A little whisper in the dark

A book's cover

It was one of those slow late afternoons where I was lounging around the shop, chatting with the boss while working on one of the bikes that was in for repairs and maintenance when a customer stepped in from the oppressive heat.

Dressed in a tatty t-shirt and well-worn jeans torn in several places, he was dark, lean and sinewy. I got up, approached him, and prompted,

"Hi good afternoon, can I help you?"

It turned out he was looking for a few bike parts, but good parts that they were. We had some of those in stock, and so went to the storeroom to find them. My boss muttered discreetly to me,

"Don't bother to serve him too long, don't waste your time, he's not going to buy"

"Uh huh, yup, ok, I got time anyway"

I went back and served him anyway and struck up a conversation. He asked a few questions regarding the parts, and finally asked how much the items on the table were. Pulled the calculator out, totted up the sums and showed him. Nick (by now I already knew his name) pulled out his wallet and counted out about $700 in hundred dollar notes,

"I'll take them"

I shot a somewhat triumphant look at my boss, who looked more than a little surprised; it turns out he'd judged him wrong. The customer's name was Nick Tan, and he was dark because he worked in the sun all the time, as a rope technician slung outside skyscrapers cleaning the windows. By the nature of the job, he's fairly well paid. We'd all assumed that he was the typical low-income dreamer coming in to fondle, ask about prices, but ultimately go somewhere else to buy it at the cheapest price possible (my shop isn't well known for being the cheapest).

For a guy who's background was in the restaurant service industry, and now running a retail storefront, he's doing himself no favours writing off customers.

Maybe because I was young, I was enthusiastic, and I genuinely loved bike gear, and would spend half the day talking about it to anyone who'd listen, but I'm glad that day, I proved a point. But today, I was judged by a bikeshop - on my way to a nearby bike trail, I needed a tool to adjust something for my bike, and dropped in at a bike shop to loan an allen key. The shop was empty of customers, and staff were lounging around, yet they refused to lend the tool.

To be honest, I was trying my luck, for it is their tool that I am asking for.

However, it will be my business that I will be taking elsewhere in the future, just because they didn't go the extra mile in their customer service.

posted by Chung Leong @ 9:06 PM 1 comments

It was as if she didn't want to leave

Red Rocket had one last surprise for me; I was fanging it a little on the way to delivering her to her new owner, when the back end suddenly slid out, the car wanting to spin. Instinctively I countersteered into the direction of the slide, but then the car caught a bit faster than i could've unwound the steering, so it shot off the road anyway.

If the road was bordered by a curb, I'd have bent the suspension.

Instead, just the echo of tortured rubber, and the smell of tire smoke came in through the open window.

I carried on the journey at a much more sedate pace after that. And so, some paperwork was completed, money and car keys were exchanged, and she's gone, no longer mine.

I'd known her well, she served me faithfully. She was bright red, same as the day she was made, and if she was human, she'd have her own 18+ card.She broke, I mended her (or paid money to have her fixed). I got dirty fixing her, she taught me how cars work, and how they are put together (and taken apart). Some weeks, I'd spend about 2 hours in her a day, commuting to and from campus. Sometimes I'd listen to her engine sing; mostly I did the singing. And sometimes she'd just unobtrusively melt away and leave me to my thoughts, driving subconsciously.

But she also taught me that owning a car was not all fun and games, when things started breaking because I treated her carelessly. I'd learned to heel and toe at the cost of breaking her clutch.

And tonight, she's becoming some other guy's very first car, just as she had been my first. I simply told the new owner,

Take care of her.

posted by Chung Leong @ 1:59 AM 0 comments

The Big M1-Singtel-Starhub choice

I got my first mobile phone back in 1999, while serving national service. The monthly allowance that I had meant that I had a little to spare for buying my first phone, a Nokia 6110, and paying the monthly subscription. Maybe it was because it kept me entertained on those long nights I had guard duty, playing Snake and sending text messages to the then-gf. Oddly enough, it didn't get used as a phone very much.

Mobile phone plans in Singapore tend to give you a certain amount of free texts and free minutes for a fixed amount you pay every month. Thereafter you pay at a certain rate per SMS, or per minute. Like the hamsters that I used to keep, I tend to hoard minutes, and use text messages first - but its quite a habit. Pretty soon you begin to have annoying text message conversations which a simple 1 minute phone call could have resolved......

From the Nokia 6110, I went to a Siemens S45 (which promptly broke the month its warranty expired), so I went back to a cheap Nokia 3310, before taking over my dad's 8310 (which had more slots for phone numbers - work purposes). And the 8310 is what I've brought to Australia, and been using here.

For students, mobile phone plans here are a no-brainer, get the Yes Optus prepaid card, choose the 300-minute free Optus-to-Optus plan, thank you, there you go. Expenses once again are a motivation in changing phone habits - now I tend to call more and text less. Oh, and here, you don't have to pay for incoming mobile phone calls with any provider. People don't like to call other people. Sometimes they would give a missed call and try to wait you out to call back (usually don't care, and wait them out. That doesn't mean I give people missed calls either).

So on the eve of going back home, I'm doing my research on mobile phones and service providers again, as I am pretty sure my old M1 number has lapsed. While I have constantly said that the 8310 does all I need of it as a phone (ie, make phone calls), I must admit I have been seduced by the all-singing-all-dancing-do-everything crop of current phones that are a digital camera, mp3 and video player, internet browser, and maybe it will even feed your pet cat.

I visit to some mobile phone forums, to get some idea on what talk is currently being talked, on phones, as well as mobile plans; it was quite unexpected that the conversation was more focused on how best to extract freebies from service providers than the actual difference between the service plans being offered.

I guess it all started with one company extending sweeteners to induce a customer to stay with them instead of "jumping".

A thought pops into my mind, you might have come across this sign in nature reserves and parks:

"Please do not feed the wild animals"

How many of us, seeing that the poor (for example) monkey is so small and fragile, feed it with some leftover picnic food bits, but pretty soon, the monkey figures out that humans are a source of food, and after a bit, if acting pitiful and hungry doesn't work, maybe running in and grabbing would.

M1, Singtel, and Starhub are three humans feeding a whole horde of monkeys that have figured out simply threatening to change providers would be an easy way to get discounted service plans, freebies, or cash vouchers to be put toward getting a new phone to show off to their friends.

But well, all is not lost, for the talk is about how it is getting increasingly hard to extract goodies already. I'm not against healthy competition driving service plan prices down, but I am against petty greed that is obvious in these monkeys.

I mean, if you can afford to blow $800 on the latest phone every half year or so, what's a $200 voucher, or $10 off your monthly mobile phone bill?

posted by Chung Leong @ 12:53 AM 0 comments