Pain with Singtel

I've had a very painful morning with Singtel.

Background: I recently decied to swap over to the Mio plan, from my individual plans, in order to "save" money. As it turns out, because my broadband contract had not yet run out, they banged me with a 30 months contract with Mio, instead of 24 months. Extra 6 months, I thought it was OK.

THen they insisted on giving me a new adsl modem which I do not need (my current one works just fine), but they insisted, and so I relented. I swore to the counter girl that all the technician will do is to come over, and when I tell him or her I don't want any of the settings compromised, he will switch off and on my modem and declare that I am on the Mio plan. I was giving this innocent girl such a hard time that I agreed to the stupidity of Singtel and made an appointment for the technician to come over to flip the power switch. I mean, the technician has gotta earn a living right?

Anyways, today is the day that technician is supposed to come over to flip the stupid switch, and it is now 1 hour past the appointment time. He was supposed to come between 0900 - 1100 (2 hours of opportunity cost is alright I guess). At 1030, I call up the Singtel Mio hotline to say the technician has not come and that I will be around for another 30 minutes so the tech better hustle. At 11 am, I receive a call from the Singtel call center, and by this time I have had it with the incompetence of the technician (he had not shown up) and had grown tired of speaking to a junior staff at the call center, who could not answer anything more challenging.

So I got put onto his manager Laura, who sounded a bit more capable. She promised to check the backend to see what was needed to be done to get me on the Mio plan, so I agree to hang up and let her check. She calls back to say that I AM on the Mio plan, and that the technician still needs to come by to install the new modem (by this time I could have strangle anyone from Singtel who kept wanting to stuff the stupid modem down my throat!), so I asked what so great about this new modem.

She was ready this time. I was a difficult prick of a customer now, so she brought on her technical guy. Before the guy went any further with his explanation, I interjected that I am an engineer and asked if he was a techie, so which he replied in the affirmative. So I let him do his song and dance, and to my dismay, the best he could do is new warranty and a new power supply. I mean, what the.... I was hoping for better spec, so I asked if I was getting a gigabit ethernet, am I getting the whole wireless alphabet soup of a, b, g and pre-n? No, it was the same as my current modem, just with a new warranty and new power supply.

Really, what the.... so I said thank you, but just get the technician to drop off the modem and we shall all get on with our lives!

Singtel, I know you have a monopoly on the home line, broadband, and mobile phone. You are the big giant that everyone quivers when they come up against you. But heed this. The next time a customer wants to know why that technician have to come to the house to flip the stupid power switch; be prepared with an answer.

When the customer says he is happy with his modem, don't insist on shoving (I meant ramming) a new modem down his throat. Give him a shopping voucher, or better yet, pledge the amount equivalent of the modem (50 or a 100 bucks) to a charity of his choice. Let's not generate more carbon and trash the earth by a) getting a technician down to flip a switch, and b) to get him to drive to my place, and c) to throw away a perfectly good working condition modem, all for the sake of changing to a new plan.

THis is stupidity at its pinnacle!

And since I am on your case, why not give me the 2009 F1 race ticket for my troubles?

The world in turmoil

These past 2 weeks have been pretty sobering, in terms of trying to find peace amdist the turmoil.

malaysia and thailand is in political turmoil.

china had 2 major incidents, the more heart wrenching one being the adulterated baby milk powder, and the other no less serious, the major landslide that killed over 250 people.

the US and central america got hit by 2 consecutive hurricanes.

but i think the closests to home is the world wide repercussion of the financial turmoil, a result of the irrational financial exxuberance of years past.

solid, statured financials companies of the past has rocked to the core, and this "perfect storm" of sorts is making even the studiest of financial companies shaky.

and it's impact is far reaching. Singapore, in its effort to become a financial hub for asia is starting to feel the impact. Hiring and spending is slowing and the domino effect is slowly! being felt by other sectors.

i guess it would take a very brave person to strike out on their own now. This is the predicament i am facing.

as i consider to incorporate my own firm, i am staring what could be the abyss of the future. True they say that in trying times is where fortunes are made, and i certainly hope so.

this afternoon, i got a call from a friend, and he was advising me to take shelter from the current turmoil and get a job. It is definitely enticing.

but what i am working on does present unique opportunities that cannot be overlooked, for better or worse.

and as if to drive home the point, a friend of mine called to say he's just been let go.

decisons, decisions!


Sent by SingTel MobileM@il. Dial *36245 for FREE email access!

State of affairs in malaysia, part 2

Continued..

5. Raja petra. I believe he's been locked up not for perpetrating any criminal acts. In fact the only act he has committed is to highlight the misdeeds of the current regime and the immediate past one.

he's been locked up because he has become too dangerous for the BN regime.

and on the charge that he is spreading untruths about Islam, well, why not we let the religious academics debate about that. Learning and enlightenment does not come about by sweeping discontent under the carpet, but the opposite, by encouraging active discourse and debate amongst the faithfull and those not of the religion.

in this case, why call the badawi brand of islam "islam hadhari"? Might as well just call it BN Islam.

sad, so sad to see the country i grew up in descent so such a banana republic and to become the laughing stock of the world!

question is will pakatan save the day, or is it more of the same. For the future of malaysia, i certainly hope for real change.


Sent by SingTel MobileM@il. Dial *36245 for FREE email access!

Dismal state of affairs in malaysia

Oh what the country was and could still be. If only the idiots who run the country leave the land and go fly kites.

the recent flip-flops on the isa arrests show the lack of any understanding on the basic tenets of decision making, the rule of law and the chain of command.

1. How can one arrest a journalist who reported on facts? Even if it flamed the fans of racial discontent. Should it not be the person uttering those statements be locked up instead?

2. And how can the home affairs minister say he was not given prior notice of the arrests? That's not adhering to the chain of command. The use of isa is not a trivial matter because it tramples on the accused's basic right to the legal process.

And coming from a trained lawyer. His alma-mater should disown him!

3. And how stupid can syed hamid be in saying first that the journalist threatened the peace, and then (true to the flip flop nature that is the badawi regime) turn around and say she was being held for her own safety.

minor civil servants would be fired for making such stupid mistakes. Again, one should check if syed hamid has full control of his faculties, in particular his brains.

4. Then for theresa kok, why is it that a malal umno figure - khir toyo in this case and utusan fans the racial flames and yet not even get a warning or show cause letter, when it emerges that the dap mp had nothing to do with the accusation, which was the petition to remove the call of azan from the mosque?

even the chief of 2 mosques in her constituency has come to her defense to say that one, the pa system has gone kaput, and the other, that kok has not set foot in their mosque, much less to deliver a petition!

To be continued....


Sent by SingTel MobileM@il. Dial *36245 for FREE email access!

Ahmad Ismail

I think that's the name of the guy making such a ruckus in penang right now.

the key question is: will the pm badawi act against such blatant remarks to incite racial hatred, when other have gone to jail under isa before him? My guess is no, because he is an umnoputera. It's a case of damned if you do, and damned if you don't because he'll be accused of giving in to the chinese and be seen as weak if he does, and if he doesn't, he'll be seen as condoning such racists acts in his own fold, thus making his islam hadari as a empty vessel (where is the moderation) much less his declaration that he is pm of all malaysians.

but to further incite hatred and the bring the heat up another notch by mca and gerakan is fool-hardy as it will end up as another may 13, so its a self-fulfilling prophecy.

instead one should follow teddy roosevelt's famous doctrine: walk softly, carry a big stick. That big stick today! is the threat of these parties of leaving bn. For once, the people in gerakan and mca, and what's left of mic should just weild the big stick and leave the coalition. It does not mean that they have to join pakatan (although that would be nice, but it impacts the balance of the pakatan coalition), but become a neutral minority in government. Without mca at least, bm would already loose their majority, even without the east malaysians jumping ship (which i hope they do because umno's culture of devide and conquer will mean the end of the indigenous parties in east malaysia).

so stop harping on ahmad and start walking. One of the bloggers have got it right, no more nato (no action, talk only) as it will serve to confirm that mca and gerakan as just eunuchs to umno.


Sent by SingTel MobileM@il. Dial *36245 for FREE email access!

Heartless mrt riders

As i am writing now, i am witness to a bunch of heartless mrt riders.

in front of me are 5 able bodied young females (they could me males for all i care), and directly in front to them is a young 6 year old girl. And none of them have given up their seat for this young girl.

one is asleep, another pretending to sleep. One i can see if debating within herself whether to give up her comfortable seat or not, but at this time, she's not giving up her seat. Another has buried her head in her psp playing silly games, and finally the last couldn't give a shit!

i guess this is the example the young women of singapore show to their younger generation.

opps latest update, the self doubting one has up and left the train, so at least the young girl gets the safety of a train.

shucks, i am glad i take my girls out in a car. With self centered young people like this, i wouldn't want to expose them so such sn! obbery.


Sent by SingTel MobileM@il. Dial *36245 for FREE email access!