Thursday 30 August 2012
Wednesday 29 August 2012
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Update on cockroaches and customer service
I did something which I hardly do - make official complaints. Yup, called up the Housing Board about the rubbish chute issue and NTUC Fairpriced about their service standard.
HDB sent one of its officers to take a look and a week later, the contractor came round to apply some seals on the inner side of the cover. Will have to monitor it for a few weeks to see what happens. The contractor, as usual, were not happy. They told me that it is normal for cockroaches to be able to crawl through the bin opening and it is something I have to live with. To hell I should. They are not the ones who have to duck when flying cockroaches are hovering above their heads at night, or say hello to a night visitor when making a trip to the toilet. One thing I am certain about, there are still cockroaches in my home.
I was cleaning out our book shelves, clearing paper and school books when there it was, a big cockroach lurking amongst the boxes. Have I mentioned before that I am pretty good at killing cockroaches? One down and who knows, how many more to go?
A customer service officer from NTUC Fairprice called me as well. Apologised for the poor service I received. Being the usual me, I went on to give them a whole string of other complaints. I did suggest solutions for them as well. So I am not just someone who complain.
For those who do shop at Fairprice, they have confirmed that they are to honour whatever price you see as presented on the shelves. Even if it was a mistake or the staff forget to take it down. So the next time, you see a sticker with an offer price, make sure they punch that price in. When I mentioned about the cashier telling me to check the pricing myself, she told me that the staff are trained to do that, not the customer. When a customer enquires about a product, etc. the staff is supposed to lead them to it and not just point into the direction with their finger.
On the clarification of being a "budget" store, she could not give me a satisfactory answer as to why that store carries only the chocolate and strawberry flavour of a certain brand and not the original full cream. She too was baffled as there is no price difference, seeing it is under the same brand. Lots more information was exchanged and at the end of the day, Fairprice has a lot of training to do for their staff. Logistics-wise, they lack terribly. Whatever the case may be, I would still shop at Fairprice.
HDB sent one of its officers to take a look and a week later, the contractor came round to apply some seals on the inner side of the cover. Will have to monitor it for a few weeks to see what happens. The contractor, as usual, were not happy. They told me that it is normal for cockroaches to be able to crawl through the bin opening and it is something I have to live with. To hell I should. They are not the ones who have to duck when flying cockroaches are hovering above their heads at night, or say hello to a night visitor when making a trip to the toilet. One thing I am certain about, there are still cockroaches in my home.
I was cleaning out our book shelves, clearing paper and school books when there it was, a big cockroach lurking amongst the boxes. Have I mentioned before that I am pretty good at killing cockroaches? One down and who knows, how many more to go?
A customer service officer from NTUC Fairprice called me as well. Apologised for the poor service I received. Being the usual me, I went on to give them a whole string of other complaints. I did suggest solutions for them as well. So I am not just someone who complain.
For those who do shop at Fairprice, they have confirmed that they are to honour whatever price you see as presented on the shelves. Even if it was a mistake or the staff forget to take it down. So the next time, you see a sticker with an offer price, make sure they punch that price in. When I mentioned about the cashier telling me to check the pricing myself, she told me that the staff are trained to do that, not the customer. When a customer enquires about a product, etc. the staff is supposed to lead them to it and not just point into the direction with their finger.
On the clarification of being a "budget" store, she could not give me a satisfactory answer as to why that store carries only the chocolate and strawberry flavour of a certain brand and not the original full cream. She too was baffled as there is no price difference, seeing it is under the same brand. Lots more information was exchanged and at the end of the day, Fairprice has a lot of training to do for their staff. Logistics-wise, they lack terribly. Whatever the case may be, I would still shop at Fairprice.
Tuesday 22 November 2011
Rants Rants Rants
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.
Tuesday 1 November 2011
Singapore Writers' Festival 2011
25th October - 30th October 2011. A week of events for those in the literary arena, be it writers, authors, publishers, literary agents or simply those who are aspiring to write their first novel. Those in attendance came from both homeland and afar. Depending on the genre of interest, there is something for everyone - new book launches, dinner with authors, performances, mini-talks and of course the 2-day symposium which I paid $100 to attend. There are 3 types of passes: Festival pass at $15, the symposium pass at $60 per day or $100 for both days and then the individual passes which range from $20 onwards. There were some free events as well.
Someone asked me if it was worth paying the amount for the 2day symposium. Not taking into account the fact that full day pass holders were fed well with 2 tea breaks and 1 lunch, it could have been extended an hour or so longer. If any of the organisers get to read this, I would suggest sending the speakers to a course on public speaking first. It is true to say that being knowledgeable does not make one a good speaker. The sound system was ok but the speaker stands could have been placed more midway than next to the speakers. The mike runners had totally no idea how to do their jobs. I still give credit to the runners as they are after-all volunteers. I should volunteer for the event next year. Get to learn and be fed at the same time... not bad.
Rants aside, I did leave the symposium with enough knowledge of what I should or should not do with regards to the publishing of my upcoming book, The Wong Way Home. One fact is, never to publish my e-book before or even at the same time as my printed book. I may end up self-publishing if the publishers do not market my book. The topic on rights was interesting but most of the questions from the audience could not be satisfactorily answered. Not helpful at all if most of the answers were: "look at your contract." Had the audience laughing each time that answer was given. I did wonder why the publishers did not seem keen to talk to us. It was later revealed that they get hounded by writers and authors non stop. Their recommendation is to submit a manuscript and wait. One freelance editor caught our attention with his great questions. When I stood up with my proposals from publishers, he got rather upset and shouted out for me to run far away from those publishers and called them scams. He later approached me and gave me some insights as to why he said that. I also met some authors who after a few years, still had not broke even, not to mention making any money. There were others who had books launched overseas but sales were still slow. Marketing is the key to sales. Not all publishers market the books. They would try to get your books into bookstores. There is no guarantee that your book would get onto the shelves even if they had distributors all over the world. At the end of the day, unless you are a best seller writer, you would have to have a strong marketing strategy.
The talk on travel apps was an eye-opener for me. Light-bulbs glowing above my head. I am not that techie but I love dabbling in new things. Getting distracted again. hahaha I feel like a little kid inside a candy store when I come across things that excite me. Ideas ideas ideas. What lacks is the right team for me. People who resonates with my craziness. Yup one of my girlfriends says that I am crazy to be trying different things all the time. hmmm a sudden thought. Am I the female version of Richard Branson? He dabbles in different kinds of businesses too. Yup, I am a dreamer as well. Hey, dreams are what keeps us going mostly. Better than nightmares, right?
An agent gave the advise to put the book aside for a while after writing. Then perhaps a month later, read the book as a whole. One would be marvelled at how differently the book would be read and new ideas and inputs would suffice. This is what I have done for the past 2 weeks. Not touched my book at all. I know for a fact that there will be changes when I get back to it. I even know which section I want to change. Till next week, it shall remain in the hard drive.
Some connections have been made and I will follow up on them in a couple of days. Calls to make, people to see. Exciting time. Today, I read about The Marriage Central in Singapore. Light bulbs lighting up again. I wrote to the Chairperson Ms Anita Fam to share with her my two books. Yes, yes, two books. I have yet to talk about my second book but I already have the title and idea for it. Tons of research to be done for that.
Wow time flies as usual. Better get off my butt and take my eyes off the computer screen for a while. Today, my youngest son turns 14. I would probably seek their opinion as to where they want to have dinner. I like to try new places on such occasions. Tell you about it in my next blog.
Ciao.....
Monday 17 October 2011
Chinese Green Tea and Me and .....
Sipping on my cup of Chinese green tea, I remember it was a gift from my son. He had bought it during his school trip to China a few years ago. I was so touched as I knew that it was not something cheap. He could have simply bought me a key chain...... (like I needed another one haha). Back then, I could not bear to drink it. It was too precious. As I was cleaning the kitchen cabinet sometime this year, I came across the two containers of it. The metal box was starting to rust a bit. I thought about it for a moment and decided that I should drink it before it expires. Do tea leaves have expiry dates? I wonder.....
It was rather pleasant to drink. And thus started my daily routine (almost daily) of boiling a pot of it. To give it an extra zest, I usually add a couple of lemon slices. Love it. I wonder if drinking it daily will help me drain my fats away. Oh well. FAT HOPE lol. I do get some exercise out of drinking the tea. You see, I leave the pot in the kitchen and with this small tea cup, I have to keep walking to the kitchen to top it up. Not much of an exercise you say, but still some exercise. Beats just stretching the hand a little to reach for the pot if it was right in front of me.
If only drinking Chinese Green Tea gives me Chinese Kung Fu power. Then I can kill this one irritating mosquito buzzing around me and sucking my sweet blood. The curse of being sweet. A peaceful evening is turning into quite a mini adventure. I see a trail of ants moving along the groove of the floor tiles. This is the 3rd night that it is happening. Where on earth are they coming from and where are they going?????? From near the front door to the kitchen. Kill Kill Kill
With my TV set as dead as Steve Jobs, the house is so silent. The boys are asleep and I miss my Masterchef USA. Does this mean another night of watching X Factor USA, UK and Australia on YouTube again? I need to kill that mosquito first.
Till tomorrow, without the mozzie....
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