightaway tell the sales assistant "Forget it. I dun want this already!" and throw everything down in front of them or b) What's this?!! U call ur manager here, I want to speak to your manager right now!!"

Maybe even such measures will not help because the store's website indicates that they welcome queries on their products and services, but is silent on the 'feedback' part.

Update (Feb 07): Couldnt resist emailing them my 'feedback'.. took them almost 5 days to respond. Still, I am satisfied. This is a model letter for responding to complaining customers.

Dear Ms ____
I refer to your e-mail. I am concerned to learn of the unpleasant experience you had when you were at our store. Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by the poor service of our staff.

I agree with you that the staff should have been more polite towards you. The staff concerned has been counselled and she has been reminded to be more courteous to all our customers. Please be assured that we will be monitoring her performance. I would like to assure you that customer satisfaction is of paramount importance to us at ___ and we will do our utmost to prevent a similar recurrence.

We appreciate the time taken to feedback to us as we believe that it is through feedback from customers that we are able to monitor and further improve our service standards.

We sincerely hope that this incident will not deter you from shopping at ___and we look forward to the pleasure of serving you when you next visit our store.


Just one small complaint: It would have been even better if they had included a voucher for me to shop there and as a gesture of appreciation.

A lesson in Customer Service

Companies usu have 'star' awards to reward and recognise staff who have given good customer service, whether to internal or external customers. I only wish they dare to be radical enough to give 'razzie' award to those who give bad customer service , and that all contributors who name the nominees for razzie award will be anonymous. This would definitely pressure everyone to behave themselves!

Here's some from my company.
(All examples are phone calls)

Me: Hi, may I know who's that on the line?
her: this is LL here.
Me: Hi LL, I misplace my staff card, would like to know..
*interrupted*
her: Staff card is SH, u call SH

nb: LL and SH are sharing the same line
Me: So can I speak to SH then? Is she in?
her: SH only come in in the afternoon, everyday. You call her in the afternoon.
Me: ok thanks bye.

I'm not sure if u can detect the lack of customer service here. For me, her tone was 'i dun wish to help' and slightly curt. If I were her, I would have
1) not interrupted the caller, and try to see if I can answer the caller's queries. Since we are all in the same dept, and I am not new to the organisation, I should have at least some basic knowledge even if this is not my scope of work.

2) if I really have no answer to the question, I would have said "I'm sorry, I'm not too sure abt this. The person in charge is ___, but she wont be in until afternoon, can I get her to call you back?

Its whether u want to help or not.. anyway, she's a clerk.. and seems like most of the clerks in my company talk like this... not helpful, and in such brief english that u wonder is it becos they cant speak english properly, so they talk like that?

Here's a good one to illustrate (their mouth got gold, cannot open too long, lest the gold fall out)
Me: Hi, can i speak to XX please?
Clerk: XX not in.
(Cant u say "I'm sorry, XX is not around / on MC / on course / on leave , would you like to leave a message?")
Me: Ok thanks, bye.


Incident no 3:
Me: Hi, may i have the direct line of Mr XX in your dept?
Him: Where are you calling from huh?
Me: I'm calling from HQ
Him: The number is _ _ _ _. How come you call me huh? I'm not tel directory you know.
Me: The staff directory does not list such phone numbers, so I have to call your dept directly to get the number. May I have the number please?
Him: The number again, is
*I interrupted*
Me: No, no, u haven given me the number, u only gave me the first 4 digits. (He pissed me off with the 'again')
Him: If you know the system, all the telephone nos at my dept start with the same 4 digits:
6_ _ _
Me: Ok thank you . Bye

Gosh, this clerk was just plain rude... I went to complain to his manager who was totally understanding 'Yes, that's very unprofessional of him, I will have a word with him'.
Actually on hindsight, I think that dept was very busy that day, they had some ISO audit, so maybe he was involved. But still, there's no excuse for bad customer service.

House Woes

My ROM went smoothly while wedding banquet has been compromised, and there is no pressure to have a banquet. However, my completion appointment for the resale flat that we are buying has been hanging there since Nov 06. The seller had financial difficulties and has been unable to cough up $$ to pay for the conservancy owe to HDB, nor the late penalty charges to us for delay of completion appt. I din mind waiting until the seller can come up with the money, hence the completion appt was fixed a few times, but the seller always couldnt pay and the whole thing just fell through. Worse, recently I discovered that CPF has started to deduct $ from my account for repayment of house loan + housing protection insurance.. huh? I am not even the legal owner yet! Is there no communication between CPF and HDB? Why is it that I do not possess the flat, and the housing loan has not been effected, but we are already paying the loan and insurance? Talk about world class government service and SQA organisations... this is their real standard!

The most sought after junkie

Kate Moss's reputation as a cocaine user is well-known. Yet this has not dented her modelling opportunities. I came across a Sep 06 edition of Her World magazine and was flipping through it. The first few pages are always advertisements for branded luxury goods. Coincidentally, Kate Moss was the 'in' gal for that season. Three big brands used her as their ad model. I am surprised competing brands would use the same model, or are they all different girls who looked alike? Judge for yourself.



Dior



Louis Vuitton



Burberry

The unending polyclinic saga

NHG Polyclinic has screwed up big time as I mentioned in the previous post. Sadly, i used to have a better impression of Singhealth polyclinic until now. Yesterday I receive a letter from Singhealth polyclinic - it was a bill for $8 consultation on my last visit to the Geylang Polyclinic in Nov 06. I was not prescribe any medication then. I knew I had definitely paid because 1) I had an MC on that visit. You must have paid so that your MC will be stamped and considered valid 2) I need the receipt to claim medical reimbursement . Therefore, it was an insult to be billed again. I called the number given in the bill to dispute the billing. The lady on the line had the cheek to ask me if I have the receipt. If I had been a housewife who is unable to claim for medical reimbursement, would I have kept the receipt? Though fortunately I do have the receipt, not everyone would have kept something for so long. By the time they got home, the receipt would have been chucked into the bin. As if to pacify me, the lady gave the lame excuse that there must have been some double entry , hence double billing, and if it's true that I had paid, she would get her supervisor to write off the bill. Hello? Write off? U write off when people default payment. In this case, I did not default payment! Using the word 'write off' is like charity to me, 'oh since u cant pay, we'll write off', or an insult 'oh since u dun wish to pay and we cant do much abt it, we'll write off'. And if I did not keep the receipt? 'Oh since you cant prove, we'll still take your word and write off'.

The polyclinic also did not provide a convenient way for people to make payment as no self-addressed envelope was provided. Hey u asking me for money, u still expect me to pay for my own envelope and stamp? Or you expect me to take leave / time off to make payment since your clinic does not open at night, there is no way I can make it during the polyclinic opening hours. Dun tell me such non-payment cases are rare, hence there is no need to purposely have a system of self-addressed envelope etc... then if so, why din you bother to check properly the accounts before sending me the bill? If someone had bothered to check, the double entry would have been obvious because of the same date and proximity in timing. Billing people is such a sensitive thing, in this scenario, it is an accusation that the other party have not paid up when one should have done so by the time one leaves the polyclinic.

Update 13 Feb 07: This is exasperating! One month later, the same bill is generated and sent to me! I have already faxed my receipt to them and yet this still happened. Totally unacceptable. I called Singhealth head office "May I have the fax number of your Customer Service Manager?"
The person responded "What isit regarding?" I said "What does your Customer Service Manager handle?" Bo pian, she said "You attention the matter to Corporate Section, officer in charge"... huh? No CSM? Really? Or are you trying to hide something?

Update 22 Feb 07: Having gotten the fax number to the corporate person, I faxed them a letter of complaint:
Please see attached documents. One month ago (9 Jan), I receive an invoice for $8 for consultation charges of my visit to Geylang Polyclinic on 23 Nov 06. I called Geylang Polyclinic to tell them I paid the $8 on the day of the visit. The person-in-charge asked me to fax my receipt to her, which I did so promptly. However, it seems that nothing has been done because I still received the same bill, only this time, the bill indicates that the amount has been outstanding for 61 – 90 days. Why has the issue not been resolved till now? The person-in-charge mentioned it is a duplicate bill, one shouldn’t be repeating mistakes. Please ensure this does not happen again.

Here's the reply letter from them:
Dear Mdm,
I refer to your fax dated ...
Kindly ignore the invoices that were previously sent to you as we have indeed received payment from you.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused and do feel free to contact me at DID.... for any further queries.
Thank You

What's wrong with this response you may say? Well, it doesnt address the core issue! My concern is, STOP SENDING ME THE INVOICES! But here, no mention of "we have rectified our system ....we would make sure such incidence do not happen again "... instead, I am just told to ignore previous invoices. So what now? Wait for more invoices to come in, complain somemore? Or assume that they would not repeat their mistake without any assurance from them?

Presenting yourself

Had the privilege to attend Jill Lowe’s presentation and dressing course at the start of the year. Was surprised to see a petite chinese lady instead of a tall angmoh lady. Jill is a Singaporean Chinese, but becos her surname in dialect is spelt as “Lowe”, it becomes pretty classed - Jill Lowe.

I found her very inspiring and motivating, because she is pretty sincere in imparting her knowledge and genuinely wants us to do better. Some pearls of wisdom from Jill:

- dun carry big handbags. Small bags are more classed.
- hang your handbag on your elbow at a distance from your body. The nearer the bag is to you, the older u become.
- every blusher applied 1cm below the lowest point of the nose, ages you by 5 years
- jeans / denim are for the farmers in the past. The fact that it’s a fashion item now doesn’t increase its ‘class’. So wear it sparingly
- brown eyeshadow is ‘class’, blue eyeshadow is ‘cheap’
-flat hair gives people the impression you are a poor man’s wife.. no wonder the indonesian ibus always have beehive hair.
-dun bend your knees when you are standing. makes you look cheap.

Alot of the things she said, contradicts with what I have been trying to do in my quest to improve my appearance. Eg: I should have short layered hair (the recommended styles were very ‘auntie’). But a lot of people have commented I look nicer with long hair. Some of the recommendations were in conflict with my personal tastes. Eg: I like pink lipsticks. But I am supposed to use orange-brown lipsticks to match my skintone. Yikes, so garish.

So how am I supposed to reconcile these? It’s easy (in theory). Jill is teaching me to dress and present myself such that bosses will look at me and think I am deserving of the promotion or at least think that I am a capable person. Previously I have been learning to doll up to look like a pretty girl so as to attract guys. But now, I want to attract bosses to my capability, not my looks. So, out with the long hair, and the pinks.