Occupational Hazard... or Delight?

Gosh! Is this what they call an impromptu performance or an early release?

A Flightful Experience.

An air travel fantasy.

Watch it all the way through... and tell me if you've never expereinced this.

Being Creative with Bad Service.

After a slew of bad aftersale services from Creative Technologies over just ONE headset, I decide I've had enough and decided to send them a formal letter instead. This is as much also for those who are thinking of purchasing anything from them. Do check your customers' rights and aftersales warranty's limitations....

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To Whom It May Concern:

Please refer to my purchase invoice number – S943732; service report reference numbers SNG-Y-21667 and SNG-Y-22253.

In respond to your GSS promotion and from positive feedback on your products from word of mouth and online reviews, I made a purchase of the SL-3100 wireless headphone on the 12th of July this year. However, I had since made 2 trips to your outlet after that to have my headset sent in for servicing. The problem with my headset is that once after a fresh recharge, static distortion is heard and audio signals keep dropping off.

Nevertheless, when I made my purchase, I was not told of the 7-day 1-to-1-exchange warranty. Thus when I first encountered the problem, I held on to tryout the set. Finally on the 30th of July, with the persistent problem from the headset, I had to make a special trip down to send the set in to the outlet at Plaza Singapura to make enquiries as to what might be the cause of the problem. I was promptly told that since the service counter has yet to be setup up, they could not answer my questions nor could they test the equipment. It was also only then that I was told of the 7-day exchange warranty, that since my purchase was made more than 7 days ago, they could not change the set for me. Thus I had to wait till later in the week for any sort of answer might be given.

I then ask if this is a common issue or was I the first to lodge such a problem report on the set. The respond was that my report was indeed unique. I then asked specifically if I could be given a new set since (a) my case was a unique problem and (b) I was not told of the 7-day exchange warranty. Unfortunately, the staff members on duty then were insisted that they cannot execute an exchange and had to sent my set in for testing and if necessary, repairs.

By then I was already disappointed with the stiff bureaucracy of the warranty procedures especially when it was through no fault of mine that I wasn’t told of the exchange grace period and therefore did not send the faulty set in earlier.

Nevertheless, on the 6th of August, I received a phone call to inform me that tests had been done on my headset and the diagnosis was a transmitter problem. Thus I was given a new transmitter. I also made another trip down and collected my headset from the Plaza Singapura outlet on that same day.

However, on the very next day after the collection, the same problems surfaced – there were audio and static distortions and the signals keep dropping after the set had been given a fresh recharge. When I made a third trip down to the outlet, I was already massively disappointed with both the quality of the product as well as the service from the company. It was further exacerbated when the staff told me to wait a further 30 to 45 minutes while they test the equipment. The worst of the scenario came when I was promptly told later on the phone that they realized it was a problem with the headset. They would have to send in the set in again for further tests and repairs before I can get it back.

If you add the two diagnosis of for the headset together, the first being the transmitter, and then the second being the headset, doesn’t it come to a full circle that the set I had purchased was faulty to begin with? Would it not have been more efficient if the staff at the outlet had made an exception and compromise and give me new set instead? Instead, what resulted was this; I had to make 3 separate and futile trips down to the outlet and with another one impending when I have to make another trip to collect the set.

In this day and age, such lapses in customer service quality, pure common sense and courtesy is simply unacceptable. I had initially been interested in the newly pre-launched 4 gigabyte Zen V Plus. However, after this experience, I am having second thoughts about purchasing it, despite the good reviews I’ve heard about it.

I sincerely hope Creative will take a grave look into this and other similar and/or related matters to prevent further embarrassment on the part of your establishment and reputation. In the meantime, I do hope that my next trip down to collect the headset would indeed be rewarded with a satisfying assurance and knowledge that the equipment is in working order and would no longer need to make another futile trip.

Sliding into the Scheme of Things...

Oh I haven't had time to update and lots and lots of things had happened.

Mel Gibson had been arrested for drunk driving and anti-Semitism - to think that he's Catholic and was the director for the Passion of Christ. Oh well. The Bush has failed in his attempts at peace in the Middle East and different vegetation has been deployed - this time round it's Rice. Let's hope this commercial crop will prove more nutritious than the common, garden variety Bush.

Meanwhile, more Asians bearing the belief that there are vestal virgins waiting in heaven have tied themselves on streaks of fatalistic ropes and joined in the fray of anti-Semitism. Apparently it is more important for these folks to go against infidels than resolving problems at home. Are they right? I'm a frayed knot - but then I could be wrong. After all, what would I know of heavens and vestals virgins?

Closer to home, Singapore has done it again - we have outdone ourselves in yet another feat. Yawn... But before you open your mouth too wide and tempt me to splash neWater into it, let me just tell you that we have succeeded in increasing the output of our water recycling capabilities while decreasing its cost of production. Sigh... We are so smart we make ourselves look dumb.

Teachers playing dress-up on Racial Harmony Day.

 

The boys in my Readers' Theater...

Even closer to home, I've been having a whale of a busy time occupying myself with schoolwork. From the last time I updated, I've experienced the Arts Fest cum Racial Harmony Day in ACS, while organizing to put up a little Readers' Theater to be performed by my primary 2 boys. Then there's the vetting of the final exam papers, which I fervently hope I have prepared the boys enough to sit and pass with panache.

But what had gotten me excited was the decision to have a Fantasy Festival based on the current English topic the primary 2s are going through. I had been asked to think of an idea of an activity to tie up the whole unit. Inspiration came in the form of a Roald Dahl Film Festival, which was subsequently merged with activities for Interdisciplinary Project Work (IPW).

We have yet to finalize the proposal for the whole festival's programme, but four of Dahl's more famous works which had been made into film versions had been shortlisted - Matilda; Charlie and Chocolate Factory; The Witches and James and the Giant Peach. The films and their contents will be used for comprehension and other English language programmes and activities. That's right, the four films will be running rings around the boys' minds.

Matilda	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The Witches	James and the Giant Peach

 

In the meantime, I can prepare all these stuff in school because I happen to like my cubicle a lot. It's like my little haven now - very self-contained and in many ways, more comfortable than home. I've got my food and snacks and even my own coffeemaker to tide me through my oral fixations, my air revitaliser to freshen my area and even my little objets d'art to make me feel settled in. Oh yah, and it's even got air-conditioning thrown in for free.

A few months ago, when I first got my posting news from MOE that I am going to ACS, Andrew (my friend and colleague from my contract-teaching days) assured me that it is all probably for the better. He said that over here, there are more opportunities to propose ideas and see them materialize. So far, he seems to be spot on the dollar and I do hope that he is right.

Only more time will tell...

Welcome to our world.

I remember being more excited than May when she first met Karl. I also remember being more excited than May when she said she was getting married. I also remembered being overly and overtly excited when May told me she was preggie.

Congrats to the both of you now! Proud parents of a new born baby boy!

I can say i am feeling like a proud uncle too :-)

Welcome to our world Kevin Ian Forshee! You couldn't be more loved by anyone else than your parents who brought you here. They've been waiting for you. :-) Welcome to our world.

Moving along... and doing fine.

Four weeks into my actual teaching career and life is crazy, busy and bitchy; but I am settling down into it, like I have settled down into my own cozy cubicle. I have more or less gotten into the rhythm of things.

Remember my previous post about feeling isolated? Well, who the hell gives a fucking hoot about it? I just need to learn to survive on my own. I got that from my ma and grandma’s temperament and my pa’s warring Manchurian genes. We’ve always been survivors and I’ll get through this one too.

Life is not all hardedge in school. There are the lovely boys whom I absolutely adore. I have started calling them “my boys” and a senior teacher reminded me when she commented that I talk about my students like a “proud father”. Yes, you would too if you see those boys, got to know them and be with them 8 hours a day. It’s not hard to fall in love with those kids.

That reminds me – an untrained teacher who had them for the past 6 months has left for NIE for the PGDE program. It’s “goodbye and good riddance” from me, I’d say. That fella made pretentiousness almost a virtuous artform. The first time he told me about the boys, he used derogative adjectives likes “idiot”, “irritant” and other colorful assortments and varieties. I was shocked. “He’s going to be a teacher?” I caught myself asking.

But that didn't prepare me for the next surprise. When we had a gathering with the boys and their mothers, he was so loving and caring towards them, it was a culture shock to me. I have no taste for people who ‘wayang’ (pretend). What’s worse, he went around giving the parents the impression that he is a trained teacher! Yuk! Ptooi...!

It was there and then when I decided to stay as far away from him as physically and mentally possible. I guess I made the message tangible.

A couple of days back, I learnt that he had been telling people about the “damages” I am doing to the kids and the work he has done on them. I didn't know whether to laugh at or get angry with this. It was ridiculous. Those remarks coming from a guy whose students have no idea or been given the wrong concepts of basic mathematical operations.

I guess it’s no surprise that on his last day, nobody said anything to him. No “good luck” or “goodbye”. They couldn’t even be bothered to get a cake for him from the supermarket just 5 minutes away, even though there was talk about it. That says a lot huh?
I guess a pretender like him can always make do with a pretend cake.

Oh since I talk about one pretender, I must make mention of his good friend who also has a penchant for pretending. It’s a she who is also a longhaired freak. Those in the know would know who I am talking about – 2.2 aka SCB (“seow char borh” or mad woman).

That untrained teacher is one of her “favourites” as we say, that’s how she is able to perceive him. Otherwise, she has this built-in set of blinkers before her eyes that filter all other human existence, at least in school, before her. She does not acknowledge your presence. I think it’s difficult to teach respect and courtesy to a school of boys when even the head does not practice, no?

These two wander the earth professing to be Christians. As usual, so what’s new?

Well, in the meantime, I am still moving along with the tide, sometimes against the flow, but I am learning. I am also picking gems along the way; some in the form of understanding colleagues others in the form of experience and advice. I am moving along.

I have also written a couple of children’s stories and adding more along the way. I have yet to complete the story of the adopted boy and his father (it’s a story for my son some years down the road). I fully intend to illustrate this December hols. Gotta stay focused.
After all, it’s for “my boys” that I am doing all these – nothing and no one else. Especially not for pretenders and mad people.

"I am Singaporean"

Hey, check this out! The "commemorative" "I am Singaporean" t-shirt from mrbrown and Mr Miyagi!