WARNING: This blog contains pictures which may leave those adverse to cockroaches retching. Even if they are just "babies" and "toddlers".
Rant Number One. Customer Service in Singapore. I am a sucker for good customer service and that is mainly how they get me taking out my wallet. On the other hand, I have a low threshold for bad customer service. Call me fussy, picky, arrogant, incompassionate, whatever. I expect a certain standard. I will tolerate until you get me on a bad hair day or you step on my tail, whichever comes first. Shopping at the less than 1 year old "budget" NTUC Fairprice outlet near my home has not been something I look forward to. The space is small, aisles are narrow, range of products rather an odd mix and when you need to buy something urgently, going at the wrong time can put you back by more than half an hour. Only one cashier counter, long queue that stretches along the narrow aisle, causing human traffic to make a detour into the other remaining aisle. Because it is a "budget" outlet, it does not stock a lot of the things I purchase on a regular basis. Thus, my trip to the Singpost Centre still stands.
I always believe that if one is hired to serve customers, there is a need to go through training of some sort. For sure, customer service, cashiering skills, etc. Well, this is not the first time I find fault with this outlet. There had been occasions whereby the wrong prices were displayed, staff not keen to answer your questions, staff saying it is a "budget" outlet and thus, that particular product does not fall into that category. When something is described as "budget", the first thing that comes to my mind is pricing. With that in mind, I took a second look at the products in the store and found pricy items. That does not quite click. Ok, I presumed it was the pricing. I enquired about the Marigold UHT milk packs. There were strawberry and chocolate flavoured ones but none of white full cream. "This is a budget outlet" I was told. Yes.... a budget I understand.. but the prices are the same. So... where does the "budget" fit in? Another time, I enquired about cereals. I was given the same answer : This is a budget outlet. I looked at the oil section and saw the top range in Extra Virgin Oil. That is budget?
Skip to last week. I saw that they had a special on Extra Virgin Oil. A few dollars off. Great timing as the bottle at home had a teeny weeny bit left. Happily I took it to the cashier. I noticed that she punched in the original price. When I checked with her, she told me that it was a Purchase with Purchase item. That meant I had to purchase $20 worth of items before I could get the lower price. I was sure it was not a PnP item but a Special item. She insisted and said it was stated on top.... on top of whatever she meant. I hobbled to the shelf. Nope. No PnP sticker, just an NTUC Special Price sticker. She must be thinking I was blind when I told her there was no PnP notice. Seemingly a little irritated, she walked over and wahla, no PnP. Guess what she did.
She simply took the Special Price notice off the shelf, folded it and told me that the pricing was wrong. It was supposed to be a PnP item. So, I asked why it was not on the PnP shelf. She replied that sometimes they do not move it there. Fine. I asked when the Special price deal was over and she said it should be next week and for me to return in one week's time if I want the special price. "Shouldn't you honour what you state the price is?" I asked. No reply to that. "Come back next week" was all she wanted me to hear. "If you want a refund, I can give you back your money". I certainly want that then. I was not happy. The word "complain" was flashing in front of my eyes. Why this time and not the other times things like this happened?
Simple: Not only was she not in the least apologetic, there was this air of "take it or leave it". To me, the attitude sucked. There had been many incidences in that outlet which set my alarm off but I tended to brush it off by the time I get home. Guess this time round, she stepped on my toes. An overdue call to NTUC Fairprice Customer Service Hotline was made. They are investigating. They sent me an sms to assure me that they are doing so and will get back to me once investigation is completed.
So far, NTUC Fairprice has been good on their word. Let's see what happens this time.
Rant Number 2. My HDB rental flat was given an upgrading. The old rubbish chute door in the kitchen was replaced with a so-called New Asthetically Air-tight version. Air-tight my ass. For a few months, I could not understand how I kept having uninvited "guests". It does not matter what I did, they came appearing. Babies, toddler, teens, adults, grannies and who knows, uncles and aunties. In case you are getting puzzled, I am talking about cockroaches. There was a couple of times when I came home to find my whole kitchen infested with hundreds of them. Some dead, some alive. I called up the HDB and they told me that I was to close my kitchen windows when they fog the chutes. Well... how was I to know when they do that? I was also very sure they did not come through the kitchen window. This is not the first time I live on the 2nd storey and I never had this problem before. They assured me that they will put notices the next time they do it. Fine, they did put up a notice and I did close my kitchen window. I came home to yet another welcoming party of cockroaches in my kitchen. Some even ventured into the bathroom and living room.
Another call made and now they said, perhaps I need to seal the chute. I did that the next time and guess what? When I pull off the scotch tapes the next morning, I had countless baby sized cockroaches attached to the tape. Yucks !!!! I have done that twice and I am getting tired. Today, when I was cleaning up the area after tearing off the tape, I saw this "toddler"crawling through the gap. 5 minutes later, its sibling followed. Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh
I took pictures this time. Not as many cockroaches as the last time but enough to eat up my remaining amount of patience. My son killed one cockroach near the area yesterday before I sealed the chute. Time to make my grievance known. Who should I approach first? MP or HDB or Town Council? Or perhaps tweet it, put it on Stomp?
Close your eyes before you scroll down if you are not a fan of cockroaches.
Ranting is too tiring for me.
Rant Number One. Customer Service in Singapore. I am a sucker for good customer service and that is mainly how they get me taking out my wallet. On the other hand, I have a low threshold for bad customer service. Call me fussy, picky, arrogant, incompassionate, whatever. I expect a certain standard. I will tolerate until you get me on a bad hair day or you step on my tail, whichever comes first. Shopping at the less than 1 year old "budget" NTUC Fairprice outlet near my home has not been something I look forward to. The space is small, aisles are narrow, range of products rather an odd mix and when you need to buy something urgently, going at the wrong time can put you back by more than half an hour. Only one cashier counter, long queue that stretches along the narrow aisle, causing human traffic to make a detour into the other remaining aisle. Because it is a "budget" outlet, it does not stock a lot of the things I purchase on a regular basis. Thus, my trip to the Singpost Centre still stands.
I always believe that if one is hired to serve customers, there is a need to go through training of some sort. For sure, customer service, cashiering skills, etc. Well, this is not the first time I find fault with this outlet. There had been occasions whereby the wrong prices were displayed, staff not keen to answer your questions, staff saying it is a "budget" outlet and thus, that particular product does not fall into that category. When something is described as "budget", the first thing that comes to my mind is pricing. With that in mind, I took a second look at the products in the store and found pricy items. That does not quite click. Ok, I presumed it was the pricing. I enquired about the Marigold UHT milk packs. There were strawberry and chocolate flavoured ones but none of white full cream. "This is a budget outlet" I was told. Yes.... a budget I understand.. but the prices are the same. So... where does the "budget" fit in? Another time, I enquired about cereals. I was given the same answer : This is a budget outlet. I looked at the oil section and saw the top range in Extra Virgin Oil. That is budget?
Skip to last week. I saw that they had a special on Extra Virgin Oil. A few dollars off. Great timing as the bottle at home had a teeny weeny bit left. Happily I took it to the cashier. I noticed that she punched in the original price. When I checked with her, she told me that it was a Purchase with Purchase item. That meant I had to purchase $20 worth of items before I could get the lower price. I was sure it was not a PnP item but a Special item. She insisted and said it was stated on top.... on top of whatever she meant. I hobbled to the shelf. Nope. No PnP sticker, just an NTUC Special Price sticker. She must be thinking I was blind when I told her there was no PnP notice. Seemingly a little irritated, she walked over and wahla, no PnP. Guess what she did.
She simply took the Special Price notice off the shelf, folded it and told me that the pricing was wrong. It was supposed to be a PnP item. So, I asked why it was not on the PnP shelf. She replied that sometimes they do not move it there. Fine. I asked when the Special price deal was over and she said it should be next week and for me to return in one week's time if I want the special price. "Shouldn't you honour what you state the price is?" I asked. No reply to that. "Come back next week" was all she wanted me to hear. "If you want a refund, I can give you back your money". I certainly want that then. I was not happy. The word "complain" was flashing in front of my eyes. Why this time and not the other times things like this happened?
Simple: Not only was she not in the least apologetic, there was this air of "take it or leave it". To me, the attitude sucked. There had been many incidences in that outlet which set my alarm off but I tended to brush it off by the time I get home. Guess this time round, she stepped on my toes. An overdue call to NTUC Fairprice Customer Service Hotline was made. They are investigating. They sent me an sms to assure me that they are doing so and will get back to me once investigation is completed.
So far, NTUC Fairprice has been good on their word. Let's see what happens this time.
Rant Number 2. My HDB rental flat was given an upgrading. The old rubbish chute door in the kitchen was replaced with a so-called New Asthetically Air-tight version. Air-tight my ass. For a few months, I could not understand how I kept having uninvited "guests". It does not matter what I did, they came appearing. Babies, toddler, teens, adults, grannies and who knows, uncles and aunties. In case you are getting puzzled, I am talking about cockroaches. There was a couple of times when I came home to find my whole kitchen infested with hundreds of them. Some dead, some alive. I called up the HDB and they told me that I was to close my kitchen windows when they fog the chutes. Well... how was I to know when they do that? I was also very sure they did not come through the kitchen window. This is not the first time I live on the 2nd storey and I never had this problem before. They assured me that they will put notices the next time they do it. Fine, they did put up a notice and I did close my kitchen window. I came home to yet another welcoming party of cockroaches in my kitchen. Some even ventured into the bathroom and living room.
Another call made and now they said, perhaps I need to seal the chute. I did that the next time and guess what? When I pull off the scotch tapes the next morning, I had countless baby sized cockroaches attached to the tape. Yucks !!!! I have done that twice and I am getting tired. Today, when I was cleaning up the area after tearing off the tape, I saw this "toddler"crawling through the gap. 5 minutes later, its sibling followed. Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh
I took pictures this time. Not as many cockroaches as the last time but enough to eat up my remaining amount of patience. My son killed one cockroach near the area yesterday before I sealed the chute. Time to make my grievance known. Who should I approach first? MP or HDB or Town Council? Or perhaps tweet it, put it on Stomp?
Close your eyes before you scroll down if you are not a fan of cockroaches.
Ranting is too tiring for me.
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