I was told a fresh IT grad in Singapore can earn about SGD1800 – SGD2000 per month. A fresh grad in Malaysia earns about the same figure, rm1800 – rm2000 per month.

Economy rice is Singapore can be as cheap as SGD2.50 for a plate of rice and three types of vegetable dishes.. It costs me rm3.50 in KL. Vegetarian fried rice in Singapore costs SGD3.00. It costs at least rm3.50 in Malaysia.

Is it any wonder why Malaysians are flocking over to Singapore?

I like to be involved in community projects. And recently, I took up the challenge of organising a ‘gotong-royong’ for my place community, Setia Alam. I even have a ‘theme’ for it — Health. Part of the plan was to distribute health flyers to the residents. Dengue has always been a concern, so I thought I’d distribute dengue awareness brochures. And since A(H1N1) is the ‘IN’ thing, I thought it would be good if we could also include A(H1N1) flyers.

I was sure the Ministry of Health (MOH) would have printed lots of flyers, posters, banners, etc… I was quite sure MOH would be happy that we would help them distribute the flyers to the community. So, I made a few calls…

Boy, was I very disappointed. MOH said they can’t give me the 20 000 brochures I requested (10k for each). They can only give me a few hundred and I’ll have to photocopy or print the rest… Aw, common… How come businesses are willing to spend some money to print advertising pamphlets for everyone in Setia Alam but the MOH is unable to do so? How much would 20k brochures cost anyway? I know loan sharks can afford that. Hypermarkets can afford to print booklets! So why can’t the government?

I find this to be really disappointing. It seems like a really half-hearted effort by MOH. On one hand they want to raise awareness, on the other hand, they are not willing to spend money. And it would seem our goverment prefers to spend money on other needless things like…

How to annoy your customer…
A: Answer the phone with an indifferent tone to send the message that you don’t care why the customer called…

How to annoy your ex-customer…
A: Call your ex-customer and ask them how you can win them back. Promise to send them a hardcopy of your offer and then break the promise…

I recently called Hatch Home Concept to find out how I can go about making the payment for my sofa as well as the expected delivery time. The person who answered my call first asked for my name in a very, very indifferent tone. He then put me on hold and then got back to me 15 seconds later asking me to call back in 10 minutes time because the salesperson I wanted to talk to was on the phone. Hmmm… When I called back 10 minutes later, I got the speak to my salesperson. Even she spoke to me in that indifferent tone. Honestly, if it wasn’t the fact that they had good reasons for me to pick their sofa over Recliners and Sofas, I would not have been their customer… If salesperson can behave like that, I wonder what can I expect from after-sales person…

Maxis called me on Tuesday. They asked me if there is anything they could do to make me revert back to Maxis. They said there will be ZERO moving cost. Everything is FREE. They even suggested a phone plan for me as well a free phone offer. I asked them to email or fax over the details to me so I could do a comparison. Maxis said they would email and fax me the next day… Wednesday came and left. Same for Thursday. It’s now Friday… Maybe they got the wrong Adrian Tai?

Anyway, nowadays when a Telco tells me its ZERO moving cost and everything is FREE, I get skeptical. I’m quite sure Digi told me the same thing and I found out later that I was charged rm10 for stamp duty. Two lines means rm20. I’ve yet to actually make an official complaint — will probably do so sometime next week. Must work up my ‘machine-gun’ mood first…

What is it with Malaysian drivers? They like to hog the fast lane even when they’re driving 50km/h on a 110km/h highway. They don’t care about the traffic they are building up behind them… They don’t care if the left lanes (slow lanes) are empty. Is it an EGO thing? All I know is… Road hogs are such a pain and nuisance!

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen starts on the 24th June 2009.

But it seems like everyone I know has already watched the movie in the past two days… What kind of sneak preview is it when there are so many sessions and everyone actually watches the show before the official opening day?

Looks like I might end up watching this alone if Mrs Tai isn’t up to it…

Common courtesy seems to be uncommon these days.

A year ago, I had a lady visitor from Australia. She remarked how Malaysian guys do not behave very gentlemen-like. They don’t hold the doors for the ladies, they shove and push around, they don’t say ‘excuse me’ when they accidentally knock you, etc (some also applies to Malaysian women as well).

I started to be more aware and would always observe how Malaysians behave. What my lady visitor had remarked was quite true.

In my office block, we sometimes use the staircase (and as you know, the doors to the stairs are usually fire-rated doors and can be quite heavy). I have seen guys who walk in front letting the door close even though they know there are ladies behind them. The doors would start to close and it would actually require more effort from the ladies behind to keep the door open (since the door is closing towards them).

On the other hand, I have seen Mat Salleh (local term for white person) actually holding the door open for the ladies (and even guys). It doesn’t matter that the ladies are still quite far back. They can just hold and wait. All these at the same office block where you see Malaysian guys slamming the door on ladies’ faces.

Another example would be invitations. I have to say that it is not easy organising a gathering or even a wedding dinner. You can send out invitations asking for a reply or RSVP, but there will be those who just could not be bothered to reply. You end up having to call them and ask if they can make it. One should be happy and grateful that your friends have not forgotten you and is actually inviting you to their event. So why behave is such stuck-up manner?

Worse are the ones whom you call and they then reply saying “I’m not sure of my plans yet”. These are the people whom I seriously wonder — do they make their plans or their plans make them? If you’re in control of your life, you should be able to plan out your activities (barring any emergencies, of course).

A few weeks back, I sent out a text message to more than 50 friends. The text message read “Gathering time! 30th April (Thu). Next day is a holiday. Tentative plan is to 2meet fr 7pm onwards @ Louisiana, Kelana Jaya. Plse confirm (reply cost <10sen). TQ.”

I only got like 22 replies. That’s less than 50%.

I particularly liked how this friend of mine replied after I sent another two text message reminders to him. His reply was “Ok..since u spend 30 cents dy.. Ok la.. I’m coming.”

Who needs enemies when you have great friends like this?? But well, I have known this guy since primary school — It’s only him to be like that.

Anyway, see you guys tonight.

I was at Tesco Setia Alam earlier today to do some shopping (duh!). Saw this and immediately grabbed 2 cartons of Anglia Shandy…

Before going to the check-out counter, I had asked another lady working at the alcohol section to help me confirm the price. She scanned the carton and told me that it’s rm40+. She told me that instead of buying the whole carton, I can request to break it and buy 4 units of 6-packs — The 6-packs are selling at rm8.88 (so 4 units will be rm35.52). I asked about the rm25.88 and she was not too sure and told me to ‘dispute’ with the cashier later.

Queued up and finally came my turn. It turned out to be rm40+. I asked for explanation and even showed the photo to the cashier. She was shocked and asked where I took the photo — I told her “Inside Tesco la, where else?”. Supervisor came by and then explained that rm25.88 is actually meant for Tesco shandy. I then asked the supervisor where is the Tesco shandy placed at that area because I was very sure that there are NO Tesco shandy around that area. She could not answer me and walked away…

I think Tesco is being very naughty here… Did they purposely not put the name of the product on the rm25.88 price tag (so they can claim its something else)? But at the promotion area, there were NO Tesco shandy — only Anglia Shandy and Carlsberg.

I went to customer service and asked for the form to lodge a complaint. I’m waiting for a reply.

One day after getting my broadband connection, TMNet never fails to do what is expected… My broadband goes down… Called Tech Support and was told that for the next seven days, I should bug the installer instead as warranty for the next seven days is from the installer…

Called installer a few times and the reply I get is… “It will be up in the next 1 hour or so…”

This is not an inconsiderate driver… I call this a stupid driver. Only a total idiot would park his car in front of a house — blocking almost half the entrance to my parent’s place in Kelana Jaya.

And that’s my very busybody furkid, Gerger…

I just dun believe this… My ID (interior designer) guy from Rowenta called me in the evening to tell me that there is another change in the colour codes. This makes it like the 3rd or 4th time I had to look at the new colours and decide…

WTF?!?

These guys own the bl00dy factory and they don’t even know what colours they have?!? And just last week, they gave my IDguy the new set of acrylic samples for me to choose…

*sigh*

So many problems challenges.