Sunday, March 29, 2009

Absurdity of Customer - Part 3

Yea yea yea….the buzz of my mate and I ‘acquired’ the MyBook has been spreading around the office for a week now…and stil ongoing….been hogging onto my new ‘toy’ for the past few days. Truly a work of genius I must say. Bigger capacity, bigger storage, more stuff to get from my friends for collection purposes. So, anyone of you lads out there want anything, just name it, and I’ll get it for you (at a cost, minimal that is).

Ok. I’ve got a quite irritating story for you lads today. This case happened last weekend. During the incident, our system was having a scheduled maintenance. This kinda situation only happens 3-4 times in a month. When this ‘maintenance’ work is going on, normally cardholders won’t be able to get their cards get through at merchants’ terminal. This ‘maintenance’ will not only impact our country’s cardholders, but also the whole region as well. Now that this ‘explanation’ has been ‘explained’ to y’all 1st hand, let’s carry on with the conversation with one of the customers that I received during the ‘maintenance’ work occurred.

M: who else
D: customer

*normal call opening bullshit*

D: Why I can’t use my card?
M: So sorry to hear that m’am. But our company’s system is having a maintenance work now. Therefore all cards usage will be having a temporary disruption until further notice.


D: So how now? I wanna buy something in the shop now.
M: *doesn’t this bitch understand English? Jeez* I’m sorry m’am, but not at this moment.


D: How long is this gonna take? I’m at the shop right now!
M: M’am, it might take few minutes, it might take few hours. I don’t have the specific time on the time of recovery.


D: Argh! This is VERY inconvenient to me. Imagine if I’m at oversea now and I can’t use my card. This is very embarrassing, y’know?
M: M’am. I understand your frustration now. But there’s really nothing we can do now. Adding to that, this maintenance work is world scale, it’ll be the same even if you’re at oversea ‘cos the whole world’s is using the same system as ours.


D: WHAT?! I wanna use the card now. Is there anything to solve this now?!
M: I’m sorry m’am. As I mentioned earlier, there’s nothing we can do now except for waiting. If you insist to proceed with the sales now, you might wanna use other cards already.


D: I don’t have other cards. I only have your company’s card, and I wanna use it NOW!
M: *she’s starting to get ridiculous already. Bloody bitch!* I’m sorry m’am……..


D: OK. Fine. I’ll call your marketing manager and complain about this matter that happened today. Such inconvenient, and you call yourself a MNC.
M: You’re most certainly welcome to do so.


The phone was then hung up by that bitch, reluctantly.

Tell me this: Is there anyone in this whole freaking wide world possess only one credit card in their account? SHOW ME! I’m issuing a challenge here. If there really is one, I’ll personally bow to him/her, wherever he/she may be.

Doesn’t this bitch understand simple english? Is my level of English too high for her to understand? Our system was having a scheduled ‘maintenance’ on that day. She’s not the only customer that couldn’t use the card on that day. There were tones of customers out there who were facing the same problem at that very moment, but they understood the reason behind after our explanation.

It’s been a week since that incident happened. There were no complaint receive from our marketing manager on this incident. Seems like that bitch were bullsh**ting about the complain anyway, or perhaps our marketing manager knows inside out of how our system works, and managed to calm her down. Either way, never mess with a woman when she’s on shopping mode. They tend to get very, VERY unreasonable at times.

Ok then. That’s all for today. It’s MyBook hogging time again. Hehe…

Be back for more!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

My New "Toy"

Have anyone ever wonder this: How come computer files sizes these days are waaaaay bigger than before? Stil remember those days where a diskette is a luxury thing to own? Then come USB thumbrive which cost a fortune to get one even for a small capacity like 1MB. My point? Nothing. Just wanna start this post with some lame intro. OK. Let's get on with this.

Due to the above reasons, **some excuse, eh?** I went off with my mate to our very own digital stuff shopping centre downtown and get our hands on an external/portable hard disk with bigger storage size.

After 2 hours of surveys, searches, shop-hopping, both of us decided on one thing: durable. When hard disk storage is concern, the brand Western Digital comes into our mind. This is one good brand I'd personally recommend to anyone interested in getting an additional storage device. I've got 2 storage devices with Western Digital for more than 3 years already, and none of them gives me any problem.

And so, I got one, my mate got one. Guess what? Pictures ahead:



Yeap. This is what my mate and I got this noon. Western Digital MyBook with 1-terrabyte capacity.



Out of Box
Upper left: USB cable; Upper centre: the BIG "boy" itself; Upper right: power cable.
Bottom: Manuals




*blue* Lights on bay-beh! 1-effing-terra-byte of capacity, waiting for me.



Actual size of the BIG "boy".

Rite. I ain't gonna elaborate any further. I'm busy, very busy now. Adios lads.

Be back for more!

Traffic Jam at 11:30pm!

I didn’t wanna blog about this at the first place, but it really pisses me off when this happen last nite.


See what happen? Goddamn loooooooooooooong of queue, pool of cars waiting, jamming at 11:30pm. Reason being they closed one of the 3 lanes in this road. Think this is the end of it? Wrong. Here's another picture.



Sorry about the quality of the pictures as I snapped it using my mobile. The second picture showed a vehicle that is fixing the road with new tar. Initially, they closed one lane, later on, they closed 2 lanes, which made the traffic much more worse. This route that I used to go home now, normally it takes about less than 5 minutes to 'fly through' this road, but last nite, it took me more than 30 minutes just to get through this bloody damn road. 30 freaking minutes!!!

One note here, whenever you're in jam/terrible traffic condition, just make sure the following condition meets, or else:

1) Is there enough fuel in your car to get through this jam/traffic condition?;
2) Do you have the slight urge to go to the gents/ladies?;
3) (This is for smokers) Do you have enough cigarettes in your possession now?;
4) Is the temperature of your car low enough to get through this?

If you meet any of the 'condition' stated above, I think you should get through this traffic jam quite easily.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Worst Customer Service - End / Bad Week

It wasn’t a pleasant week for me at all. Reason why?? Read on, mates.

First thing first. Remember my complaint on the renewal card that I yet to receive last time around? Well, in case you don’t, head over HERE for the initial complain, and HERE on the follow-ups.

Guess what. I received a call from their customer service on Monday morning, during office hour. Fair enough. They called me. But I was working and haven’t got a chance to breathe as well, let alone pick up the phone call. Hence, there were a couple of missed calls appeared on my mobile at the end of the day.

Around 6pm, my mobile rang again. She said that she was calling from the financial institution that I made a complaint to last week. Here’s the conversation between me and the caller:

M: myself
V: caller

V: I’m calling in to advise you on the complaint that you’ve made last week, sir. Are you free to talk right now?
M: Yeah, go ahead.
V: Actually, the renewal card is at our local postal office. The reason is because there were no one at home when our postal delivery reached your resident on 10 March, sir.

M: 10 March? You wait. *run to mom, asking if she went out on that day* Owh, rite. My mom went to dental on that day. Of all the days, that delivery guy gotta choose 10th. Gosh!
V: Owh, I see. If you are free, perhaps you may head over to the postal office and hand-collect the card, sir.
M: No. Please instruct them to redirect the card to my home address.
V: Yes, we can do so. But we have to wait for the delivery guy to return the card to us, then only we can re-send the card to your home address, sir.
M: What?! Can’t you call and ask them to redirect the card straight to my home address again just like that?
V: No, we can’t, sir.
M: Wha---***I’ve got the postal delivery centre’s office number, do you want it?*** Argh. This sucks. Now, I don’t care what you do. I want the card latest by Friday, ‘cos my family is gonna be away for a month starting next week and no one will be at home already.
V: In that case, I’ll suggest to destroy the card at postal office now, and I’ll re-issue another new card for you, which confirm will arrives at your doorstep by this Friday.
M: Rite, you do that. Just make sure the damn card arrives by this Friday.
V: OK, sir.

This call occurred on Monday. From the conversation itself, it clearly stated that the caller, the customer service will destroy the card that is in postal office, and she’ll be issuing a new card for me. Rite?

On Wednesday morning, while I was stil getting myself tucked into bed around 10am (yea, I was on vampire mode on Tuesday), my mom knocked on my door & said there’s a delivery guy in front of our house. Apparently, it’s my card. Finally. Seems like the girl stayed true to her words then. Without thinking much, I threw the envelope in front of my PC and sleep in peace.

Later when I got up, which is already noon time. I had a check on the envelope. I found a ‘RETURNED’ sign being stamped on the back of the envelope. What does this mean? This IS the one that was failed to deliver to me on 10th of March. This IS the card the girl promised to destroy and she’ll get me a new one. So, what now?! Am I suppose to destroy this card? Will my charge on the card got decline if I were to use it later? To be frank, I ain’t in a hurry to use this card as I got other ‘alternatives’. But this ‘RETURNED’ stamp on the back of the envelope really got me worried.

My old man wanted a pair of sport shoes for quite some time already. I’ve promised him I’ll drive him out, and get him one anytime this week. I wanted a pair of ‘leisure’ shoes as well. Therefore, I was thinking why not charge both onto this ‘new’ renewal card that I’m gonna receive anytime this week then? But like is said, the word “RETURNED’ really riled me up now. Should I wait til Friday, and see if there’s another card being delivery to my house? Should I call those jokers now to clear my clouds of doubts? Heck, feck it. I’ma call them now, and here’s what happen:

M: who else
S: call centre

M: I wanna know the status of my card.
S: *normal verification bullcrap* Do you want to activate your card now, sir?
M: Wait. I wanna check with you one matter. Is there another card being sent out in my account.
S: Nop, sir.
M: According to your record, there’s only ONE card that was being sent out, and that ONE card, is the one that I have in my possession now?
S: You’re absolutely correct, sir.
M: OK. Fine. Go ahead activate it then.
S: **some typing at the background** Rite sir, your card has been activated. You may use it anytime after this, sir.

Notice anything peculiar here? Am I not suppose to get another new card because of the failed delivery incident earlier? Doesn’t the previous customer service said that she’s gonna destroy the card that was in postal office, and reissue me a new one? What’s going on here?

The next day, shopping time with my old folks. All transactions went through smoothly using the aforementioned card. I don’t know what is wrong with their centre, seriously. I don’t even bother wanna get in touch with those retards unless really, REALLY necessary. Now that I’ve got my renewal card in one piece, I can have a piece of mind from this center for at least the next 5 years, til my current card expires.

This is just one part of the unpleasant week. On Friday, I was working noon shift after a change of shift earlier, I was supposed to work morning the very next day. But due to tiredness, and for the first time, the alarm clock in my room isn’t working, I arrived to work an hour late. There goes my records for this month then. Damnit.

Further add salt to injury, my favourite soccer team got thumped twice in a space of 2 weeks’ fixtures, and altogether 3 players got their asses sent off the pitch. Argh! And besides that, today, sunday, salary day. Also, it’s D day for all of us here to get their annual adjustments, arrears and all the other bonuses. Once I got into office and checked my payslip, apparently I’m the only one got left out on all these adjustments. Argh! There’re loads of stuff I wanna get my hands on!!!

Talk about bad week!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Know Your Facts!

Stil remember one of my previous post that I posted up during CNY? About a friend of mine? Who bugged me since the eve of CNY til god knows the 4th/5th day of CNY?? Can’t recall?? If by any chance you have the free time, head over HERE to read it. I’m gonna blog about him, again, today.

His nick is “V”. He’s about the same age as me, just months older. Being a marketing executive as he is, he also take up some ‘side-income’ job aka insurance agent. Yeap. You heard me rite. He is an insurance agent. Well, his old man is quite a successful insurance agent himself. I guess V somehow got influenced/forced into doing this. Again, I’d like to stress that it’s just my wild guess on the forcing/influence part, I might be wrong.

Seriously, a man with double job? A marketing executive & an insurance agent at the same time, it’ll needs lotsa speaking skill, lotsa interaction skills with others, ranging from 18year old to 81 year old will take place on a daily basis should he needs to increase his personal record/income. It needs very good time management above all. Yeap, it ain’t easy, in my point of view that is.

A simple question here: What is essential in an insurance agent?

His outlook? How he dress himself out when meeting up with potential customer? OR;
His product knowledge? Knowing every single details inside out?? OR;
His contacts? In case of emergency, who/where should he be referring it to? OR;
His after-sales service? Will he come to you off and on to check out on your current condition?? And not just when it’s due for payment?

I don’t know about you lots. It differs from person-to-person basis. For me, I’d say his product knowledge comes above all else. 2nd will be his after-sales service.

You wanna know why I’m bringing this up?? Main reason because something just happened recently that made one of my mates almost cancel off her insurance policy with V. Here’s the story.

One fine day, my mate, let’s call her “L” shall we? Yes, it’s a she, in case you wondering. Yes, I’ve got loads of female friends as well. *evil grin* Her rear car bumper fells off after a minor incident involves a company lorry. The said lorry driver attempted to escape after hitting the bumper (L’s car was parked in orderly fashion in front of her office premise, and the lorry driver hit the rear bumper while negotiating a double parking), luckily a good Samaritan who witnessed the whole incident managed to stop the b-tard. Only then L managed to get all the details and proceed with the necessary with the company later.

Due to the fact that she purchased her car insurance from my aforementioned friend, V. Therefore, she passed every details to V for him to the necessary follow-ups. V even introduce L to one of the panel car workshop to get her car fixed up ASAP.

Everything went smooth as silk as L retrieved her car couple of days later. Talk about efficiency eh? *evil smile* More to come.

A week later, L received a call from the car workshop, requesting her to pay for the car-repair fee that they charged onto her. L was shocked as hell when she received this phone call as it is agreed between L and the company that she will claimed her repairs from the lorry’s insurance company, and this in fact has been told to V. She told the workshop staff that shouldn’t it that they claim the car-repair charge with the third party insurance company?? Instead, the workshop staff replied L with a bunch of bullshit excuses that they failed to do so due to insurance cannot claimed using knock-to-knock procedure if it involves a lorry and now L gotta pay ‘em directly, and she will have to claim from the third party insurance by herself.

Shockingly, L made a call to V, who is in charge of her insurance policy to settle it for her. Imagine this. A working lady, who know nuts about car *and rightly so*, got called up by a car workshop demanding for $ on the car-repair-charge, anyone will get panicked. V said ok. He’ll deal with it. Few hours later, V called L back. To her surprise, V said the same thing like what the workshop told her upfront: she gotta pay up.

WADAFAK!?!?! L bought her insurance policy from this big MNC company, her less-than-2 year-car just got its rear bumper fell off, and she gotta pay up for the repair charge?

NO FUCKING WAY!!!!
Where’s the insurance coverage gone to then?? Hence, L made a call to her hubby, K, which is our high school friend as well. (gotcha, L is someone elses’ wifey, you perv! You lads may stop your wild imagination now!) This time around, V told K that he’ll pay the workshop first, maybe K or L can pay him back later whenever it’s convenient to them, so that V can escape all the inconveniences.

You see, after the call, the couple has been arguing (verbally) with V that the whole thing doesn’t make any sense at all to them, and L even asked around other insurance agents, which their replies totally contradict with what the workshop people are claiming.

Eventually after the first call, L just doesn’t care about the payment, because in no way she is going to pay to the workshop first. More than 2 months later, the workshop people calls her again asking about the payment.

Furiously, L bombarded V on the supposed coverage on the vehicle. V didn’t utter a single word, but kept on saying the claims made by the workshop people is true and he’ll pay for them upfront first as he sensed that L will not budge on her decision.

Reluctantly, L told me this incident via MSN. I suggested her to speak to my insurance agent as he is a goddamn good agent I’ve met so far, which is a full-time insurance agent. Due to the fact that L’s insurance policy is not handle by my agent, the best my agent can do is to provide her all the contact numbers as well as the person-in-charge to check on her ‘case’ over the phone.. *Funny eh? Shouldn’t all these checking and phone-calling suppose to be done by the insurance agent? Owh, the ‘insurance agent’ is on a ‘meeting’ in his marketing executive job. Aahh, how can I forget this? He’s having a double job.* **sarcasm spotted**

Reason being because the report stated L’s car was hit by lorry, and refer to some insurance new policy bla-bla-bla, collision with lorry are considered as public transport and therefore cannot claim from third party insurance. So L set to do research on her own, i.e. calling up the insurance company to verify the car-lorry situation and speaking to other insurance agents. And then the workshop people let slip that lorries with 3-tonne and above only are not subjected to third party claim. Suspect that something is amiss, L had called up the company (where the lorry belongs to) to inquire about the weight. And, voila! The lorry is a 1tonne lorry, and definitely can be claimed under third party insurance. L called back the workshop and bombarded them with the new information.

After all the hassles, L finally found out some peculiar thing on the workshop. Reason why the workshop was asking $$ from L is because the workshop staff never submit the insurance claim to the insurance company. They never bother to check the weight of the lorry. They just assume that it cannot be claimed to avoid the hassle, and to get money first, knowingly that most customers is dumb in this area.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!??! How can they do this???!!!! If the customer were to report this incident to the insurance company, this particular car workshop’s name will be removed from the panel list of workshops forever. And L let V know that the whole thing in fact can be claimed, and the workshop people ain't doing their work. But being a good person as L & K is, both of them decided to give V one more chance to redeem himself. Any more similar incident after this, they’ll terminate the insurance policy with V with immediate effect already.

This case has been dragged on almost 3 months. And it’s finally settled already. About a week ago. 4 of us ( L & K, me & V) went out for dinner. We didn’t mention about the case during the whole trip to & from dinner as it might cause embarrassing/discomfort moment. When we return to V’s house after dinner, his father told us that he went to the workshop personally and told them off about this incident. And V’s father also assure us that such incident will not happen again, ever.

Owh, on a side note. Just right after dinner, when V was about to get his car, the below happen.


Yeap, his car’s side mirror got smashed off. I pitied him, but at the same time I was thinking to myself, “Karma??”

This ain’t the first time that V has got things screwed up. Few years back, my cousin’s in-laws have bought quite a few policies *erm, if I’m not mistaken, the total was 5 insurance policies bought in one-go* But due to his recklessness, he lost all 5 policies on the same day.

Now, like I mentioned earlier, V’s father is quite a successful insurance agent back in his days. V inherited all the policies from his dad. All he needs to do is just maintain the after-sales service and he’ll get a hefty sum of side-income on a monthly basis. What about his dad, you might ask? Well, his dad is on a semi-retire mode right now. It doesn’t matter to him anymore.

See the difference between a full time insurance agent and a part-time insurance agent now? One is with all the knowledge & is able to answer any kinda question within a snap of a finger, like those answer is just written at the back of his hand. One is a pretender, a wanna-be, a good-for-nothing-actor, whereby his favourite quote will be:"I'll get back to you tomorrow after I double confirm it with my dad."

I can tell you lots the story of 'V' but I'm afraid the length of the story will be faaaaar lengthier than those of Harry Potter's. I tired of typing now. Gonna doze off already. Be back for more!.

Stay tuned, boys and girls!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

System - Part 2

Hi all, I’m back. It’s just pass 3am now and I’m stil wide awake. Why? Yea, I’m working midnite shift today. Just stuffed myself with a packet of the world renowned KFC. Now lying on the comfy chair in office, with my Ipod on, writing this piece of article on my blog.

Remember couple of months ago I wrote about the system that my company is currently using? Well, in case you don’t, you may head on the link over HERE to read all about it. Today, it’s about follow-ups on that ‘feedback’ of mine regarding the system problem that we’re still facing now. Yes, STILL.

On the first week of this month, I was working morning shift. Yea, I know I hate it. But I couldn’t change it due to some ‘unforeseen circumstances’. But in the midst of my job, the goddamn system gave me problem again. This incident further incensed me. Hence, I wrote an official email to my boss voicing out my discontent. Here’s the content of the email:

As per attached. The red underlined seems to be auto-activated on a daily basis to update it's virus definitions. Is this the main reason why everywhere I sit also will face a certain period of PC slowdown on a daily basis during morning time? I've checked afew of the phone extensions. Some desktops also have the similar schedule like mine. But to my surprise, some desktops don't have such antivirus updater appeared in their desktop today. In addition to that, based on the RAM available in our desktops, it's even slower when those antivirus programs start auto-downloading & installing into the already-slow-desktop that we have currently.

It's an uphill task for us to entertain customers who are always on the rush whilst our system couldn't cope up with it.

I ain't sure if this issue has been raised prior to my humble email but I just wanna share with you on this one.

There you go. Pretty much self-explanatory eh?? Need I elaborate further? Do lemme know should you need any clarification on the above email. About 2 hours later, my boss replied me with this:

Dear Me,

Thanks for highlighting. I have now copied all the supervisors & IT department on this matter. Anything that has got to do with tools preventing you from doing your work, should be escalated to supervisors first who will then advise which party to liaise with. As for Technical issues such as what you have brought up, it should be managed by our IT department.

Dear Supervisors,
Could you liaise with IT department on this matter?

Dear IT department,
Could you have a look at the PC that the agent is currently sitting and give me an update?

There you go. Talk about delegation eh??? Wise man, my boss is.

Another 3 hours passed by, I received an email *finally* from IT department. It reads:

FYI, recently our IT agent Mr.A is in the progress of changing the slow performance PC with the formatted PC which can give a faster response to the agents.

Will help the affected agent to change the slow PC once i got the formatted PC from Mr.A. Thanks.

Notice what is going on here? The red-colored part on the reply from those IT retard? In case you’ve no idea what is going on, allow the humble me to explain to you in lay-man term.

The red-colored part means, these lazy-ass IT staff is changing the desktops that we, the agents herein my department, are currently using with the ones that they’ve just cleaned up. Which in other words mean that it is old desktops change with old desktops, the difference here is one is being cleaned with, whilst one is old with lotsa rubbishes in it. Great! Old desktops change with old desktops, doesn’t make any difference, ain’t it? Is my current employer really that short of funds? Is this due to the current economy crisis that the whole world is facing, or is it just some plain excuse made up by those farkers above? God knows. But heck, I don’t give a damn. Long as I get a desktop with high performance specifications in it, I’m fine with it.

Ok. Time flies. It’s been 2 weeks now. No sign of those lazy-ass IT weirdos coming down to our department to ‘change’ those obsolete, low-performing desktops. Absolutely none. Therefore, I sent in another email to my boss to enquire about this, as a ‘gentle reminder’. But instead, he requested my immediate supervisor to follow-up with those IT nerds. Here here, delegation at the very top level aye!

Apart from that, heard some rumours *yea, rumours…don’t put so much hope on it* that the current contract with Dell will expire soon, and they will be changing the current desktops in our department into the latest, if not high-performance desktops available in the market now. As mentioned earlier, it’s just rumours. Ain’t sure how true, how soon, how long will it take for those retards to change it. Finger cross.

That’s all for now. Stay tune. More to come, soon. Very soon!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Work Schedule at Its Best! + Worst Customer Service Ever - Follow Up

This month is not a good month for me. Why? Oh I'll tell you why.

I've been posting in my blog time and again that I ain't a morning person. This fact has also been well-known to all my colleagues as well as supervisors so that whenever anyone of them need to change their work schedule or if any needs arise for emergency case, they can buzz me in to work in the noon shift or anytime but morning shift. In return, I'll also "gladly" change my morning shifts that I've available in that month's work schedule with whoever that needs it.

But, things never go as smoothly as one expected. When I opened up the work schedule for this month couple of weeks ago. I've got a shock of my life. I gotta work almost half month of morning shift! WADAFAK is wrong with these people sitting on their big fat asses above?!?! 13 fucking days of morning?? You don't believe me?? Here's the summary of the work schedule of this month. Names and exact schedule time has been edited to prevent any legal issues.




That's not it. In the middle of these work schedules, I'll get my deserved off days. You might be thinking, "Nah, it ain't that bad afterall. You're stil getting your off days." Yea, rite. What if I tell you all my off days are being splitted?? As in one off day at start of the week, and another off day might be placed on either middle of the week or perhaps end of the week. It's goddamn tiring if those off days are being splitted like this. I got sooooo fucking exausted for the past few days when I got home, that I knocked myself out on bed around 9pm everyday.

But recently, words have it that something might change on our department's work schedule starting April 2009. I just hope that this current stupid, retard work schedule feud that I'm facing at that moment can be resolved when April comes.

On a side note, on my previous post about worst customer service ever over HERE. I've gotten a reply from the financial institution today on my complain about their customer service in the evening 2 days ago. It took them fucking 2 days to reply me with this stupid, standardized reply. Here it is:

Thank you for e-mailing us.

We would appreciate if you could allow us sometime to investigate on below claim and we will update you accordingly.

Thank you.


Rite. It seems like my 'feedback' has gotten their attention afterall. After my goddamn long email to them 2 days ago, they replied my complaint with a simple 2-liners. Wonder how long will it take for them to get back to me on this. It's gonna be weekend already. Sigh. Feck it! I'ma enjoy my weekend and let those retards crack their head on it.

And about my mate's complaint to the local fast food delivery company. Seems like her complaint went down the drain, sinking without a trace already. It's been almost a week since she provided her mobile phone number for their further 'investigation' already. Talk about efficiency eh? How ironic!

That's all from me. sinoffire, signing off!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Worst Customer Service Ever?

Told y'all I'm gonna 'meet' you lots very soon rite?? Initially, i intended to write something else in here but after I left the office today, I decided to call up to one of the local financial institutions to check on the status of my renewal card that I yet to receive to date. But it wasn't a very pleasant experience for me. Hence I wrote them a goddamn long complain email in their website. I'ma copy/paste the content of the complaint herein my blog. This email virtually contains everything that I wanna say about the joker who picked up my call. Here goes:

I’m really dissapointed today when I called up to your customer service earlier. Here’s the incident.

I called up to your customer service today around 4:45pm to enquire about my renewal card that I yet to receive todate. As usual, after hearing & pressing all the buttons through the IVR, ie option 1, then option 1 again, then option 0 to speak with customer service executive. A male agent picked up my call. There was no proper call opening, which is an essential for any customer service centre. That’s fine, I was in a hurry, therefore I duly gave him my cardnumber to ask on the status of my renewal card.

Without notifying me at first, I was put on hold (I presumed that he was putting me on ‘mute’ status at first as there were a moment of dead air in the midst of it), listening to some advertisements from your bank, while he was doing some checking at the background. Few minutes later, he came back to me and informed me that my renewal card will reach my billing address within this week or latest by next week. Fair enough, just what I needed. I then further asked him on the reason why the delay as my card expiration date was back in Feb2009. Again I was put on hold without being notified at all. Another few more minutes passed by, the line got cut off just like that.

I never bother to call back because the ‘agent’ has got my cardnumber and he should be returning my call to advise me further on the enquiry that I was seeking. It’s close to 6pm now. There’s no sign of the ‘return call’ from that agent that entertained me.

Noticed what is missing here in my complaint?? Verification! Where on earth is the verification?! He didn’t even bother to ask any verification questions at all! I’m surprised that such mistake could happen to such major financial institution as your goodself. What if I’m a fraudster that is calling in at that point of time and request to change the billing address? Am I supposed to bare whatever cost later that incurred onto my credit card? I’m truly disappointed. I was going to ask a few more questions about my account, but I gave up on it. Don’t ask me about his name, ‘cos I didn’t have a chance to do so with him busy putting me on hold for every single question that I asked him.

As mentioned earlier, my renewal card was expired back in Feb2009. Shouldn’t it be that my new card arriving during the month of Feb09, before the existing card expired? There weren’t a lot of public holidays during the month of Feb2009, my mom is at home 24/7 to receive the card on my behalf. Will someone please enlighten me on the cause of delay?

I never call your customer service for few years already and this is the first time I decided to speak with your customer service. Guess what? It wasn’t a pleasant one.

I’d like an explanation on this. Please retrieve back the call that I made yesterday at the time given above, and what kind of action are you going to take to solve this matter.

There you go. The exact content of my complaint to the local financial institution. I'm expecting a reply from them, be it via email, or phone call. Will update in here once I gotten the reply from them, hopefully tomorrow.

Here's another incident that happened to my mate the other day. She called up for some fast food delivery service into her apartment as it was almost 10pm and we didn't have the intention to go out and hunting for food anymore. But, the outcome was really disappointing as well. Therefore, my mate sent an complain email to their customer service online. Here's the exact content of the complain:

I had made a telephone delivery on 07March2009 (Saturday) around 10pm to make an order. A lady operator had then requested my address details. Obviously, she doesn't know which part of my residential area is, and therefore assured me that she would called me back in 10 minutes. I never asked for her name as I assumed that she would called me back. However, 10 minutes had passed, and not a single call from her or anyone from your company. She should have the courtesy to call us. We have waited for over an hour for her call. I never bother to call again since it is your responsibility to call back your customer as promised. If this is the kind of treatment you have been giving your customers after all these years, I doubt that it will leave a good impression on your company. I, for one is truly disappointed.

And she received a reply via email from one of the agent the very next day, here goes:

Thank you for your feedback and for sharing with us your concern. I apologize for the inconvinience you have experienced; this is not typical of our company's and we take this issue very seriously. Unfortunately we are unable to investigate further on your concern as we lack your telephone number, and need further details for our investigation.

Please call us back on our direct line to enable us to assist you better.

OK. That's the end of the email reply. My mate then provided the agent her the exact phone number that she used to make phone calls for delivery on that day for their "checking" purposes. It's been more than 3 days now. Stil nothing from them. Bunch of suckers I'd say.

Customer Service at its best eh?? *sarcasm detected*

Don't worry lads, I'll update you lots on the outcome on both incident once gotten the reply from respective agents.

sinoffire, ranting off.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Book By Its Cover? Definitely Not!

It's been an awwwwwwww~~ful while since I last updated in here. Yea yea yea, I know I know. THE story eh?? That's the main reason why it's abit deserted in here. 'Cos I was busy "collecting" information here and there about this matter. As per my previous post, I promised you lots that I’m gonna tell y’all a mind-disturbing story soon. I know it has nothing to do with call centre, but I just want to share this story with all my beloved readers, just to beware. Without further adue, here goes.

Just recently, my friend, (let’s just give her a name a’ite??) A, met with this guy and started go out with him. Couple of weeks later, things started to get serious between ‘em. Therefore, as a normal couple would do, they’ll start live together, go out on a date, everything that they do will always be together, well, love is blind when all these “love” stuff starts kicking in, rite? Cool.

Well, the guy is a rather traditional thinking kinda guy. Why am I saying this? On what ground? Based on what? Now, he loves to relate everything to his parents; he can do whatever he wants, but his ‘girl friend’ can’t do whatever that she wish to do; he wants to know everything about his ‘girl friend’ but he can keep secrets from her; he believes that his ‘girl friend’ must prioritize him on top of all others including her job. She must be always available whenever she’s call upon by this guy, these are just some examples that I can think for now. You know the drill.

This IS exactly what my friend, A has encountered currently. When it all first started, this ‘traditional-thinking-guy’, **nicknamed S** seems to be a very good ‘candidate’ for whatever that she seeks of so far, caring, loving, sensitive, bla bla bla……but as things go along, she found out that this guy is not as simple as she thinks. S is MORE than what she expected. It’s WAAAAAAAAAY more.

On a daily basis, S will comment on the way that A dressed up, be it to work, or out on casual dating. If he doesn’t like it ie. Too revealing, he will command A to return to the bedroom and change to another not-too-revealing attire. *FYI: A is almost the same age as mine, and S is almost...err...who gives a flying fark about him here?!* A female working lady should know what is best for her to wear on any occasion by now. No advise should be needed. What makes S think that his sense of fashion is anything but above the rest??

Just one general question to all my readers: Is wearing a mini-skirt with jeans material paired with normal tee-shirt during shopping on a normal weekend consider “revealing”? **see picture below for length of mini skirt** For me, I DON”T THINK SO! But this guy, S certainly thinks that IT IS F**KING REVEALING!!!! FFS, what century are we in now?! It’s 2009 going into 2010 soon, what the fuck is he thinking?! And you think that is all?? WRONG! More to follow.




During a recent public holiday, this friend of mine, A was invited by S, to join him for reunion dinner. For us, this ‘reunion dinner’ is supposed to be held among family members and its next of kin, but not outsiders. Knowing this, my friend politely turned down his request to attend the dinner. When S got to know about this matter, he went haywire and start doing those unimaginable stuff onto A, ** I ain’t elaborate much on this here ‘cos it’s really mind-boggling on those stuff that S did onto A** claiming that the reunion dinner is a compulsory attendance and he won’t accept NO for an answer. All my friend said was: “Sorry, I ain’t going to the dinner ‘cos this is your family reunion dinner. I’m no one to you, just your new girl-friend. We’re just started going out for a couple of months. It’ll be a different matter altogether if we’re married.”

Is that reply rude? I certainly don’t think so. A is just trying to talk some sense into S’s big, thick skull, and into his puny, worthless brain. But yet, her words don’t seems to have any effect onto S.

Being a persistent bastard as he is, without notifying A, he drove his pathetic car and fetch A right after she got outta office block and drive her over for the “compulsory reunion dinner.” Furthermore, she was somehow ‘force’ into promised the bastard’s parent that she WILL be there on the very next day after the reunion dinner, and there’s a dress code in force by the parents ie no blue or black attire allowed during the gathering on that day. WTF?!?! DRESS CODE?!?! Are they still living in the 80s or 90s?! WADAFAK is wrong with these people? It wasn’t a very pleasant experience for A at all.

In work, as both of ‘em working in the same dept, and in the same goddamn MNC company, they tend to come across each other’s work daily. As a marketing executive that they are, he still thinks that he is the BEST above the rest. He teaches A how to deal “effectively” with customers, and all the DOs and DON’Ts in handling a customer. In fact, this bastard is one rank lower than A and he’s not even meeting all the sales targets on a monthly basis. *LMAO* Expert?? I doubt so. Expert in Bullshiting, yes. Thought so.

As months go by, things didn’t go well between both S & A. Since day one they met, S somehow found out that A is having some minor financial difficulties. Not that she wanna let him know that she has that problem, but she just thought that this is her own problem and she would like to settle it off herself. Again, S went berserk after he found out this incident, raising his voice over A on how couples/lovers should be faithful to each other & shouldn’t keep any secrets and bla bla bla…she told him the truth. She DID NOT expect anything outta it as well. She just wanna voiced it out to her loved ones since that S knew it off hand himself. I know A for a long enough time. She certainly not this kinda girl that will go around asking people for $$$$. She would rather keep it all to herself instead of running her mouth to the whole wide world saying: “WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR $” like you see on local tele show.

Outta nowhere. S came out and ‘lend’ her some $$$ to get through the tough time. A turned it down at the first place as she doesn’t need it at all. She wanna settle this all on her own albeit she knows it’s tougher to do it. But when S insisted, hey, why not? A told S that she’ll returned the $$ to him ASAP. S said that there’s no hurry for it as they’re couple (for now) and it is him who lend the $$$ to her on his own free will.

Another few months passed, things got sourer amongst them. A finally couldn’t stand it after all the abovementioned matter happened to her on a daily basis. Put yourself into her shoes. What would you do? Of course you will ask for break-off. S promised A that he’ll curb his anger, change all his aforementioned behaviors and turn over a new leaf just for A. But heck, old habits die hard. Bad stuff repeated itself and this time, no more excuses. A decided to take it up onto S and break this relationship off once and for all. And S duly succumbed to it.

Tell me lads, when a relationship turns sour and a break-off is the final resolution to it. What would one do, be it from male’s perspective or from female’s perspective. Let the humble me analyze this for you in point form:

Male’s perspective:
- regretted
- get on with it
- get another new girl friend
- consider the previous relationship as another ‘stepping stone’ to one more better relationship

Female’s perspective:
- regretted for knowing this bastard
- cry for at least few days on bed, wetting the blanket/pillows/bolster in the process.
- Get on with life.
- Concentrate on job
- Make oneself busier than before to forget the whole breakup.

But in this case. Things seem to be different. The guy apparently asked the girl to return whatever shit that he gave her during their relationship period. Flowers, home decorations’ stuff and most of all, $$$.

Fine. The girl, A, returned everything to the bastard. Due to the fact that both of ‘em are office mates that work in the same department, in the same room, it makes thing even easier when this kinda ‘awkward’ situation arises. A returned everything to the bastard in the office. What makes A abit surprised is that, all the stuff that she returned to the bastard, he dumped it all into the dustbin. Not that she cares or anything like that, but she’s stil surprised by his action afterall those stuff are his, and this is what he did. Owh well, those are his own stuff bought using his own $$$, to hell with it what he likes to do with it, rite? That is not all. Remember earlier I told you lads about the $$$ the he lent to her? S wanted her to return the $$$ to him at that point of time without delay. If she can’t do so, he wants her to sign an “IOU” letter in front of him as a proof.

Now, this is where a stupid joke comes into my mind. An “IOU” letter is supposed to be signed upon transfer of funds instead of after the transfer of funds, correct me if I’m wrong on this. But this joker/bastard/whatever-shit-you-wanna-call-him asked her to sign “IOU” few months after the transfer of funds, and after all things went wrong amongst them. How daft can one be?? In addition to that, those stuff that A returned to S in the office are just portion of what he ‘gave’ her in the office. There’re stil afew ‘leftovers’ in her house. One fine day, outta nowhere, this bastard showed up in her doorstep requesting to take back all the gift that he gave him. How low can a male go on a situation like this??

With these days’ advanced technology, the internet is really an essential tool in one’s life. There are loads of social network kinda websites available eg. facebook, myspace, friendster, Tagged, Hi5 etc etc. Why am I bringing this up? Well, so happen that both of the ‘actor’ & ‘actress’ in this true story have an account in one of the social network websites. This ‘actor’ started to message everyone in actress’s friends’ list about the bad things that she had done throughout the whole period when they were together. FFS, he’s a guy. How low can one be, bad-mouthing a woman who has done nothing that serious to harm him, and yet he went to the extent to announce it to the whole wide world about the bad things that she had done, instead he left out the good things. I’ve got nothing to say on this. He is just a disgrace for all male species.

Alrite, my rants over for now. A is stil getting harassed off and on now after breaking off for almost a month now. For those who intend to go into a relationship, please beware. As the old saying goes: “Do not judge a book from its cover”. You might be wrong to a certain extent.

It's midnite now, I gotta hit the sack now. I've got few more stuff to rant about recently. Bloody work schedule is taking a toll on me now. See 'ya guys soon, and I mean REAL SOON.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Phone/Call Routing - End

Remember about my numerous rant about how rubbish it is, that the phone/call routing in my office? In case you haven’t, please, puh-lease head on HERE to read it first.

Now, just couple of days back. One of my mates was working nite shift with one of the supervisors that is very close to us, albeit from other department. She, *yes, it’s a SHE. Stil single and available. Those who are interested, please drop me an email. I’ll hook you guys up, for free!* is a goddamn GOOD supervisor when she was with our department. She is capable of making the impossible into possible. She’s got it all. Hats off to her. I ain’t gonna do a background check on her herein my blog, like my current supervisor that I wrote about previously in HERE. Reason being, well, there’s no reason for that. It’s my fuckin’ blog. I have my own reason for not writing a background check on her in here. So, stop pestering me for that.

Slightly went off topic already. Ok. My mate is complaining about the same thing that most of us encountered – calls got into his line, but not his midnite shift partner. Therefore, this lovely supervisor did a number of test calls. And you know what? The end result of the test call on my mate’s first nite shift of the week, 20-5. That’s 20 calls ( all test calls) got into my mate’s line, while the other 5 went into his partner’s line that nite. Put yourself into my mate’s pity shoe. Imagine you’re answering all the goddamn calls on majority of the nite, while your partner is snoring at the other end. How’s that sound to you? Of course you will be pissing your head off by now.

Once M, *ok. Let’s call this lovely supervisor M, shall we?* obtained all the necessary data throughout the nite, she sent an email to those nerds in I.T. department for their analysis. The next nite, my mate sent me a copy of the email containing the reply from those nerds. Here’s the content of it:

Nice preliminary work and findings which make our job easier and faster to narrow the problem. I wish your other colleague has similar work ethic and practice like you whenever they report any issue to us.

All the routings condition were set to deliver call to CSE with minimum ready time. (Ready time = time when the agent is ready to receive call) This caused CSE that just answer a call receive the next call in queue almost immediately than the other CSE with the same skill which has longer ready time.

Solution:
I have modify the routing condition so it will deliver call to CSE with high (max) ready time or in other word call will be distributed to most idle CSE . With this condition, CSE who is idle longer will be the receiver for the next call in queue.


Ok. There’re 2 things to note in this reply from the nerd:

First paragraph: Nicely put by the nerd. Good opening, brilliant with a lil bit of sarcasm at the end. Wait! That means there were similar complaints being raised on the same goddamn fucking issue previously??!!! WTF?!?!

Second paragraph: It’s pretty much self-explanatory. That means all these while, we were answering calls like a mad dog, one call after another non-stop!!! Jesus Christ! How stupid can that be!?!?! This is the very first time in my call centre tenure that this kinda call routing system exist in such big company. I’m gutted to be honest with ‘ya.

Now that the problem is solved. There won’t be any more rant from me on the call routing system in my company, for now. ‘cos I don’t know if their system will screw up one fine day and every changes fall back to its original state. Finger cross.

I’m working nite shift now. So far so good. The supervisor *nop, not M tonite. It’s another supervisor* that worked with me tonite is very ‘good’. She did something no one has done before so far. She ‘took the initiative’ to turn off the lights in my department, allowing me and my midnite partners to work on our own, without getting ‘disturbed’. Owh hell yeah!!! I like this place, for once. *laughing like a mad dog*.

I’m gonna doze off in a short while. Sinoffire signing off now.

I promise you lots, there’ll be a new story that happened to one of my female friends recently. It’s a mind-disturbing story. So stay tuned.