Picture Story

Identify.

Approach.

Satisfaction.

Unpleasant Incident - Conclusion.

The uncalled incident in TESCO is now settled and today I had closure on this matter after meeting up with their store manager.

After I lodged the official complaint at the Customer Care counter and on line, I only managed to get a reply in my email on June 18th after eleven days .......... oh OK, I guess it is still within the fourteen days as mentioned in their website. I do not know what had happened to the written complaint that I made at the Customer Care counter.


On the evening after receiving the email, I got a call from the store manager apologising for the unpleasant and uncalled for incident. He was very apologetic through out the conversation and explained the corrective action that had been taken to ensure that incidents like this would not happen again. Assured me that it is safe to visit their store again and requested me to meet up with him the next time I am there.

Today we had to get quite a few groceries and we decided to get it from TESCO so that I could meet up with the store manager face to face. I was surprised to meet quite a young chappy to be the store manager and he was polite. I guessed he must had put on his apologetic face and seemed very concerned that such a thing could had have happened. When I asked him why there was no respond to the complaint note that I filed with the Customer Care service counter, he was quick to respond that he was on leave at that time. Hmm!! On leave eh! How about somebody else like an assistant to respond unless it is thought off as an unimportant matter or is it a coincident that he came back on the same day that I received the email from their head office? Hey man!! I was not born yesterday you know!!! Anyway I was satisfied with the action and not wanting to pursue the matter any further, I gave him a smile that translate to "Don't crap me", shook hands and parted company.

I guess after becoming a TESCO person, it is difficult not to patronise the place.

Sandals

I had been using the same kind of sandals or slippers or flip flops whatever you might want to call it from the same manufacturer since I was a teenager or was it before I was a teenager. The manufacturer is Bata and the slogan then was "First to Bata then to school" and they were the maker of the very famous Badminton Master where everyone wants to be seen in a pair at that time. Yes it was cool to be seen in a pair of Badminton Master at that time as it is to be in a pair of Nike today. I remembered that I used mine until it was really worn till my last little toe can be seen protuding out, yes it really lasted a very, very long time.

After the Badminton Master came their very popular sandals,I had three pairs when I was working in Kuala Lumpur and were using them everyday when I came back home to Malacca for good. Why three pairs? ........ one pair for use in Malacca every time I came back for the weekends or whenever I am home. The second pair is for use during the week days when I am in Kuala Lumpur in my apartment and the third was always in the car which is for after a game of golf. Wow!!!! really sound like a luxury huh!

Those three pairs of sandals were bought like at least six years ago, more likely more than six years ago. The first pair, one of them the right foot side split into half on top side while the left side was still in great condition so Home Minister with her McGyver skills learned from being a great fan of the tube salvaged it with just a short length of raffia string. It was repaired more than a year ago and it is still in service today, Wow!! Looks like it is going to go the extra hundred kilometers.

The next pair just had a seizure about two month ago, it disintegrated while I was using it working in the farm so it cannot be saved. It was given some kind of burial in some landfill by SWM because I just dumped it into the thrash bin as it is not recyclable.

The last pair is very worn out and it is used only on special days especially wet days like going swimming and rainy day for the last month or so. It is great for wet days because it is not water absorbent so that it can be dried fast and it has anti-skid properties. Worried that this only remaining pair might die of exhaustion soon I started to shop for the exact same type in almost all the Bata outlets but couldn't find any. Yeah I was disappointed, really really disappointed and having coming to terms that I am not able to get this very special kind of slippers anymore so I bought what I thought to be the next best replacement.

Hardly two months after having it, it is already starting to split up thus putting me into a real difficult situation of wanting those kind of sandals that I was so used to. Come to think of it that kind of sandals really had a big part of my feet life, they had been on buses, boat, cars, airplanes and train not mentioning five stars hotels and premier golf clubs. They were great for all occasions. With the lousy new pair I was even forced to get a formal pair for formal wear which until today my feet are still not comfortable in it.

Last Friday I had a real pleasant surprise when I came in for dinner, a brand new pair of the sandals were under the table to welcome my feet. Princess had managed to get a pair of this which she called legendary Bata slippers for me as a father's day present. Thanks a million dear Princess you are a real life saver and my feet are really happy again. Thank You!!

Unpleasant Incident

Last Monday as usual Home Minister and myself went to TESCO to shop for our and mum-in-law's weekly groceries and stuffs. It was as usual pleasant with lots of things to browse at until we bought two heads of broccoli because they were lovely. The broccoli had to suffer unnecessary abuse by a very unpleasant TESCO's staff and it wasn't lovely anymore after the uncalled for incident. We have our rights as a customer and a member of the public so we made an official complaint in writing at the customer service counter and was promised that it would be pass on to the management. Just to make sure our complaint don't go a stray, we made another complaint through their web site.

According to their web-site, all complaints will be attended to within 14 days and till today there is no response from the Malacca store where we made the complaint at the service counter.



My IC number and Clubcard number is not the true number so as to prevent misuse, it is only to show that I did fill it in.

The actual complaint that was made through their web-site.

My every visit to your store was always pleasant. Being a resident of Malacca and a retiree, I always look forward to the weekly visits to your store for almost all our daily needs. Yes, your service was excellent with great product range and prices until today.

I was really shocked at the attitude of one of your male staff towards my wife and me. We were waiting patiently in queue for our turn to have our two lovely heads of broccoli weighed and tagged at the fresh vegetable weighing counter. When it was our turn, my wife passed the broccoli in a plastic bag to him.

While sealing the plastic bag, a female staff came and said something to your male staff and he immediately left the counter with our broccoli in hand, leaving the counter unattended. Not knowing where he was going, I called out to him, he turned
around and glared at me. He then return and chucked the broccoli onto the counter. He then walked away in a huff, shouting at us.

We really wanted the broccoli so we asked that female male staff to weigh and tag it. All she could do was to give us a blank look, not knowing what to do. Moments later the male staff came back, still shouting at us and unwillingly weighed and tagged the broccoli. Then he threw (yes, THREW) the broccoli on the counter. Throwing a dirty look at us, he walked off, yelling and challenging us to lodge a complaint.

Fearing for our safety I quickly filled up a complaint form at the customer service counter while my wife paid for the purchases even though we only managed to get about half of what we had on our list. Now I am wondering whether I should go back to your store to complete our weekly shopping and risk being harassed or just go to Giant or Mydin which are, incidentally,nearer to our home.

Now let's see whether they really love to hear from us!! ten more days to go and counting.

Swimming

After many failed attempt at restarting my morning walk to keep fit after recovering from sciatica, I decided to do some swimming. I had been considering and reconsidering lots and lots of time trying to find a reason why should I not go swimming until one day last week my Home Minister and Princess came back from Jusco sales with a brand new pair of swimming trunks. Yes they had committed me and I guess there is no way out.

The pool in the golf club that I am a member of is only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the mornings of weekdays. I decided on going there in the morning so that I can attend to my mini farm in the evening so that it is not hot. Moreover in the morning there will be less or no people in the pool and with this current heat wave it would be nice to soak in the pool. Suddenly it sounds so nice soaking in the cool pool with a glass of cold lemonade.....hehe!!!

Last Tuesday was the day and Princess came along too. All my three kids are really good at swimming because they had swimming lessons even before starting kindergarten. Swimming is a good skill to learn becuase we never know when it will come in handy. I learned how to swim by myself after watching and being influenced by Tarzan in my younger days. My early day experience of swimming was in padi fields and mud ponds with the buffaloes just like Tarzan huh!! It was really great fun then. OoEeOoEeo..orrr....

To my surprise when I first step into the pool was that the water was not cool at all but kind of a warm. In the begining I was like a chicken in water, I really struggled to keep a float but after a while I was again swimming like Tarzan but with no stamina. After every lap I had to rest for awhile before I go on to do the next lap. Totally I did ten laps and I was quite exhausted ....... err breath-wise not lenght-wise ....hehe!!

OK cholesterol watch out, I want to do this like three times a week and it is going to be lenght-wise lap soon.......

Trip to Kampar

My son decided to further his studies in UTAR after completing his STPM. The course that he is doing is conducted in UTAR new campus in Kampar. As usual for everyone of our child by default we had to send them and their belongings to their new temporary homes. Princess is the record holder for the largest and most number of items that was packed into our old faithful and our Only Daughter got the least number of items.

We left on late Sunday morning and we took the trunk road to Seremban instead of the highway as it is more interesting. We were rewarded with a rare sighting of the train passing by the most probably only railway crossing in Malacca state. Travelling by train is not popular because it is very slow and inconvenient. The infrastructure of road and air travel was upgraded with time but the railway seems to had been frozen in time only until recently. Anyway we were excited to see the train including me ..... hehe!!!

Seremban beef noodle was a real treat for us because the last time we pass by this way we missed it by a couple of minutes because they were closing up for the day. It was a real disappointment that time so it was a really great to be able to enjoy it this time. Yes, yummy!!yummy!! Thought of having two bowls to make up for the last time but I had to refrain myself or else I might fall asleep while driving with a fully loaded tummy on a very hot afternoon :(


The rest of the journey was on the highway and it was kind of a boring with occasional stops at rest area to attend to nature call. Stopping at rest area is also a great way to take a break from the monotony of travelling on a highway and to stretches oneself.

At three pm with the sun burning real hot we arrived in Kampar, a place that is new to almost all of us except me but it was like donkey years ago since I was here last. No memory of this place at all but had no problem locating the the hotel whereabouts. Kampar is a small town so it was really easy to get around. The first stop is the Grand Kampar Hotel to freshen up a bit before the tedious task of room hunting for my son.

From earlier research done we understand that there were mainly two areas of housing which is West Lake area and Taman Perdana. Our first stop was in Taman Bandar Baru a newly completed area and was turned of by a foul, loud mouth Nicole who seemed to have a little monopoly of the area. Next stop was the West Lake area and there were like hundreds of people crowding at a house turned into some kind of office to cash in on the influx of new students starting their courses in UTAR and KTAR. This is the first year where UTAR and maybe KTAR is conducting most their courses here in their main facilities in Kampar.

After checking out a few houses, this area is syndicated by a few wanna get rich quick capitalist. Any area in the house that can be partitioned into a room is being partitioned off thus increasing the number of occupant per house and so is the cash return. It is like a refugee center and paying good money for unhealthy living. Not liking what we saw we went on to Taman Perdana where the accommodation is in flats. The area did not look safe or decent so we did not even bothered to make any enquiry there.

After going round the older housing area with no sign of any room to let we decided to head back to the West Lake area and check out some of those houses that we bypass earlier on. Luck was with us we managed to meet up with someone who have a house across the road where foul mouth Nicole was. The house is brand new and the owner only wanted six people to stay in it. Our son got a room with his own attached bathroom and I guess he should be very comfortable in it. It is a really decent and nice place.

Having settled the most important item in our agenda for the trip we headed to Kampar old town to have claypot chicken rice which is famous in this little town. It was nice and yummy cooked almost to perfection. Next stop TESCO the only modern store in Kampar to buy some more necessities before we call it a night. The whole of TESCO was flooded with outstation people doing a bit of last minute shopping before settling into their new abode. Extension cords, brooms, brushes, detergents and buckets were really hot items as the racks containing these items were almost empty.

The next morning breakfast was in the hotel as in was included in the room rate and the spread was really miserable. Oh well since it was included and there were fried eggs, it was still something to fill the tummy right?


It was registration time for my son after breakfast and all of us went to UTAR with him. Princess was really proud to be there because it is her alma mater ....... incidentally she graduated with first class honours,congrats and well done my dear. OK registration was really fast and we walked around the campus to have a look see before heading to Ipoh for lunch. We wanted to eat the famous Ipoh white flat noodles with chicken and drink the old town white coffee. Having not been to Ipoh for a long time I was really surprised that the amount of traffic had really grown and it was really congested in the town center. We were unable to locate where old town is but we got our yummy food and white coffee.

We headed back to Kampar after we were done in Ipoh and went straight to Yau Kee restaurant for the famous curry chicken in the bread which is a unique dish maybe made famous by this restaurant. We had a loaf of chicken curry in the bread and pork knuckle noodles .... they were both good.

After sending sonny back to his new abode and said our goodbyes we headed back for home with a quick stop in Isetan for some take away sushi for dinner. It was really a hectic two days and I am really glad to be home sweet home.