Singapore has come a long and hard way to stabilize its economy and industry. From a mere fishing village, we've developed expansively over a short period of 39 years to the first South-East Asian Research and Developement Hub and is still pushing to rise above our other South-East Asian counterparts to become the best Arts and Service Hub in the entire region, where the arts culture would be greatly promoted and the service would be impeccable; where advanced services would be provided with politeness and a bright smile.
Ladies and gentlemen, heretoforth, i present you with topic of my entry: service.
In the dictionary, the word 'service' is defined as:
1) "Work done for others as an occupation or business"
2) "An act or a variety of work done for others, especially for pay"
3) "The performance of work or duties for a superior or as a servant"
The key words i have identified here is "work done for others","for pay" and"performance of work or duties for a superior". I believe nearly everyone has dealt with bad service from waitresses, salesgirls, cab drivers etc before, be it blatant sarcasm or condescending insolence or even just the simple act of ignoring you when you obviously sorely need assistance.
The lines "Rule no. 1) The customer is always right. Rule no.2) When the customer is wrong, refer back to rule no. 1" is not unusual in customer related service's staff trainings. Yet, bad service is still rampant in the shops that line the corridors of our shopping malls.
When bad service is encountered, the first word that comes to mind, for most people, is "COMPLAIN!" As many people in class have heard, i recently met up with the bad service at Bukit Panjang Plaza's Aries. The salesgirls were terrible and rude. Funnily enough, they were condescending. Now if this happened in Louis Vuitton or Christian Dior or Gucci, i guess it would be understandable, of course. We were dressed in our school uniform of a un-branded school. But this happened in ARIES where cheapo acessories were sold, where i do believe the motto "Quantity over quality" reigns.
I, Charmaine and Doreen were at the shop. Charmaine needed to buy a rubber band and, more than likely, on the way pick up a few other clips and accessories. So there was this really goofy hairband that was on display. it had two tufts of fluff (either pink or red) and there's was this flat lacy hello kitty lookalike thing tt sat on it. so when charmaine put it on, it made her look like a bunny girls not unlike those parading the casinos. so we were giggling over it and i told doreen to try it on.
You would think that it would end off when charmaine goes to pay. but really. some bitch at the counter had to stretch the skin over her jaw tight by opening her mouth and saying (in mandrin) "If you want to try, you have to buy. If you have no money, don't buy." so charmaine retorted ( in mandrin as well) "Its not as if we can't buy it." Following this, i got so annoyed with the salesgirl, i told charmaine and doreen to go without buying anything. I was annoyed but i wasn't pissed just yet. I would've left without making a ruckus.
But as we were leaving, the salesbitch had to open her fucking mouth again and said, "Eh, those who have the money to buy is leaving without buying anything arh?" Talk abt rude. So i couldn't take it lying down and went back into the shop and marched right up to the counter, put on my most displeased voice and told salesbitch that i wanted to call her manager. By which she responded that she wanted to call my school principal. Like where's the logic in that? We weren't doing anything wrong so she argued that we were not suposed to try it to which we checked and there was NO SIGN WITHIN 40INCHES LEFT OR RIGHT OF IT that said we could not try. So they pointed to the other side of the shop where the sign was directly above the earrings. its like a small strip of paper with a font of abt size 18 at most.
Any normal person would assume it meant for hygiene purposes for not trying on the EARRINGS. So when we pointed it out, i suspect from the lack of having nothing to rebutt, she commented abt how badly behaved we were and how our school yadayadayada. i cldn't really be bothered to catch it. fuming, we left for another Aries nearby to collect the main office's number. From there, we made the call on a public phone. I pretended to be a mother who was calling to express her displeasure at how her daughter had been treated.
The manager was all very polite and well, singlish. I mentioned again and again that i wanted his
girl (as he put it) to apologise to my "daughter" (which in case some doofus out there can't get it, is me) and he didn't deny me that. So i charmaine and doreen were uber happy and waited for 24hrs to pass to get our very reasonable duly due apology.
When we return the next day, our group had increased largely in number. from a measly group of 3, we went up to a group of abt 7. We nonchalantly browsed around the shop and i magnanimously added to salesbitch's comission by buying some sex bands worth one entire singaporean dollar. Don't applaud me. i know it was very charitable.
When i received my change, i waited a beat to see if the apology was forthcoming my way. When nothing happened, i told her in mandrin "you still owe me something." Acting dumb, tho with the way she did it, it seemed uber realistic, she blankly asked also in mandrin "what do i owe you?" without beating around the bush, i simply said, "an apology." By which she responded rather explosively, "why should i apologise to you? you were in the wrong too yesterday." Which led to a rather heated argument, amidst which she threw the threat of complaining abt my school, and with her going "so?" everytime i asked "so you're really not going to apologise?" with the end of it, i sauntered out of the shop.
After sometime of browsing around, i called as displeased mother again. However this time the manager was rude. My blood boiled but after an entire day at school i was weary and i gave up with him denying me that ritefully dued apology. I don't rmb what exactly he said, but it went something like this (bad english and all):
"i would never get my girl to apologise to you. yesterday i already keep apologising to you already. if i was going to get my girl to apologise, why should i apologise to you rite?"
"Now i am angry. How can your daughter go and scold my girl? You all cannot do that. Only i can. i'm the one paying her salary and yesterday i already told you she going to get her deduction and i already scolded her yesterday, rite?"
"My girl didn't hit your daughter and she didn't use vulgarities or what. so i don't see a need for her to apologise. If my girl got do those things, then okay she will apologise lorh."
"I hope next time your daughter won't go there to disturb my girls so they can get a peace of mind."
Well, he'll get his wish. i'm never patronising that shop again. I'd rather travel the extra mile to find a chamelon or mini toons or wot. How bloody condescending.
Everyone reckons i let them off too easily that i should've gone higher up and approached his manager or even the VP of sales. but im uber amateurish at this. so i'll do it next time. bad service shall henceforth cease to exist in my dictionary.
