FON people

It has been one week of bringing Father for tests, waiting for reports to be written, waiting for the team of doctors to confer. It will be next week before we will meet with the oncologist.

During this time I have some angry moments and some regretful thoughts as the mind reaches into dark recesses and cruelly yanks out long repressed memories. Mostly, I am able to keep my emotions in check, and get through each day with as little upset as possible.

I need my equilibrium. I cannot spare any emotion to tackle nonsense right now.

I also welcome diversion that allows me to focus on happier matters. So when the makan crew woman suggested getting together for dinner at their favourite Hokkien restaurant, I said yes. Then she said to limit the per head cost to $40/-. Then she suggested we order fewer dishes. Then she said if I have friends who are not budget conscious (what did she mean, really?) please invite them.

Like I said, I welcome diversion of an enjoyable kind. I am not about to take on planning a menu for a table of 10 with tight budget constraints and be told I have extravagant taste and friends.

With no hesitation, I told her to leave me out of the dinner arrangement for now. I have too much on my mind to deal with petty details over a casual dinner date.

I don't need to deal with people who are FON (full of nonsense). Especially now.

RTFM

I am busy finalising my travel plans.

My favourite premier carrier tells me that my scheduled return flight has been cancelled and they have rescheduled me to return one day early.

Well, I can return later, not earlier.

A trip to their service centre is necessary since a phone call will only get me through to a call centre hell in some foreign land.

I expect to have the flight change resolved within 10 minutes. I am dealing with a multi award-winning industry leader in its home country after all.

But noooo. The representative I was assigned blithely informed me (1) I could only be wait-listed on the flight that stops over at Narita, and 2) I could get on the direct flight by paying $75.00 for making the change.

In exasperation, I turned to her colleague in the next cubicle and started to whole process of presenting my case.

A few strokes on her keyboard and the change was effected. No fuss, no muss.

The first representative stared daggers at me.

I wanted to yell at her: "Hey stupid. RTFM, will you? You don't penalise your passenger traveling in any category when you cancel the flight, never mind a full-paying business class passenger."

But I looked into the stupid stubbornness in her eyes, and decided to ignore her instead.

I have many more things that require my attention before I leave in a couple of days...

Still doing the CB thing.

I have not forgotten or forgiven her insensitivity and senselessness.

She sent me a text message, saying she hasn't heard from me in ages, asking for my home phone. Something about it costing peanuts on a line phone vs calling me on my mobile.

It took me only a second to text her back, telling her I'd just come back from Bali, and will be gone again for a month in late April, then again in September, with small trips in between.

Read forget it, you CB. I no want to talk to you. I no want to hear from you in any way.

But I will hear from her again. She will never get the hint. She will blithely carry on doing her CB thing.

The CB writes back

I made known to her that I took offense to her thoughtless remark about my picture; I still think I look particularly good in it which is no small feat these days.

True to form, she ignored my peeve. Also true to form, she sends me a Christmas greeting card on which she scribbled these inane words:

How are you? We will be in (home town) for Christmas and New Year. What are your travel plans for 2011? Please write. Love to (me) and (the man).

Say I hold a grudge. Say I am being petty. Say this is the season of goodwill to all mankind.

I don't care.

I tore up the card and dumped every piece and bit of it in the bin.

Macam Boh Sistem (MBS)

Many people describe this integrated resort in many ways - glamorous, stunning, very h-u-g-e, very luxe, very class. A few mention the confusing long walks to get anywhere within the premises.

I have little to add to the noise. The crew and I were on a recce mission to find places to bring our visitors. This place got struck off the list. The place is too macam boh sistem for me.

I was immediately pissed off that there was no signage to say parking in Towers 1 & 2 are strictly valet park only. Self park is (snort) w-a-y across the other side of the street in Tower 3. I was in no mood to find Tower 3 and was told to leave key in car. Key in car was not moved till I-don't-know-when.

The view in Skypark is spectacular, to say the least.

The 150 metre 3 lane eternity pool is ridiculous. It just looks like a very long longkang.

Differently uniformed people jumping in front of me to stop me from entering sections blocked for private parties, grand openings, special events, whatever, is damned annoying, alright? There are many bars, clubs and restaurants at the Skypark, but not a single outdoor seated bar. We decided there is no need to bring the visitors here.
Getting out of the place is another mess. The taxi stand and valet counter are situated close to each other at the grand front entrance. There is a perpetual long queue at the taxi stand, and no designated spot to wait for private car return. I hated having to run after my car as the valet drove past me to the furthest end of the driveway.

I remembered I could not wait to get away from the place. I know I am not returning to the place of my own volition.

Let them eat foam

Call me old fashioned, but I like food that looks and tastes like it should. I don't appreciate marriage of respectable cuisines that produce an unrecognisable and indescribable hybrid.

The much talked-about signature dish of foie gras xiao long bao with truffle consomme hiding under a puff of celeraic foam is an insult to sensibilities. Foam belongs on coffee and beer.

The platter filled with unrelated nibble sized sweet somethings described as a "Symphony of Dessert" has several strings missing in the orchestra.

Fancy labels like "Asian cuisine with French influence" does not make the food more palatable.

Enough already with the overpriced lousy dinners and cheap drinks brought to your table by a nervous serving crew whose delivery made me think they flunked out of hospitality training.

It was time I took the eating crew back to basics.

Everyone had a delightful time tucking into a 10-course meal of real Chinese food prepared by real cooks who give a damn to what they are doing.
Let the culinary snobs eat foam recommended by the media whores.

These Cheena types

There was only a Cheena man in the "priority" line and five bank customers in the general line.

I got behind Cheena. After 15 minutes in the queue, it looked like he was nowhere near finished with his multi transactions and many questions. The teller tending to his long task list was starting to look and sound frazzled.

Then Cheena got on his mobile to speak to (I presume) Mrs Cheena. Then the teller had to explain everything again to voice on the phone.

Cheena turned to me to tell me, in Cheena-ese, that he would be a long while yet, and I should cut into the other line, which now had 10 people in it.

Oh, the nerve of the Cheena!

I said we don't do that in this country; he said he was well-intentioned to let me know he would take a long time; I said if he had any consideration he'd let me get in front of him for my easy 2 minute transaction; he turned away from me to carry on with his 100 Q&A with the teller.

I got behind the 10 people, waited my turn, and when I was done, he still wasn't near finished.

As I walked away from the line, I couldn't stop myself from telling him that I really resented his Cheena types who think nothing of bringing their uncivil practices along with them everywhere.

And we keep importing them by the planeload. Sigh.

(I am aware the bank should have stepped in to mollify the situation, but I was not in the mood to tackle the SOP of the bank.)

In the silence

I don't hear from her in ages. Then she pops up in chat starting to ask how/what I am doing. I am not up to chatting or yakking. I said all is good at my end, and everything about me is updated in FB and blog, and logged out.

She left me a rambling message - something about my being many years younger and do not understand her feelings about things.

I replied reminding her I am all of two years younger. I am not thrilled either about being in my late 50s and if I don't understand her feelings about things, it's because she did not tell me what these things are.

Silence from her since.

In the quiet of silence, I wonder how I can stand to carry on with such so lacking in eruditeness, eloquence and elegance.

And in the quiet of silence, the answer came to me crisp and crystal clear - I cannot.

Writing to the CB

She was waiting for me to write her. Why? She wanted to know how we are doing, and how was our recent trip to Bordeaux and Biarritz. I am tired by now to tell her go read my blog.

So I dutifully wrote her, and attached three pictures: this, this and this.

The woman came back with: "That's an interesting pose, and a lovely letter."

That got my ire; I promptly wrote back:

CB, I take offence that my picture is only an interesting pose. Everyone raved about it, and about me. So there.

She's going to come back and ask me what the initials stand for...

When in France...

I was in France two times - in September a year ago, and again in September that just was.

I remember the beautiful old-world architecture, the strikingly beautiful countryside, the great wining and dining experience. Most of all, I remember the wonderfully hospitable friends and friends of friends who went out of their way to show us the place they call home.

I also remember the surly and resentful treatment I got from the very people whose job it is to provide help and service.

Like the tight-lipped monsieur or madam working the information booths who would not want to give me information;

Like the airline that cancelled my flight for no known reason and their ground crew would offer no alternative transport to my next destination;

Like the VAT refund counter at CDG where there is a perpetual long queue,

and after all documentation are grudgingly vetted and stamped, the angry monsieur/madam points sharply at the mail drop across from them where I am to mail my precious documents,

and I walk up to the mail box measuring all of 30cmX20cmX15cm (12inX8inX6in) and ram my one envelope into the overfilled receptacle, daring it to burst and dump its contents unceremoniously on the floor in protest.

Francophiles try to convince me that the French are not really rude.

They tell me that the French people are reluctant to speak English because they don't think they speak it well enough.

That I must never approach a French person and ask, "Can you speak English please." Instead, I am to say with a sing-song lilt, "Bonjour, mademoiselle/monsieur", followed by "parlez-vous Anglais, s'il vous plait". Did that. Did no good.

That the French are more reserved, and do not respond to strangers with a smile, unlike, say. the gregarious Americans.

The Francophiles miss my point. I am not complaining about the private French citizen. I am griping about people whose job it is to provide information and/or service. I am saying it is almost a matter of national pride and duty for that country to be not nice to visitors.

Then other friends tell me it is all worse in England/Italy/Germany. I readily and easily take their word for it. I am just not interested to rank them ...

I am not really sure?

Singaporeans have a real problem with giving definitive answers.

Example:
Me, asking a sales rep who has no customer to sell anything to: Would you know where the nearest mail drop is?

Sales Rep, index finger and thumb rubbing shiny chin, looking thoughtful before telling me after careful consideration: I am not really sure.

Which makes me want to push the point - go ahead, young man, make a wild stab and tell me where you think it might just be, possibly. Go left, right, cross the road in front, behind?

It's just so hard for him to say he doesn't know? I had to point out to him that he does not know rather than he's not really sure, before moving on to another shop to ask another blur Singaporean.

The pair of them

The pair of them. They live in KL. They blow into town every 2 months to sort out various matters - banking, business, medical - and leave in 24 to 48 hours.

They would look us up and insist on seeing us for lunch or dinner. Mostly we would accommodate them.

The pair of them. One a Malaysian Chinese man, an anglophile, a pitiable throwback to the days when anything British was admirable. The other. an Englishman who fancies himself to be the paragon of everything admirably British, a pathetic hangover from the colonial days.

The pair of them, always impressing upon everybody every chance they get that they are pillars of their social, business and church communities. The pair of them, shamelessly name dropping all the time, perpetually bending our ears with the most laborious and boring of gossip and rumour about the rich and infamous.

For years, we put up with the pair of them. We rationalize away their inexplicable and unpleasant behaviour by convincing ourselves that they just had a rough day, or they were in a quirky mood.

But painful experiences accumulate, and eventually exact a heavy toll.

The pair of them. They blew into town last weekend. They wanted dinner. We suggested they eat at our place, because we thought it'd be a mess to try going anywhere on the night of National Day.

The pair of them. They neighed, brayed, snorted and scoffed at any- and every-thing. They do this all the time, but this time, for many reasons, deep resentment awoke in us.

We did the best we could to end the evening graciously. We called them a cab. We said our goodnight's and goodbye's. We put them into the cab. We stood around long enough to see the tail-lights of the cab disappear into the night.

We looked at each other.

The pair of them. We decided that's the last time we would see them. We can do things like that. Something the pair of them seemed to have forgotten.

Whatever happened to...

We stopped seeing some people because of their circle of friends. There didn't seem any point in spending an evening keeping company with boors and bores, listening to their inanities.

But friends being friends, they continue to invite us over and we cannot just never see them again. Having steered clear of them for several months now, we were feeling more or less recovered from past violations to the soul and spirit. We braved going to one such dinner over the weekend.

Yes the boors and bores were all there. Yes, they talked too loudly and guffawed long, hard and frequently at their unfunny jokes. I did my best to tune them out.

Until.

The hostess turned to me and gaily flapped her hands, "Oh, oh, I mean to tell you but keep forgetting. Good thing I remember now. Have you heard what happened?"

You know this is going to be neither boring or inane. This is going to be unadulterated malicious gossip of someone we all detest.

Me: "No...who? what?"
She: "The sao loh (skinny man) is divorcing the feh por (fat woman)!"
Me: "No!"
She: "Yes, I tell you! I just saw the sao loh. He not so quiet and not so stressed anymore."

She went on to speculate on the reasons for the breakup - can't stand it anymore, can't stand her anymore, his son can't stand her anymore, who can stand her anyway...

Call me mean. Call me bitchy. Call me anything. But I must confess that the bit of rancid unhappy news made the evening actually, hmmm, worthwhile. Heh.

And they stared

Remember I bitched about how Singaporeans can stare? Unblinkingly, unwaveringly, rapt in their own world of staring...

Here they are at it again.
What are they staring at? Go ahead. Take a guess :)

ps For answer, click here.

Customer Service Hotline

I delay paying up my magazine subscription renewal until I receive the really ominous sounding reminders. You know - the ones that threaten no-more-delivery after blah and blah date unless you renew NOW.

The thing is, the magazine provides no incentive for early renewal.

Anyway, I recently renewed a mag subscription. Three weeks later, I got another of their reminders to pay up. Or else. A bank balance transaction check showed the cheque not yet presented.

I called the customer service hotline. Some young thing answered with the standard time-of-day greeting, identified the company, gave her name and asked how she might help.

me: Hi, I sent in my cheque for magazine renewal 3 weeks ago and I wonder if my cheque was received.

she: Sorry, but all payments are sent to Hong Kong for processing before being sent back to Singapore to bank in.

me: Is there any way to find out if my cheque is received.

she: No, I am sorry.

me: How long does it take to be processed in Hong Kong?

she: Six to ten weeks.

me: Is there any way for you to see if my magazine delivery will be interrupted?

she: Sorry, I wouldn't know.

me (starting to feel hot under the collar): Ok, goodbye!

she: Is there anything else I may help you with.

me: No, goodbye!

she: Thank you for calling (blah and blah company). Please don't hesitate to call again should you need further help. Have a good day!

me: G-O-O-D-B-Y-E ! !

Oh wah!! A helpful airhead, that one!

You got fine!

Call me picky and prickly, but I must protest against the way some of our front line staff talk to their customers.

I know I am returning the DVD rentals late. I know there is a late penalty to pay. So, please, couldn't the silly twat just ask for the payment in neutral fashion by saying, "There is a late payment fee of $XX"?

Instead, she said, "You must pay a fine of $XX for returning this late"!

It never fails to amaze me that businesses lose their customers and never even know why.

Not missing her

She is an old schoolmate. We've known each other just about all our lives.

We are not anything alike. I am sure we get on each other's nerves often. But as we are wont to do with people whom we have known all our lives, we overlook all incidents over time.

So she continues to ask insolent questions. In response, I sometimes answer her with a measure of rebuke, other times I tell her bluntly it's not any of her business.

And her insensitivity grows.

Right before my recent trip to the US, she blithely asked that I say hello to the ex since I would be in California and to tell him she remembered him fondly. My straightforward response was that the ex no longer lived in California, and even if he did, I would not be looking him up.

Right after my return, she nonchalantly asked if I had "resolved" everything in California. I gave her a piece of advice about her insistent inconsiderate remarks, and then gave her a piece of my mind.

I have not heard back from her in over a week now. Maybe, with luck, I won't ever again.

And I find I'm not missing her at all.

Unnecessary and Irksome

Like that engrish sign over Orchard Road, she continued to irk me. Even a whole week after she left. Her card arrived soon after, like 3 days later.

We did meet; I let her speechify and preachify, All the people she criticised as irresponsible and self-centred I still cannot help but like. Deep down, I guess I even admire them.

On her last day, she messaged me to say she will be back at 6pm to begin packing and I could call her if I liked (oh thank you). I waited a decent 15 minutes past the assigned time and called, and of course she has not made it back yet. I did not bother to try again because by then she would have really been frantically packing, and I got to being busy in the kitchen.

I messaged her the following day wishing her a good flight and safe arrival. Nothing came back. I sms'ed a Christmas greeting to her. Nothing came back.

Yesterday, she texted me in the late afternoon announcing she was free to talk. Well, I was not.

Today, she rang while I was busy tucking into my favourite lunch of dim sum. I did not pick up.

Did she really think I would be free and available to tend to her at any time? Especially this time of the year?

Well, she'd be wrong.

Just like the engrish sign is wrong.

And because neither is necessary in the first place, I find them unforgiveably irksome.

I don't even really care anymore

I don't get it. And I don't even really care anymore.

Do people still send postcards instead of sms or email? Especially when time is of the essence? And to send postcard from an inefficient European country where there is a strike every other week?

Anyway, so the woman shows up here and phones me asking to meet up. I had exactly the one afternoon free for lunch, take it or leave it. And at a location near my home, not somewhere on Orchard Road with the mad Christmas crowd.

We did manage to meet. And it was a couple of hours of torture, listening to her preachifying to me about the waywardness of today's youth, criticising our peers who are under-achievers, and praising her own endeavours at making a meaningful life.

Sigh. Alright. I let her speak her mind. I don't really bother to counter the falsehoods she belabours.

Because her mind is made up. And like the unthinking youth, the life-long bum-abouts and the rest of us who try to live meaningfully, we will each carry on doing exactly what we set our minds to do.

Only one thought stayed with me: this woman who thinks she is the paragon of everything righteous and proper, does she even realise she is the only one who does not sms or email (or even phone), but chooses to send postcards? In this day and age? When time is of the essence?

She will never admit she cannot handle sms or email. But that's neither here nor there. She is above all shortcomings.

Whatever her problem is with the world today, I don't even really care anymore.

Some Stupid Sales Spiel

GEMS (Go the Extra Mile for Service) was launched in 2005. Now the government will be pumping millions more dollars to launch phase 2 of the movement.

I am not totally convinced about a top-down approach to improving customer service. It is the front line personnel that the customer meets. Oftentimes, the sales person says the most stupid things just to get rid of the product or the customer, or preferably, both. Oftentimes, these sales people ought to be chopped into minced meat and fed to scavenging feral birds.

A recent episode involved one of the big names in comfort shoes. The sales rep happily suggested I try a pair one size smaller because "hor, your size no more stock". I shot him a withering look. (If looks could kill, oh he'd be struck down that very minute). I was really proud of my self-control; I walked out of the store with not another word said. Because, what I would have spat at him would have been, "You moron! You don't ask your customer who is looking at shoes costing upwards of $200 to stretch her shoes with her feet!" The irony that he is dealing with comfort shoes escapes him.

I studiously avoid clothes that are "free size". I am too tall and too big for these clothes to fit, but the sales person will tell me the item is "very stretchy" and it is the fashion now to wear "fitting clothes".

Then there was this fishwife of a sales woman hawking shawls and scarves at a department store. She actually managed to convince one woman to buy a scarf. Then she went on to berate (I exaggerate not) the customer that these are excellent buys and nobody but nobody buys just one. "Sure you regret if only buy one. Why not you buy for your friends? They are good presents for your friends" she shrilled at the woman. I think she lost the sale. At least I hope so.

I think front line sales personnel has to be made aware that service is customer-centric, not sales-centric. And the first step will be to train them to stop talking nonsense.