Took SQ back to Singapore this time round. I still aint impressed with the service and especially the crappy economy food. I have had better in Cathay. The oriental chicken rice was terrible, the rice tasted undercook with really hard bits and the chicken were way salty lacking the flavour. I have had better microwave prepacked food seriously...
Despite all the raving reviews about the A380 wider seat and all, much that I liked the wider entertainment screen, I still hate the limited angle I can adjust the screen. The light reflection off the screen impaired the viewing pleasure for it always come across too dark, even after I had max the brightness screen. I am sure I cannot be the only one with this problem since everytime I tried to adjust the brightness level, it is always on Max before I can even have a go at it.
Heading to HK, I had the unfortunate luck of sitting next to half of a singaporean family, with the dad and son next to me, and mum and daughter behind. Apart from wailing babies who has the excuse of not being about to vocalise their discomfort except through belting out their screeches, spoil ill behaved young kids are the next bane in my flight life.
The boy looking to be close to 10years old couldnt sit still for a min from the min he got into the plane. Presumably, he got his bad manners from his father. They had the middle and window seat and the father just glare at me expecting me to get up to give up the seats when he did not make it known where his seat was. He was just standing there chatting with his wife with his son throwing a hissy fit about wanting to sit next to his father etc. The two spoilt kids were fighting along the narrow aisle.
After I got up to let the son move in to his window seat, the father made no attempt to move in but instead took his own sweet time to open his bag, and talk to his wife, totally ignoring the fact that I was still standing there waiting for him to get settled down. The father then tried to squash everyone else's bags (both mine and another passenger behind me) in the overhead cabin in his crude attempt to stuff his baggage in. The gentleman sitting behind me politely said to the crude Singaporean father "Excuse me, could you try not to squash my bag? There are fragile things in it"
It was a very polite request in a very neutral manner. The crude Singaporean father replied in his curt singaporean accent "I know what I am doing. What u think I want to squash your bag?"
The polite gentleman just nod and left it as it is since we both know it was pointless to pursue a gentlemanly conversation with an offensive personality as such.
Both the gentleman (who was always standing to let the offensive man's wife and daughter into the window seat) and I stood there, look at each other with an understanding smile at our predicament stuck with a rude self centered singaporean man. We eye balled the Sg man as he continue to shove our bags aside to convenience himself and his baggage. After like maybe 3mins of attempts, half crushing our bags in the process, he decided it was good enough and decided to sit down. Even as he saw me standing there, he didnt bother to say sorry for inconvenicing me, or thankyou for waiting for him. Rude rude bastard.
After I sat down, 5mins later the rude father stood up and expect me to know he wanted to get up. Fine. I unbuckled my seatbelt to let him out and again, no sorry nor thank you. I stoood there as he started to take his luggage out from teh overhead compartment and rumaging through his contents. Then again he decided it was perfectly alrite for me to stand there waiting while he put his bag in my seat. After what seems like 5mins, he decided he had enough and decided to put his bag in the opposite empty compartment, all these after all his efforts in half destroying the shape of our bags in the earlier overhead cabin. The gentlemen seated behind my seat looked at me with a sympathising look.
When the rude father was done, he sat down in the middle seat without a word nor acknowledgement. I was thinking in my head "You fucking rude disgraceful Singaporean with utter no social etiquette nor manners or whatsoever"
I wasnt at all astound nor overcame with surprise at the rude inconsiderate behavior of the son. The kid couldnt sit still and was kicking the seat before him, half jumpig on his seat and yanking the remote while stamping on it with his shoes. The father didnt say a word. The son badgered the father with a series of questions and statements and I suppose he isnt much of an involved father with his cryptic answers.
Hearing the kid talk, I felt like telling him he might be better off speaking in mandarin since all his grammar structure was all over the place. There were talking about surrounding islands in Hong Kong and the son said Singapore had no islands. (What happen to kids in modern singapore? I already knew about sentosa and pulua ubin and Kusu island since I was 6yrs) The father replied Singapore too had outlying islands and stopped there. The son pestered on "Singapore got island meh? Where got? Got what?" I felt this screaming and dying urgeto correct the boy to rephrase his questions properly into "Do we have islands? Where are they? What are they named as?"
The father didnt bother to correct his son's grammatically wrong questioning and worse, only gave one answer. "Got. Like Puala Ubin have lor." He stopped there. I rolled my eyes. The son said "What Ubin? Got what?" The father ignored the son. So the boy went on in his effort to destroy "public" property in whacking the window, shaking the seat so much that I really wanted to smack him. I turned to glare with murderous intent at the kid as he caught my eye and he stopped.
The father went on to annoy me next when he read the papers. Totally disregarding personal space, he open the newspaper widely and took up half of my space, blocking half of my screen. I had to politely told him to move his papers, and he did it begrudgingly without a word of apologies.
Throughout the journey, not once did I hear the word thanks coming out of this family. Regardless if they were being served or their queries answered or having people make way for them.
This incident brings to mind about the recent article about Australian complaining to the media that Singaporeans are the most fucking rude bunch of nation. With a modern singapore family as such, they are definitely the best illustrations of undesirable behaviour and failure of our modern affluent society.
The trip back to Singapore, I was exposed to many rude locals. People keep blaming the foreign blood such as the mainlanders etc. However, the people that were rude and inconsiderate that I had met were the Pure bred -born and bred locals. Not the mainlanders, not the Malaysians, not the indians, not the vietnamese etc. They were the rude chinese and malay singaporeans in service industry.
Even when I was checking out at the counter of SQ counter. The bunch of Malay staff were chitchatting and didnt even watch the passenger line till another male staff saw me standing there after like a min. The malay female staff didnt even say a word and lazily just twitched her eyes at me expecting me to know what she was thinking. Seeing i didnt move, she just waved me forward while her head was resting on the palm of the other hand.
Despite all the raving reviews about the A380 wider seat and all, much that I liked the wider entertainment screen, I still hate the limited angle I can adjust the screen. The light reflection off the screen impaired the viewing pleasure for it always come across too dark, even after I had max the brightness screen. I am sure I cannot be the only one with this problem since everytime I tried to adjust the brightness level, it is always on Max before I can even have a go at it.
Heading to HK, I had the unfortunate luck of sitting next to half of a singaporean family, with the dad and son next to me, and mum and daughter behind. Apart from wailing babies who has the excuse of not being about to vocalise their discomfort except through belting out their screeches, spoil ill behaved young kids are the next bane in my flight life.
The boy looking to be close to 10years old couldnt sit still for a min from the min he got into the plane. Presumably, he got his bad manners from his father. They had the middle and window seat and the father just glare at me expecting me to get up to give up the seats when he did not make it known where his seat was. He was just standing there chatting with his wife with his son throwing a hissy fit about wanting to sit next to his father etc. The two spoilt kids were fighting along the narrow aisle.
After I got up to let the son move in to his window seat, the father made no attempt to move in but instead took his own sweet time to open his bag, and talk to his wife, totally ignoring the fact that I was still standing there waiting for him to get settled down. The father then tried to squash everyone else's bags (both mine and another passenger behind me) in the overhead cabin in his crude attempt to stuff his baggage in. The gentleman sitting behind me politely said to the crude Singaporean father "Excuse me, could you try not to squash my bag? There are fragile things in it"
It was a very polite request in a very neutral manner. The crude Singaporean father replied in his curt singaporean accent "I know what I am doing. What u think I want to squash your bag?"
The polite gentleman just nod and left it as it is since we both know it was pointless to pursue a gentlemanly conversation with an offensive personality as such.
Both the gentleman (who was always standing to let the offensive man's wife and daughter into the window seat) and I stood there, look at each other with an understanding smile at our predicament stuck with a rude self centered singaporean man. We eye balled the Sg man as he continue to shove our bags aside to convenience himself and his baggage. After like maybe 3mins of attempts, half crushing our bags in the process, he decided it was good enough and decided to sit down. Even as he saw me standing there, he didnt bother to say sorry for inconvenicing me, or thankyou for waiting for him. Rude rude bastard.
After I sat down, 5mins later the rude father stood up and expect me to know he wanted to get up. Fine. I unbuckled my seatbelt to let him out and again, no sorry nor thank you. I stoood there as he started to take his luggage out from teh overhead compartment and rumaging through his contents. Then again he decided it was perfectly alrite for me to stand there waiting while he put his bag in my seat. After what seems like 5mins, he decided he had enough and decided to put his bag in the opposite empty compartment, all these after all his efforts in half destroying the shape of our bags in the earlier overhead cabin. The gentlemen seated behind my seat looked at me with a sympathising look.
When the rude father was done, he sat down in the middle seat without a word nor acknowledgement. I was thinking in my head "You fucking rude disgraceful Singaporean with utter no social etiquette nor manners or whatsoever"
I wasnt at all astound nor overcame with surprise at the rude inconsiderate behavior of the son. The kid couldnt sit still and was kicking the seat before him, half jumpig on his seat and yanking the remote while stamping on it with his shoes. The father didnt say a word. The son badgered the father with a series of questions and statements and I suppose he isnt much of an involved father with his cryptic answers.
Hearing the kid talk, I felt like telling him he might be better off speaking in mandarin since all his grammar structure was all over the place. There were talking about surrounding islands in Hong Kong and the son said Singapore had no islands. (What happen to kids in modern singapore? I already knew about sentosa and pulua ubin and Kusu island since I was 6yrs) The father replied Singapore too had outlying islands and stopped there. The son pestered on "Singapore got island meh? Where got? Got what?" I felt this screaming and dying urgeto correct the boy to rephrase his questions properly into "Do we have islands? Where are they? What are they named as?"
The father didnt bother to correct his son's grammatically wrong questioning and worse, only gave one answer. "Got. Like Puala Ubin have lor." He stopped there. I rolled my eyes. The son said "What Ubin? Got what?" The father ignored the son. So the boy went on in his effort to destroy "public" property in whacking the window, shaking the seat so much that I really wanted to smack him. I turned to glare with murderous intent at the kid as he caught my eye and he stopped.
The father went on to annoy me next when he read the papers. Totally disregarding personal space, he open the newspaper widely and took up half of my space, blocking half of my screen. I had to politely told him to move his papers, and he did it begrudgingly without a word of apologies.
Throughout the journey, not once did I hear the word thanks coming out of this family. Regardless if they were being served or their queries answered or having people make way for them.
This incident brings to mind about the recent article about Australian complaining to the media that Singaporeans are the most fucking rude bunch of nation. With a modern singapore family as such, they are definitely the best illustrations of undesirable behaviour and failure of our modern affluent society.
The trip back to Singapore, I was exposed to many rude locals. People keep blaming the foreign blood such as the mainlanders etc. However, the people that were rude and inconsiderate that I had met were the Pure bred -born and bred locals. Not the mainlanders, not the Malaysians, not the indians, not the vietnamese etc. They were the rude chinese and malay singaporeans in service industry.
Even when I was checking out at the counter of SQ counter. The bunch of Malay staff were chitchatting and didnt even watch the passenger line till another male staff saw me standing there after like a min. The malay female staff didnt even say a word and lazily just twitched her eyes at me expecting me to know what she was thinking. Seeing i didnt move, she just waved me forward while her head was resting on the palm of the other hand.
After which, she had the audacity to give me a dirty look when I asked her to help move my luggage bag further in for her to weigh the content. In HK, the counter staff could activate the conveyor belt to move the bag in slightly but no not here, she kept saying she need to weigh it and she didnt want to help me move the bag in. When she see that I wasnt going to move it all by myself, she push the button for the conveyor belt and the bag overshot. she even made a disgruntled sound and angrily slam my bag down as she drag it back to the weighing spot. She then angrily wrap the the baggage sticker onto my bag handle. Talk about non existent smile. She was the epitome of local service who couldnt care less nor give a shiot about customer service. I really felt like telling her, if she doesnt want to serve anyone, just resign and let someone else have her job
Talk about rude and lousy Malay front desk officer for SQ! I went to change my flight back from Singapore and this stupid woman told me cannot change to Sunday because she mistakenly changed it to sat from Friday! And prior to that she also gave me a mini lecture about printing out my e-ticket before going to them! I thought a simple passport will do??? I don't need my e-ticket to board and I dun think I need it to change particulars!
ReplyDeleteI think they ought to rely on undercover staff to sniff out CSO with no CS skills... And how come it's nearly always a Malay manning the CS desk? (at least for me)
No way!!! She made the mistake and u bear the consequences? And u let her get away with it?!!
ReplyDeleteWhy do you need your e-ticket for? I was never asked for one! I only print my confirmation booking just for standby in case the airline lose my booking (which I had seen it happening to someone for birtish airways and the counter staff refuse to help the guy even though he showed them the iternary printout. They insisted it has to be the confirmation printout)
You are right about rude and lousy, not to mention they LOVE to group together and chitchat and expect passengers to WAIT for them to finish their slow "discussion". I really hate checkin in singapore airport.
I share the same observation!!!!!! Why is it always nearly always a Malay (90%) or Indian staff manning the CS desk? So much for local service...they are worse than the mainlander people in other service industry at times. For the last few years, I have NEVER been served by a local chinese staff in both SQ and cathay pacific counter.
You are right too that they need those mystery "shopper" to sniff out the people underperforming. Yet, I think it is terribly pathetic when an renowned airline needs an undercover agent to weed out the bad crops in the CSO division...yet having these bad sheeps spoiling the image just as I leave the country is really something that needs to be corrected FAST!....
My wife was lying in a day ward so I wasn't really in the right frame of mind to fight then. And for me Saturday wasn't that bad because I managed a load of housework before work on Monday. But it was terrible service quality and attitude.
ReplyDeleteI think undercover checks are necessAry even if a company has been performing well. It weeds out the remaining black sheeps. If not, knowing there are undercover agents keeps CSO on their toes.