A complaint

eh... long time no blog... and end up this blog is a complaint entry... lolz

2 things to talk abt... use of foreign 'talent' by some service based shops like 7-11 and StarBucks.
Nothing against foreign 'talent' but if these shops wanna use them, they better train them properly! Went to 2 different 7-11, was served by foreign 'talent' who smile nicely at you but they dunno wat u are asking abt. At the 1st 7-11, an ang moh tourist was asking the counter ger the price of a pack of dried mango... and the conversation goes:

Tourist: "The price you quote me wasn't the price I saw. So how much is it per kilogram?'

Foreign 'talent': "Huh? errr .... (long pause and confused look)... 12 per kilogram...."

Tourist: "$12 dollars per kilogram for dried mangos?"

Foreign 'talent': "errr 12.... 12....long silence"

At this point a local counter person came by... took a look at some labels behind the counter and said "It's 35 cents per 100 grams" and which the tourist promptly said "Yes, for 35 cents per 100 grams I wld take this pack of dried mangos..." most likely he wld go home and tell his country mates that Singaporeans cannot count (since he wldn't know it's a foreign 'talent' serving him). I cld tell of course...the accent... ahem... but well.. i think one day our kids wld grow up with that accent...considering they are spending a large part of their childhood with 'talents' from that country... ahem...

Talking abt service industry... haiz... the 2nd 7-11 shop I went into, I asked for World of Warcraft playing cards, the foreign 'talent' looked at me blankly and just smiled.... then I said 'WoW cards'... and she gave me the prepaid telecom card 'World card'.... and I replied 'WoW playing cards'... and she gave me a pack of 'poker playing cards'.... at that point in time a local counter staff walked by... looked at me and I said 'WoW playing cards' which the local counter staff promptly said 'out of stock'...

Then I went into Starbucks... and was served by foreign 'talent'... who looked at me and smiled and I said 'Tall cuppucino and blue berry bagel'... she didn't relay the message to her colleagues but end up spending a long time trying to figure out how much change to give me. I gave her a $10 note for the items that cost abt $7plus... so her colleagues gotta ask me what I need (after waiting a long pause of course) before making my cuppucino... the foreign 'talent' then gave me my bagel...straight from their display shelf without heating it up... cold bagel is quite hard...

I looked at the bagel and said 'could I have cream cheese?'... and at that point in time she started serving another customer cos a long queue was forming up... and she said "Oh, another 50 cents please". And I folked out another 50cents...waited for her to finish serving the next customer... gave her the money and she said 'Oh sorry it's 70 cents'... o.k... fine. I got my cream chesse... and ate it with my cold bagel...

Next time i better go coffee shop... get my kopi and bread toast at half the price and being served at half the time needed...

Sometimes... some of the higher ups shld not say that Singaporeans complain too much without looking at the issues.... you get foreign 'talent' to come in and start lowering our overall standard of service, then blame the locals for not maintaining S'pore's 'high image of efficency and service stads'... weird... we are not the ones at fault... and...the higher ups shld go talk to these companies who front Singapore's serving industry and tell them to give their staff proper training... ahem... why a sudden influx of foreign 'talents' from that country in particular...

5 years later we see how... ahem...

b) 2nd complaint is abt the price of WoW cards.. ahem... the price up from $4.50 per pack to $5.90 per pack and now.... people are charging $7 per pack! oh well I wld wait for new stocks... 1-2 weeks anyway...