went to warren golf and country club for dinner with my family last night. i haven't been there in a long time to work out 'cos my saturdays are packed with tuitions. sigh. i wanna go to the gym! heh~

anyway, so dinner was alright, my seafood crispy noodle was a tad too salty though. but, the thing that really bugged me was the customer service. if you are a waitress/waitor, what is your job? to serve customers. now, i don't blame you if you talk to your fellow waitors/waitresses when there are no new customers coming in or no customers trying to get your attention, but if there are, then i do expect you to be alert enough to realise it quickly and come and not stand there and plainly ignore. it took us a ridiculous 5 minutes to grab the attention of a waitress, and the only reason why she came was because the cashier had to tell her. and when she came, instead of taking our orders first, she went to slot in some receipt and then walked back to the counter to get something, then stroll back to our table. HELLO? what if the person died of hunger cos he had to wait for so long just to have his order taken?!

usually, i am quite nice and i'll be the one telling my mum to chill and not be so bitchy about things. but really, this was just downright bad. oh, and to top it off, the waitress looked bored and gloomy when taking our orders, and she spoke in a bu shuang voice. what the hell was that about? if you're serving a customer, it is basic knowledge that you should smile, be polite, be patient and help the customer in every way possible. that girl did not deserve the amount of pay she's getting for the lousy service she gave us, especially since i did a much better job even when being paid a mere $3/hr. i almost wanted to leave cos i lost my appetite, but well since we're club members and there's this ruling that you have to spend a certain amount of money at the club every month, we didn't leave.

seriously, if this is the standard of singapore's customer service throughout, we're in some serious shit.

and while we're on the topic of customer service, here's another recent experience which left me pissed. it happened on friday at nus' it coop. now, i could have been 15-30minutes early for my first nm tutorial, but alas no, i ended up being 15 minutes late because of the inefficiency of one cashier. the worst thing is, she was the ONLY cashier.

here's what happened. i bought a laptop cover which was a size too small for my bro's laptop the day before, and so i went to change it. it was still new seeing as i only bought it the day before, the tag and all were still there and i had the receipt. there shdn't have been any problems changing it. so when i went to the cashier to make the exchange, she looked blur, took the two laptop covers i brought over, glanced at my receipt, looked around and proceeded to dump them in a corner and asked me to wait. she then went on to serve the other customers while i stood there with siew waiting for her. and waiting. and waiting. i think i waited for a total of 15 minutes before i became fed-up. i spotted another staff member who seemed more knowledgable about things, so i went to him. he helped me settle everything in less than 2 minutes, if you take out all those times he was distracted by other customers asking him things. but that is excusable because he did not forget that he had another customer waiting for him, and he did it as fast as he could with all the proper procedures done properly. so he wrote me an exchange voucher, and asked me to top-up at the counter (meaning i pay $3 more for the bigger laptop cover).

so, i went to the cashier thinking that at least i would be on time for my tutorial with about 10 minutes to rush back to arts, but hell no. this cashier seemed hell bent on making me late cos when it was my turn, she took the new laptop cover and the voucher, stood there staring at the voucher and proceeded to drum her fingers on the laptop cover while looking around. like, what the hell? can i punch her? and then, when she spotted who she was looking for (which was the other staff member who served me), she proceeded to whisper his name. even i, being so close to her, could barely hear her; what more him, being further away and talking to another customer? lucky for me, and siew (thanks girl for going through the entire ordeal with me), he saw us stuck at the counter, so he came over. and the cashier can't even speak properly, for crying out loud! she mumbled about the problem and she spoke incoherently, i admire the guy for being able to read between the lines and get what the main problem was about. she didn't know how to key in the product using the voucher, but instead of saying that, she said something like, "can exchange the product? *waves voucher in air* but this product is different price blah blah blah". wth. i nearly lost my temper then and there. what on earth is WRONG with this woman? can't she SEE that the exchange has been approved? there is even a bloody exchange voucher to further prove it! if she don't know how to key-in with the voucher, then just say that she just don't fucking know! how hard could it be? ARGH!

well, the other staff member basically didn't bother letting her finish her mumbling cos i think he saw the pissed off look on my face and i kept looking at my watch and the door and telling siew how late i'm going to be for my lesson. so, he understood what the hell she was getting at and proceeded to scold her. cos apparently, he taught her a few times before how to key-in with the voucher. and that woman still has the gall to look blur, don't apologise and pretend that everything is alright. if i weren't in a hurry, i would have created a scene just then and there. honestly, if the next time i go there and she's still like this, i WILL create a scene and either she gets it bad from the superiors, or she gets fired.

and in case you're wondering, no the woman isn't a student. she is a middle-aged woman who looks like she is a full-time staff. pity she's just so stupid she can only do simple things that don't break the mundane pattern she's used to.

i'm being a major bitch here but hell, i don't care. i'm just bloody pissed-off that such horrible people are being employed to serve customers. really.

and the bitching session ends here.