Matchmaking

When my friend from Penang came visiting, my mom already started to have funny ideas. She asked me if this girlfriend of mine is still single and available? I said yes. She wanted to introduce her to our long distance cousin brother. Well, this cousin brother is a quiet guy, nerdy and balding. I think he totally has no social skill, as far as I could recall. I remember meeting him during college, and I walked over with another friend to have a meal with him. Throughout the whole dinner, he was smiling lecherously at my friend – which I hope she didn’t notice and didn’t say much. I am not sure if he’s shy or he’s just socially awkward. We quickly finished dinner and left.

So, I was against the idea. I think he’s a nice guy but maybe not somebody for my friend, who is a high flyer and has illustrious lifestyle. Further, she’s based in Penang and he’s in KL. At his age.. I think he’s probably 40 now, I am sure he would have found someone by now if he’s not that choosy. I heard his parents tried match making him with a few ladies and he turned them all down.

I remember once, my sister was too subject to matchmaking. Some “pat por” (busy body) aunt of ours was in the market when she met this wine maker family. The family has a son whom the mother is anxious for him to get married. So she asked the par por aunt if she has any nieces to introduce. Pat Por Aunt thought of my family – with the most girls and none are taken. So, she told the wine maker aunty to come to my house. Pat Por Aunt was thinking of my cousin sister – who is born in the year of Monkey. The wine maker aunty is very traditional and adhere to feng shui and calculation of horoscopes. So my cousin sister found out and refused to even come down to see the guy. So, ended my sister is the one who got pushed into meeting the guy. He’s not a very tall person and he looked the least interested in what’s going on. I guess he’s being forced into this by the mother like my sister. That night itself, the mother forced her son and my sister to go on a date. They don’t even know where to go, so I told them to go to Hartamas or Mont Kiara and drink coffee. Haha. That time, in Selayang, there’s no proper coffee shop.

Both of them went on a date. It was really awkward at first. But then, my sister was relieved that the guy is rather friendly and both of them agreed that this is too ridiculous and laughed about it. So they were just merely meeting for the sake of the mother. They only went on date once – that one forced date. Haha.

A few years ago, we were attending a friend’s wedding when my friend’s boyfriend had too much to drink. He suddenly became this very chatty person. He’s usually rather quiet and would mind his own business. But that night, suddenly, alcohol just took over his body and he started to talk too much. He asked me if I am interested to meet his Taiwanese friend – who is also his business partner. He said, his Taiwanese friend is looking for a wife and I would fit the bill. I was like, WTF??? He said his Taiwanese friend loves food very much and would like to have a girlfriend/wife who can share the same passion as him. I said if I were to become his girlfriend, he would double his size in no time, since I like to eat too. He said, he’s already a very big man himself and doesn’t mind if he’s bigger! I have a friend who has a Taiwanese husband and boy, that man could drink a lot.. a lot as in.. he spent Rm10k on drinking bills alone per month. So, I said to my friend’s bf. Does he drink a lot? He said yes. Taiwanese generally drinks alot. He doesn’t gamble, he never womanized, but he drinks and smokes alot. That’s the deal breaker lah. I cannot tolerate smokers and worse, drinkers as well? So I told him to forget it. Haha. There goes my chance to become a Taiwanese businessman’s wife. LOL! Actually, come to think of it – Taiwanese has so many pretty women and they are all very polite. He should go get his wife among Taiwanese who would know how to appreciate such lifestyle of drinking.

I am never good at matchmaking, according to my mom. None of the couples I tried to match make works. Even when my sister is going out with the wine maker son, my mom prohibited me from going with her because I am a “bad luck” she said. Sigh. But it didn’t work out for both of them even when I was not there – so I supposed I am not THAT bad? Haha.

A Day at the Bank

I usually don’t go to banks unless I have to. This time, is to collect my supplementary credit card for my sister. The bank did a good job by blocking the card even before we activated it for use. We were waiting for the renewal card and when it came, even before we activated it, they found one online transaction in the US. So, they promptly blocked the card and issued us a replacement card.

We supposed to collect the replacement card in a branch of our choice. I was told to wait a week for it and they will call me as soon as they sent the card to the branch. A week came to past and nobody inform me anything. So I called them up and asked have they sent the card to the branch. They did. So I asked them, why didn’t they call me like they promised? The customer service person just repeated that, the card is already there and asked me to go collect it.

Went to the bank 20 minutes before lunch time is over. It’s already 2.05 pm and it was yet my turn. I am here just to collect my credit card. How hard is that ah? Waited a total 35 minutes just to go to the counter and asked for my card. I prayed they don’t bloody screw up.

The moment I sat at the counter, the guy on the counter shook his head a few times. I didn’t even bother to ask why. Then he just voluntarily told me. The lady just now got her car window smashed.. so she was there to make replacement of cards. I asked him if this is a daily incident? Everyday, there will be victims coming in to replace cards? He shrugged it off and mumbled, “What do you think?” So, I said again - “Every damn day?” He suddenly realized he’s sharing too much so, he said, “Not everyday lah!”

So, he wanted to verify my IC. I passed it to him. He slotted it in the scanner and guess what? The scanner jammed. So much for efficiency. Then he went to manually photocopy my IC as a record. In total, it took me almost 45 minutes just to collect a bloody credit card.

Hope your Friday had been better.

Wastage

We were discussing about how equipped our company’s pantry is and of course, disappointed. Haha. I still remember during my first job – my company had a tea lady who made coffee and milo every 10 am and 3 pm for our coffee breaks and wheeled the cups to us at our cubicle for us to choose! How nice! Then, there’s another company who had a tea lady who made the best Nescafe in town! I think she could even rival the mamak shops! I

In my current company, we only have choice of coffee or tea. Then to add insult to the already measly choice, we are the only ones not having Milo in our pantry. It seems, it stemmed from the wastages or rather pilferage earlier, committed by the ex tea lady. Other colleague mentioned that, some people are simply too wasteful. They will drink one small mug of Milo but, put 5 scoops in it! She even saw people pouring away 1/2 mug of Milo when they couldn’t finish it. And we all at our floor, seething with anger coz we don’t have Milo! Haha.

This discussion sort of jog my memory of a story I read or, someone told me many years ago.

There were two sisters who always like to waste their food. Every time they go out, they would order plenty of food but only ate 10% of them because they said, they were on a diet. Then one of the sisters, died in an accident and was sent to hell. The other surviving sister was heart broken and dreamed of the dead sister one night.

She saw her sister eating and kept eating a whole pile of food, like a few storeys of building high! So, she ran to her sister, crying and asked her, “My dear sis! Why are you eating? And why are you eating such a big pile of food!”

The dead sister was chewing and trying to swallow, with tears streaming down her face. “This is my punishment for wasting food when I was alive! So, I have to pay for this, in my afterlife by eating all the food I wasted!” Then, she kept crying and eating.

The living sister cried even harder and said, “I pity you sister! You still have another huge pile of food to eat!” pointing helplessly to another pile of food next to the pile that the dead sister was eating.

The dead sister looked up, choking on the food and said, “Sis! The other pile is actually waiting for you when you die!”

So kids, it’s not good to waste food!

Contractors from Hell

Sometime in August 2012, we planned to do some renovation works to our house. We have been staying here the past 20 years, so it’s time to do some major repairs. Two of our bathrooms were leaking and, after a colleague’s near brush of death with robbery in his house, just opposite ours in July, we think it’s better be safe than sorry. So, we decided to install a grill at the balcony behind our house. So we shopped around for a quote but some people already taking orders for CNY, so they couldn’t do for us. We decided to stick to the previous contractor who did a minor retiling for us some years ago, who happened to be my sister’s friend. So, the renovation works only started on Oct 20.

So, we gave the job to him. He said, retiling the bathrooms would take 1-2 weeks but we have to make do with one toilet for the time being because he simply couldn’t ask the same sifu to come tile our toilets on different days! So, once and for all. Okay, so we agreed. It took more than 2 weeks for the bathroom and I really got impatient. Coupled with different orders from my first aunt also further complicated matters. Imagine, you ask her for her input and she refused to give any ideas till last minute, do changes here and there. Yes, this is not the contractor’s fault I know. The thing I cannot tahan is, how the main contractor, ie. my sis’ friend coordinate his work. He simply cannot coordinate things properly. People just show up at our house, without notice, don’t even know what they were supposed to do. There’s this guy, who install the bathroom doors, who bought the doors two inches too short for the door – so basically, we give free show whenever we take shower inside!

Then, he had to reorder a new door… which is okay but then, instead of positioning the door latch to the pre-existing hole created by the previous guy, when installing the first door, he went on to drill another hole in the newly tiled ceramic wall. Wah lao eh… we were so furious!

So, the plan of 2 weeks top went on and on for 1.5 months. We decided not to let him do the exterior painting because we know how shitty his job would be. Who knows what might even happen if we continue to hire him to paint the walls. And we can’t even choose the colors we want for exterior walls because he said, only white and charges us Rm7,500. So we decided to cancel the painting job.

On 8th of December 2012, a new painter came to our house to have a look. Seeing him so earnestly jotting down the colors we wanted from the ICI Dulux catalogue, we think, our house should be in good hands. At first, we decided to just paint the exterior of our house because the paint is already too old and we haven’t been painting for over 10 years. But he suggested we should also paint the inside. Since, he’s doing the job, might as well get the whole house done. He said don’t ask for discount anymore because he will help to fix whatever needs to be fixed including patching up the decay in the door panes, will also paint the grills, as well as the brick fence in front of my house porch and the house gate. We were thinking, ok, since he’s going to do it, it’s ok to pay him that much for his work. Since he is highly recommended by a fellow colleague, we relented even though the price he quoted us is way off our budget at RM13,000.

We gave him RM5,000 as downpayment and also to buy paint. So off he went to buy paint. He started work on 14th December 2012, right after Nuzul Quran holiday because we were not in. The first few days of work, he was all hardworking and we find he is quite a fast worker, eventhough he’s doing it himself and all alone. So I asked him, did he come alone? So he said, yes. And asked me not to worry because he will finished on time. Maximum one month. But he said, he can finish painting my house in 2 weeks tops and he will hire 4-5 people to help. So we were glad when he said that.

When he started to paint the kitchen, things went downhill from there. My mom asked him when will he patch the decay at the bathroom door because, he’s only working 3-4 hours a day, come at 8 am and leave by 12 pm. Why can’t he just finish his job as fast as possible and stay longer throughout the day to finish the job? He said, it’s not his job to fix the decay. My mom and aunt got furious because he didn’t do what he promised he would do! And he always came alone and didn’t hire anybody to help him as promised!

Then never mind. He further threaten us if we don’t pay him the balance, he will stop work and said, we can never find anyone this last minute since it’s nearing CNY (when he threaten us, it was end of December already). Anyway, I prayed over this shit and leave this matter to God. I just say, “God, please help us to find a good replacement so we don’t have to suffer all these nonsense. I leave everything in your hands! Amen!”

Lo and behold. The abandoned house behind ours started renovation works after almost a year, the new owner bought over the place. We have seen numerous people coming to look at the old house but nothing was done for more than a year till now.

While the idiotic painter was spray jetting the walls, getting them ready to be painted, he was doing half assed job as usual. He didn’t want to move his ass to scrap the dangling old paint and said, it’s like that one.. if the jet spray couldn’t get rid of it, there is no need to scrap it! So, we got really fed up and fired him on the spot. He still couldn’t believe we fired him and even begged for his job back! But still insist on us to pay him the balance! So we said no! Please get the fuck out!

We hired the Indonesians who are renovating the house behind ours at fraction of a costs! For only Rm1,500, they helped to paint the exterior walls (3 sides since my house is an end lot) and also the gates and grills! So in a way, we saved some money, some Rm4k! And nothing can beat the satisfaction of firing the annoying “fly” painter who kept buzzing our ears for more payment for the half assed job he has done! It was also a blessing because during the time, the idiotic painter was dragging us, it had been raining cats and dogs, making it difficult to plan for painting! Thank you God for sunny days when we started to paint the exterior walls!

Well, I simply want to give thanks to God.. that really…..even if you think the matter is so small and minute in life – they still matter to him! Even my mom kept saying, Thank you “tee gong” for “poh pi” us. Haha! She didn’t know I prayed to my God.

Super Broke

Sometime in March, I got the shock of my life when I saw my credit card bill. Astro for RM1041.25. I called up Astro to check whose account was that. The last digit of the said account number do not match my bill. I was told by Astro, there is no such account. They told me to call Maybank. So, I called the bank and put in a dispute form.

Maybank told me that, I need to wait up to 6 weeks for the dispute investigation. At the same time, they will withhold the late payment finance charges on the said amount. I waited for almost 1 month and decided to call them again. They said, I need to wait till 6 weeks. So fine, I waited another 2 weeks to call them. 2 weeks later, I called them and again, they said the case is still pending investigation. So I got really annoyed. Why is it so difficult to check? Then, they called me back to inform me that, that was the valid account number and they have been deducting from my credit card for quite some time. Something was wrong. So I checked my past credit card bills. Unfortunately, since I opted for paperless bill as a consideration to mother nature, I was bitten in the ass lah for this. My latest 3 months bill did not show any Astro payment.

I remember checking my Astro statement monthly because I just want to find out if my new credit card capture payment. In all my Astro bills, the bills are fully settled. I forgot to mention that, I was robbed sometime end of July, last year. I remember faxing Astro my new credit card to be auto debited. I remember calling Maybank to change all my auto debit to the new card. They do so for other merchants but not this one!

So, they have been auto debiting my “lost card”. How could that even happen? HOW ON EARTH DO YOU AUTO DEBIT A LOST CARD??

One thing bad about me, if I look at my online statement and nothing was suspicious looking, I would just pay my credit card bill in FULL every month without fail. This big amount woke me up!

So now, apparently, both Astro and Maybank didn’t even listen to me when I called or faxed them those related documents concerning transfer of auto debits. So in the end, I have to pay the total amount “owing” to Astro.. it was a lucky thing they “waive” my finance charges, or otherwise, they would get an earful from me! And they again transfer another amount of RM400++ for Astro into my “new card” which I had gotten since August 2011.

I told them, to cancel all my auto debit now. ALL! I think I would prefer to do my own online banking and payment to the bank from now onwards. All for convenience sake.. so now, I have to suffer because of these people’s inefficiency!

As if this crap is not bad enough, today I was slapped with a warrant of arrest – for not settling my MPS bill for a year and a half… I was furious when I got the warrrant! HOW TO PAY IF I DON’T EVEN GET THE NOTICE??? So I went to MPS to check. I didn’t even receive the bloody notice for over a year and found out that, they have been delivering it to the wrong address!! WHO ON EARTH CHANGED MY MAILING ADDRESS????? I tell you ah… I don’t know if I should be happy or sad. I just got bonus from work and this is how I am supposed to spend my bonus?? To pay for assessment?? And to pay for Astro which I NEVER GET TO WATCH??

I am super, SUPER PISSED!!!