Who says 7-11 never close? 

Guess who is this? 

An Event in Hotel

Yesterday, I attended an event in Holiday Inn,behind Cuppage Plaza...
Let me describe how "grand" that event was:

1. Held in a function room at the basement of a 4 or 5 star hotel in town(looks more like 3 stars though)
2. Long rows of tables layered with red function-like clothes across the function room
3. Bottles of mineral water, with wine glass by side of each person's seat
4. Ricola sweets on a glass bowl on every table
5. Hotel's notepad & pen on display at everybody's seat
6. Coffee-making machine with full range of crockery
7. Light refreshments of tuna crossiants
8. An attentant by the refreshment area
9. Last but not least, security personnel walking around outside with walkie-talkies

see picture below......



end 


The event?























A class test.

A Story....

Little Twinkle came into the kitchen where her mother was making dinner.
Her birthday was coming up and she thought this was a good time to tell her mother what she wanted.
"Mom, I want a bike for my birthday." Little Twinkle was a bit of a troublemaker.
She had gotten into trouble at school and at home. Twinkle's mother asked him if she thought she deserved to get a bike for her birthday. Little Twinkle, of course, thought she did.


Twinkle's mother, wanted Twinkle to reflect on her behavior over the last year.
"Go to your room, Twinkle, and think about how you have behaved this year. Then write a letter to God and tell him why you deserve a bike for your birthday." Little Twinkle stomped up the steps to her room and sat down to write God a letter.

Letter 1
Dear God,
I have been a very good girl this year and I would like a bike for my birthday. I want a red one.
Your friend,
Twinkle
Twinkle knew that this wasn't true. She had not been a very good girl this year, so she tore up the letter and started over.

Letter 2
Dear God,
This is your friend Twinkle. I have been a good girl this year and I would like a red bike for my birthday.
Thank you.
Your friend Twinkle
Twinkle knew that this wasn't true either. So, she tore up the letter and started again.

Letter 3 !
Dear God,
I have been an "OK "girl this year. I still would really like a bike for my birthday.
Twinkle
Twinkle knew she could not send this letter to God either. So, Twinkle wrote a fourth letter.

Letter 4
God,
I know I haven't been a good girl this year. I am very sorry. I will be a good girl if you just send me a bike for my birthday. Please!
Thank you,
Twinkle

Twinkle knew, even if it was true, this letter was not going to get him a bike. Now, Twinkle was very upset. She went downstairs and told her mom that she wanted to go to church. Twinkle's mother thought her plan had worked, as Twinkle looked very sad.
"Just be home in time for dinner," Twinkle's mother told her.
Twinkle walked down the street to the church on the corner. Little Twinkle went into the church and up to the altar. She looked around to see if anyone was there. Twinkle bent down and picked up a statue of the Virgin Mary.
She slipped the statue under her skirt and ran out of the church, down the street, into the house, and up to her room. She shut the door to her room and sat down with a piece of paper and a pen. Twinkle began to write her letter to God.
























Letter 5
God,
I'VE KIDNAPPED YOUR MAMA. IF YOU WANT TO SEE HER AGAIN, SEND ME THE BIKE !!!!!!
Twinkle

REMEDY FOR DENGUE???

Excerts from somewhere...
(Hope Twinkle will need this...)

Some interesting info....
Wonder how true?

A possible remedy for Dengue fever....good to know and try if needed.

I would like to share this interesting discovery from a classmate's son
who has just recovered from dengue fever. Apparently, his son was in the
critical stage at the SJMC ICU when his pallet counts drops to 15 after 15
litres of blood transfusion.

His father was so worried that he seek another friend's
recommendation and his son was saved. He confessed to me that he
give his son raw juice of the papaya leaves. From a pallet count of 45
after 20 litres of blood transfusion, and after drinking the raw apaya
leaf juice, his pallet count jumps instantly to 135. Even the Doctors and
nurses were surprised.

After the second day he was discharged. So he ask me to pass this
good news around.

Accordingly it is raw papaya leaves, 2pcs just cleaned and pound and
squeeze with filter cloth. You will only get one tablespoon per leaf. So
two tablespoon per serving once a day. Do not boil or cook or rinse with
hot water, it will loose its strength. Only the leafy
part and no stem or sap. It is very bitter and you have to swallow
it like Won Low Kat. But it works.

Papaya Juice - Cure for Dengue

You may have heard this elsewhere but if not I am glad to inform you that
papaya juice is a natural cure for dengue fever. As dengue
fever is rampant now, I think it's good to share this with all.

A friend of mine had dengue last year. It was a very serious
situation for her as her platelet count had dropped to 28,000 after
3 days in hospital and water has started to fill up her lung. She
had difficulty in breathing. She was only 32-year old. Doctor says
there's no cure for dengue. We just have to wait for her body immune
system to build up resistance against dengue and fight its own battle. She
already had 2 blood transfusion and all of us were
praying very hard as her platelet continued to drop since the first day
she was admitted.

Fortunately her mother-in-law heard that papaya juice would help to
reduce the fever and got some papaya leaves, pounded them and
squeeze the juice out for her. The next day, her platelet count
started to increase, her fever subside. We continued to feed her
with papaya juice and she recovered after 3 days!!! Amazing but it's true.
It's believed one's body would be overheated when one is down with dengue
and that also caused the patient to have fever. papaya Juice has cooling
effect.
THus, it helps to reduce the heatiness in one's body, thus the fever will
go away. I found that its also good when one is having sore throat or
suffering from heatiness.

Those of us staying in Subang Jaya are lucky as we can get papaya
juice easily from the Penang Cendol stall in Giant! One cup is only RM1.
Tomorrow I will buy a cup for a patient in Assunta and urge him to try it.

Please spread the news about this as lately there are many dengue cases.
It's great if such natural cure could help to ease the sufferings of
dengue patients. Furthermore it's so easily available. Just go to market
and ask the makcik who sells ulam and they usually have
papaya. Blend them and squeeze the juice! It's simple and miraculously
effective!!

Real Aircraft Accident!!

Being an ex-Air Force personnel, we are extremely particular of any form of aircraft incidents/accidents...
This one will send shivers down the spine of our men in 127SQN....

Its 2-0!

Collected my laptop last saturday...looks swankly new..keke
Changed the top cover,LCD screen,harddisk and battery cover...totalling ...$1820!!
But me only pay $99.75 as labour lar...
Damn...they charges $478 for a Toshiba 30Gb harddisk....I go Sim Lim buy a 40Gb,only $112!
Murder + Arson....

classic joke 

Good & Bad Customer Service.

I wrote about HP's Zahiri's customer service skills,which is very skillful.
Now,let's see an example of Bad ones....
Some emails exchange between me & a Taiwan manufacturer.
=================
Dear Christine,
I'm am always very nice and patient to people who sincerely help me. However,in my 15 minutes of overseas call to Taiwan (overseas call aren't cheap,mind you), you failed to help me solve the problem, nor can you give me a useful solution.All you can do, is to tell me to "return the item back" to the shop. I don't know if this is the culture in Taiwan, but in Singapore, it is "goods sold are not returnable." And I'm sure the shop will tell me to "contact manufacturer".I'm not going to be a 'ball' and allow both the manufacturer and the seller to 'kick' me to & fro.
By the way, I had to make a second overseas call to Taiwan before somebody could tell me that my unit is "defective",and 10mins later, I received this email from you stating the same thing!All you are doing is to wait for me to trigger the same issue AGAIN before you start to take any action.What had you been doing in the last 5 hours while I'm waiting for a solution from you?Taking afternoon naps?
For your information,your guy told me this item had been in the market for a year plus.And it was only used twice in my case.If Datafab's can only be used twice, then there's something wrong about Datafab's product quality.
And if a customer had to make a long-distance call to get support for his item, that shows the quality of the company's support systems,or rather, the lack of it.
Also, at no point should a representative from a company rebuke the customer. That show how poor the company's training for the staff.And this staff I'm writing about,seems to have no skills in handling a customer, other than knowledge of the company's product.And there she is, writing back to 'get back' at the customer. Do you think the customer will buy the campany's product again?
Last but not least, your company's products are as crappy as the solutions the staff could offer.
If I were you, I would be very embarrassed of putting myself as well as my other colleagues under such a bad light.
With regards to your customer service quality, I believed you won't last more than 3 days in any corporation in Singapore.

Thomas.

----- Original Message -----
From: Christine
To: Thomas
Sent: 05 October, 2005 5:25 PM
Subject: Re: PS4-USB2G problem


Dear Thomas:

After checking your problem with our engineer, it's defined that your reader was broken down. (It should be recognized automatically after you plug it ino your pc.) Sorry for that there's no driver for XP system.

Our suggestion is==>1. return it to your shopper for the replacement.
2. be nice and patient to the people who try to help you find out the problem

In the end, we're sorry to offer you a "CRAPPY IDEA" again.

Sincerely yours,

Christine Chang
Sales Representative
DataFab Systems Inc.
Tel:886-2-2722-5255#31
Fax:886-2722-3978
----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas
To: christine@datafab.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 12:41 PM
Subject: PS4-USB2G problem


Hi,
I called you earlier and you could not give me any useful help.Pls forward this email to someone who knows how to fix the prob.

I plug in my card reader PS4-USB2G (black) into my USB,and there's no way my pc can recognise it.There is no driver available for it.
Pls do not ask me to try on other computers. I have only 1.
The easiest way to solve this problem would be:
1. Get me a Win XP driver for this item. Or,
2. Help me configure my computer to recognise this device and that I can Plug-and-Play.Send me the steps.

Don't give me crappy ideas like "return back to shop". In Singapore, shops do not like to entertain returned items.The shop will tell me to contact manufacturer instead.

Thomas.
======================================
Let's just say, I'm having fun with these people....

Driven to the brink of craziness...by HP!

I'm going crazy explaining my notebook warranty issues again and again to the HP people. Weird,when it should be the other way round...
Yesterday,some HP engineer called me and told me my notebook is only 1 year warranty and expired long ago..(Not again!)...Before I could FxxK him off, my mobile line provider,M1,rescued him from the lashes of my evil & vulgar tongue..Well, my line was cut while in the train tunnel...
Today called HP again,well, yet another translation of my warranty.This malay gal (did I mentioned that all the pple I spoked to,except the gal called Lilian, are ALL Malays?Maybe this Lilian is a Malay as well) told me,my warranty that is expiring soon,is an "off-site" kind of warranty where I have to go back to the shop that sold me the notebook.
What the ??????
I'm pissed.Definitely.
From experiences,I knew speaking to the low-level staff would lead to nowhere.So,cutting the conversation short,I told her straightaway:"I want to speak to your supervisor or manager."
Now,she tried to pull a stunt on me,and transfer me to another call-center staff.
The (new) gal:" Hi. I'm xxx. May I help you?"
Me: "You are the ? I want to speak to the manager.I don't want to talk to you."
The gal:"........ Pls hold on...."

These people really have lots of tricks in their sleeves.But as Twinkle mentioned, Limpeh have equally,if not more, tricks to beat them in their game.

So,after that,I managed to speak to the manager of the call center,Zahiri (another Malay!).Now,I must mention, this manager is a very experienced figure in handling customers.I have seen enough customer staff to tell which are the really good ones who can diffuse difficult situations.He is one who knows how to apprease customers but positioning himself in the same side as them,and from there work round the situation with a combination of tactics,skills and patience.
As for my warranty issue,its back to what it should be(once again).I failed to claim warranty for my battery(which I expected,just trying my luck),but my claim for LCD and handdisk is successfully.Now left only the melting plate,pending for further instructions.High chance of winning.

Perservence Pays....

Sometimes, in life, when people gave u inconsistent answers, u need to hang on and find out the truth.It pays....or rather, it saves...

Thomas 1 HP 0

One-Nil to me at half time. I lazy to write.keep it short.

2 weeks ago, my Compaq notebook's harddisk went dead.(once again,Fxxk IBM harddisks)
Trying my luck, I called HP to see if there's still warranty for it,since harddisk in retail has 3 yrs warranty.(HP has eaten up Compaq,Twinkle)
Called up HP's customer support, it was actually the Indians in India who do the phone support thing nowadays. Anyway, found that the hardware like harddisks,RAMs etc,are only 1 yr warranty.Abit unconvinced,but maybe that's the way things goes in notebook industry...
After all the enquiry stuff, suddenly came into my mind: my notebook keyboard's area,the paint coating had melted,resulting a some sticky,messy stuff.And the battery case cracked while I tried to removed the defective harddisk(I don know that was the battery k..)so..try my luck and check how much the replacement would cost...
Was directed to Spore's service ctr. The technician I spoke to, did an investigation on my notebook's serial number, and told me, my 'parts only' warranty ended on 21 OCT 2005.(Mine was bought in 2002) Ho seh liao...though must pay the $95 labour charges,but at least got free parts..better than none..tring my luck again,ask abt the harddisk warranty..."Nope,doesnt include harddisks"...Hmmm..maybe "parts" refer to the casing,shell and the plastic...

Went HP today.After waiting at the customer service for 20 mins, the couter guy did a check for me based on my serial number, and replied:"the warranty ended long ago already..its only 1 yr warranty,and was bought in 2002."
WTF.Made me go all the way to Alexandra for nothing?(Alexandra is near Depot Road,CMPB,Twinkle)..Nah bay..no way Limpeh gonna take it lying down.I'm gonna dig out the damn technician who made me came all the way down for nothing.
So, went downstairs, found a public phone,and took out my brand new phone card(yes,public phone card.surprised I still have,eh?tell u eh,it comes in handy when u knew u need to hold on to calls while the automated voice runs,and proceed to put u on hold listening to some Behtoven,or whatever music). So,started with the 1800 calls to the Indians.damn Indians,simply couldn't help me trace who the technician is.Never mind.Called direct to HP-Spore and spoke to them.After rounds of divertings,an unfortunate lady named Lilian was given the shit job of attending to me. Don understand why she was arrowed to me,since she told me she is in charge of Corporate Notebook customer service, where I wanted to speak to a Technician.
Never mind,maybe she can help.
So,started the long journey of investigations. Though I'm able to produce the call details last week,its pretty useless.No way to trace who the technicians are,especially all the technicians are Indians(again!) while I had spoken to a Chinese.
After trying all sorts of ways to trace out out that technician,which failed,she wanted to transfer me to the Feedback dept.TMD what could the Feedback pple do except to record down my complaints and get back to me a few weeks later??So,I rejected her flatly.
Last attempt: I told her why I wanted to find that technician.After my explantation,she asked for my serial numbers,and did a check for me. Yes!I DO have a 3 yrs warranty for "Parts only"!!Don ask me how this warranty came about,I hv no idea.
Now,next important thing: define "Parts only" warranty.
She couldnt explain in details to me.seems like she not very sure.In fact,everybody in HP I spoke to today,couldn't tell me what's excatly "Parts only" warranty.Never mind.As long got warranty to get something,who cares?Mind you,a simple battery cover plate less than 10cm long cost $30!!
So,she arranged a supervisor in the same place I went earlier,to attend to me.Rosli is his name.He apologised that earlier when I was there, the computer systems couldn't show the full warranty status of my notebook.By the way,he couldnt explain the terms "Parts Only" warranty,as well.
Anyway,I took the opportunity to list out all the big & small defects on my notebook.Actually,with the new Toshiba harddisk I installed,the notebook is functional.But since I'm here,and they made me ran a big round,wasted 20cts on my phone card(now hard to buy phone card leh!),and almost lost my warranty claim,I decided to report all the defects on my notebook.
1. Harddisk crashed.
2. Paint melted.
3. Battery plate cracked.
4. LCD blackened due to heat.
5. Battery life short.(Anyhow say one)

Let's see what the engineer allowed me to claim warranty on.
Moral of the story:

Perservence Pays.
If you feel you have been short-changed,go get it sorted out.
And if you felt that you have been played around, dig that guy out and let him jia-lat jia-lat.

Let's hope that:
Full-time: Thomas 2 HP 0

WYSIWYG:
Don't ask too much.Lazy to answer.

Your luck if you can or cannot.Don't ask why.
Limited period only.
-----------
Offer ended.