Some sales guy from one of our subsidiaries called, looking for a colleague of mine.
Well, he is on leave, and I took over the call. First question from him: “are you are the same level as xxx to give me an answer?”
wow… first words from him and he already pissed me off.
Next, he had escalated the problem improperly, he should have gone to his Engineering side first, and if they have any problems, then the engineering side will inform us in Singapore (since we are the HQ). If every sales guy is going to call and ask us questions, our lines will by tied like crazy, since there are 15 countries we are handling.
And the best part, this problem has already been escalated long time back, and has been deemed to be a marketing issue since it is their fault for not delivering the correct item, and charging the customer at a premium cost.
Now, they are covering their backside, and trying to solve this problem. If he had spoken in a better manner, I may have helped. But now… up yours! Maybe I should have answered “NO” and hang up his phone from the very beginning.
Many people have complained about how difficult it is to learn Mandarin. Well, somehow, I guess they have missed out the interesting things about the language.
for example, the Kanji Characters are
1. made up of patterns that looks like the described object. e.. 口- pronounced “kou”, and it means mouth.
2. signifies quantity e.g. 人 – pronounced “ren” and means a single person/human, whereas 众 – pronounced as “zhong” signifies many people
But then, there are definately some things that boggles my mind.
We all know that Coal is something that is buried under the ground, and charcoal is something that is burnt from wood, right?
So in Kanji, we have 煤and炭.
山 – pronounced “shan”, means mountain, or a hill
灰 – pronounced “hui”, means ash
putting the 2 together, what should we get? 炭 right? so this character signifies coal right, since it is ashes under the mountain? NO! it actually signifies charcoal!
now, we have
火 – pronounced as “huo”, known as fire
甘 – pronounced “gan”, means dry
木 – pronounced “mu”, means wood
putting the 3 together, we have 煤, right? so this character signifies charcoal right (since we use dry wood, and burn with fire, we get charcoal)? Well, no, this character signifies coal.
Now, who said Chinese language is not interesting?
The costs of estate cleaning and maintenance have increased over the years (well, Banglahs are still paid $20/day by our Town Council).
The last revision to the SC/CC was carried out in October 1997. (Does that mean that it MUST be RAISED?)
To meet the increasing cost and to continue to maintain high standard of estate cleanliness and maintenance (I still see rubbish in the lift day after day, and pools of piss in the lift that was left for days), the Town Council has decided to REVISE the monthly SC/CC with effect from 1 Sept 2004 to $61.50 (that is an increase of 3.63%!, and I cannot think of anything that is near my premesis to be of HIGH STANDARD. Oh.. and maintenance? LAN JIAO! window leaking, oh, your own problem, wall crack.. “oh.. its inside your house, anything inside your house is not our problem.” WTF?!)
CHAO CHEE BYE YOU UNDERSTAND?!
And once again, I prove that when it has anything to do with the government trying to RAISE the fees, the word REVISE is used, instead of INCREASE.
Good luck, Singaporeans…. you have more to come….
My sister’s cat died this morning.
For the past week or so, the cat has refused to eat anything. And she has gone to a stage where she is only left with skin and bone. She walks so slowly and she lies in her resting box or the toilet most of the time, not doing anything else. I feel so sad, seriously.
Although I have not really put much effort in bringing her up, she is still part of the family.And has been with us for a good part of our life to date.
My sister, she has been crying, seeing her cat in such condition.
It all started a few months back when the cat started to limp. At first we though she was injured, but we cannot find anywhere on her body which indicates that she is injured. She started to eat less then.
For the cat, she died of old age. She was adopted by my sister when the cat’s mum died in an accident. Sister buried the cat’s mum, and took over the responsibility of bringing up the cat.
Through the years, sister put in much effort. Cat was attacked, was pregnant, was hospitalised, and my sis took care of her.
Oh well, at least she died of old age instead of some misfortune.
We are going to miss you… :-/
So, you have a driving license, maybe a car, and feel like owning a car and driving in Singapore…. but first… lets be educated about the parking system in Singapore.
The systems that lets you park in Singapore is so complex that it sometimes puts me into a constant state of blurriness.
Lets just talk about the Parking Coupon system that is used by Housing Development Board (HDB) and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
Types of Lots
Now, in car parks operated by these 2 buggers, there are 3 kinds of parking lots: the red lots, the yellow lots, and the white lots.
Now, the red lots are for season parking, meaning you pay a monthly amount, and you can park in those lots as long as you want.
Next, the yellow lots, these lots are charged at $1/30mins
Finally, the white lots are charged at $0.50/30mins.
Notes: Vehicles with season parking coupons can park in either the red or the white lots, but not the yellow lots. If they want to park in the yellow lots, they are subject to the hourly charges.
Likewise, vehicles without season parking coupon is not allowed to be parked in the red lots, or they are subjected to a fine, even with valid coupons with sufficient amount paid
Night Parking Scheme:
There are car parks which allows night parking, and there are those which does not. night parking starts from 10:30pm to 7am the following day.
If you park in a car park that does not allow night parking, even if you display a valid coupon with correct amount, and in a white or yellow lot, you are subjected to a fine.
If you have the season coupon, you are allowed to park only in the car park which you are allowed to park, and no others, or you are subjected to a fine.
Free parking scheme:
There are car parks that allows free parking on Sundays and public holidays, from 7am to 10:30pm.
This means that between 10:30pm (the previous night) to 7am on Sundays and Public Holidays, you are to pay for night parking.
Parking coupons
There are a multiple types and denominations of coupons and each one of them has a different set of rules when using.
$0.50 coupons
these coupons CANNOT be used in yellow lots.
Notes:
1. even if you are parking in the yellow lots for 15mins, you are not allowed to use the $0.50 coupons, you MUST use the $1 coupons
2. if you do not have the $2 (night) coupons, you are to use 4x $0.50 coupons to make up the $2
$1.00 coupons
these coupons cannot be used for parking after 10:30pm
$2 (day) coupons
these coupons cannot be used for parking after 10:30pm
$2 (night) coupons
these coupons cannot be used for parking between 7-10:30pm
$3 coupons
hardly see these
$4 coupons
hardly see these
How to use these coupons:
Now, the coupons are with tabs that you tear off the year, month, day, hour, min.
You are to tear off the time you start parking your vehicle. If you are parking beyond the time allowed for your coupon’s denomination, you are to use another coupon, and tear off the expiring time of the previous coupon.
Now, if you tear the coupon wrongly, i.e. the date/time, you are allowed to change the coupon, but provided that you have at least 1 tab that is intact.
You can only change your coupons at designated locations, at designated time slots. The locations where you are to change your coupons usually charges $2/hour, so do your calculations right, or you will have to pay more to park your vehicle at the location when you are changing your coupons.
If your fold the tabs instead of tearing them off completely, you are subjected to a fine.
If you tear off the tabs completely and you throw them at the lot, you are subjected to a fine.
My take:
Why the hell does the government make parking in Singapore so chim? nah beh…
On the night of the blackout, I was using the PC, until the sudden cut off came.
When the power came back, my blardy PC refuse to work. It does not even give me POST or beep.. NOTHING.
I wrote in to Singapore Power on Wednesday, no reply.
Fed up, I wrote in to them today again, and cc to CASE. And a girl called me just 2 hours after I sent out my mail.
She told me that Singapore Power will make an official reply to all complains, regarding compensation, since I am not the only one complaining.
So, friends, if you guys have any items that is destroyed during the blackout, due to the blackout, please please please please write in to them.
You can find the email/contact number at http://www.psupply.com.sg
By the way, this information that we are allowed to ask for claim, is not released in the media at all, and I believe Singapore Power will keep quiet to cut down on the amount that they will have to compensate.
So please do yourself a favour and write in to them if there is anything that you want to complain. They just raised the electricity rate anyway, so we are basically getting back our money.
By the way, in the contract that you signed when you apply for power, it is stated that Singapore Power is not responsible for any blackouts be it their fault or not. But there is no clause stating that items damaged due to such blackouts/shortages is not their problem.
So there, what I am doing is not against any contract or law.
Just 2 days after the black out…. and not having my question answered, Singapore Power is raising its rates AGAIN!
WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT (and NO prior notifications) the rate is increased by $0.055/kWh
WTF?!
So the blackout came and is gone. For a good 1 hour at my place.
My baby was perspiring like mad, and so was I. My tenant had to study for her exams using candle light. Everything was dark, but interestingly, a few blocks within the same vicinity has power.
Singapore Power explains that the power outage was caused by a disruption of the gas supply from Indonesia. And that in turn caused 2 of the power stations to fail.
Both the stations are able to provide power via gas or diesel, but is usually running 100% on gas, until a outage like these happens, and it switches over to diesel. And unfortunately, out of the 6 diesel turbines in the 2 power plants, only 1 managed to switch over to diesel.
My God, what kind of a maintenance is this?
And after further reading into my passage, I noticed that Singapore Power is providing power via gas… SO WHY THE HELL ARE OUR UTILITY BILLS PEGGED TO OIL?!
