Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Past couple of weeks have been very ordinary, even the Chinese New Year period, which explains the absence of entries here (pointless mah). Everyday had been either work or gaming. Right now I am waiting for my boss to return from her trip home in Malaysia, which I will then tell her I am going to resign. The ~1month from my resignation to my enlistment will be spent doing things that I had missed out in the last two to three months.

I finally got my Vista upgrade application done, thanks to my cousin. Right now my status is "Order awaiting shipment", asking me to check back in 2-3 weeks time to find out the delivery dates.

The results will be released this Friday. I will receive it, regardless I have done well or not. It seems too late now to voice out any regrets. Regrets are always ever so easy to say.

I am trying my luck to get three days off my work, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. One day to prepare to cry/celebrate, one day to get my results, and the last to cry/celebrate. My first try was met with strong objections. I will try again when my boss returns.
Someone posted a poll on Cosiety asking whether it is "fair for cabbies to circle n cause commuters to call n incur an increased fare of up to $4". Among the fourteen people (at last count) who voted, nine thought its not fair, finding it "underhand and irritating". That leaves me to conclude that not many people know how difficult it is to make a living as a taxi driver.

Taxi driving in our motherland is actually one of the worst jobs one can get. Taxi drivers have no base salary like salesmen have (and earn more from comissions), and their earnings depend solely on how many passengers they take, how long their journeys are, and perhaps how short they take to eat their lunch and pee. Look, it cost ~$90 to rent a taxi everyday The old 2-Litre Toyota Corona cost only ~$80 in rental, but because commuters find those too small to have comfortable legroom, they were eventually phased out and replaced with the bigger 3-Litre Toyota Crown. Of course, bigger = higher rental fees.

Taxis run on fuel, and it takes ~$30 worth of diesel to fill up the tank. With a total of ~$120 to cover, how many of those $4 rides do taxi drivers have to do? And then how many more of those $4 rides do taxi drivers have to do in order to earn money decent enough to pay electricity bills, buy rice, and send their kids to school?

Rental fees applies regardless whether the driver drives or is sick and decides to take a rest.

Commuters complain that there are not enough taxis, so the government released more licenses for taxi companies, resulting in a surge of taxi drivers. It is common sense that more taxis = more competition.

Thus, we can see that taxi driving is no easy job of simply sitting on leather seats in air-con. Taxi drivers have quite alot of burden to shoulder.

Having said all that, I am not saying that it is entirely fair for cabbies to take a detour to earn that extra bit of money. Like all other things on earth, it is that handful of black sheep that caused this steorotyping, partially thanks to us human beings who never remember the good things, but never forget the bad things. Most taxi drivers do try to get their passengers to their destinations using the shortest route possible. However there are times when drivers forget there is a shorter route to a particular destination, or they are unfamiliar of that particular area (Who can actually remember each and every single road and street in Singapore? Well some may say they can, but do bear in mind that many taxi drivers in Singapore are well past retirement.)

Lastly, I guess there may be a temptation somewhere to drive a slightly longer route to earn a cents more, something like peeping at your friend's answer scripts during examinations. Taxi drivers are also humans, but they are definitely not greedy when they want a few more cents from you. They just want to end their day earlier so that they can go home earlier to accompany their families or have a good rest.

Then again, the length of routes are quite subjective. What the passenger thinks is long may not be long to the driver.

Waiting for calls and taking detours all the time are indeed underhand. But one should learn to forgive and forget drivers who make an occassional mistake. When it comes to money, everyone wants to keep as much as possible of those to themselves. Who doesn't love money? Instead of complaining, I think people should think of others and try to understand and compromise each other. I wish to repeat that most drivers do not simply wait for calls or take detours all the times. Only some. (One can't just sit around the whole day waiting for calls. There aren't enough.)

To end off, I want to say that there are other options besides taxi. Not happy, don't take lor.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Valentine's Day was not a good day for me.

Immediately after I logged in to Blogger I was greeted with a forced upgrade to the new version, leaving me no choice to stick to the old one. Of course there is nothing wrong with the new version, given that nothing will be changed (or so they claim), but I disliked the way they forced people to change without any alternative options, or at the very least, the allowing of "deferment".

I was switched to the morning shift today, and because I trusted the jovial old lady and the newbie who worked the previous overnight shift, I did not check the money inside the two cash registers.

Turned out it was a bad move. At the end of my shift one of the counters had a shortage of $15 bucks, and I had 5 bucks deducted from my pay (the remainder was offset by an excess). And I was unhappy.

I was unhappy not because I had my pay deducted; I don't really care. I was unhappy because they seem to blame my trust in my colleagues for this shortage, with words like "you are too kind liaox" or "you must count the money no matter what" etc etc. Actually I don't know why I was unhappy. Maybe because I refused to believe that I had made an error in my judgement skills.

Perhaps money is too evil an item to be placed together with trust, but I think basic trust among colleagues will make work slightly more enjoyable.

My mood got slightly better after I managed to get my newly purchased RAM to work on my computer. After work I went down to Sim Lim Square, and bought a stick of 1GB RAM to add on to my computer. RAM prices have been dropping drastically for the past few weeks, from $160+ three weeks ago to $105 this week, the price at which I purchased mine. Went home and put it in; worked flawlessly.

So now my computer has 1.5GB of RAM. Tried out Company of Heroes, and the game now runs much faster. I can even afford to push the graphics level to a higher one.

At Sim Lim I checked out 7600GT graphics cards, and although all the boxes stated a minimum of 300W power supply, the salesman insisted 350W to ensure sufficient power. Which means my computer does not make the cut. Never mind actually. I don't think I am spending any more money on computer related products for now.

There was an interesting piece of news report just now. Apparently CASE investigated and compared the prices of items in various supermarkets and convenience stores, and found out that the the same item can cost more than two times in convenience stores as compared to in supermarkets.

Well everyone knows things are more expensive in convenience stores, but it still comes as a shock to see a bottle of mineral water costing $1.10 in convenience stores when it cost a mere $0.34 (average price I guess) in supermarkets.

Assuming that all items come from the same supplier, one still wonders why things cost more expensive in convenience stores. Maybe convenience stores will try to attribute the higher prices to the fact that their stores are open 24/7, so high cost of electricity used on lights and air conditioners. Then again, supermarkets, although not 24/7, are much bigger in size, meaning more lights and more air-cons per store? Thereafter, convenience stores will say that they have larger numbers of stores, albeit much smaller in size, while supermarkets, although fewer in numbers, are much bigger in size, thus possess the advantage of economics of scale?

All things equal, the only thing they can justify their higher cost is the word convenience I think. Convenience comes at a price.

I don't know why, but one thing for sure, convenience stores love money. They love to sell toothbrushes at outrageous prices when they know they hold a monopoly in the area. And dumb policies like charging drinks by the cup, which means even if you want to use a cup to hold air, you still pay as though you are buying a drink. Alternatively small disposable cups are available, but one cup cost 20cents!

Personally I think that while maximising profits is important, building up a friendly environment is even more important. A store may initially earn alot from charging of empty cups, but unhappy customers may not come back a second time, and the store loses out in the long run. On the other hand, a store may not see significant profits by giving free cups away initially, but I guess little actions that make customers happy will make them come the second, the third, and more times.

In short, I think being too money-minded is not good. Hmm maybe I am not cut out for business. Haha.

Ah! What am I talking?! Everyone loves money! Who will not want money to flow seamlessly into their pockets every moment?

I do not recall any convenience stores participating in charity events, are there?

Then again, those remarks are made from a consumer's point of view. Perhaps there are plenty of unseen costs which they need to cover, thus the higher prices. On the other hand, from a lowdown employee's point of view, I see no extraordinary procedures in everyday work that requires exceptionally high cost.

I predict that in the next few days well-read customers will be using this particular report to bombard us with questions on why our things cost more. We the store assistants are in the frontline, the first to get hit if someone gets angry. Hopefully they will understand that we are mere employees, and have no say in the prices at all.

Talking about dumb policies, there are plenty of dumb policies. But that's besides the point for now.

Wahaha I wonder if the above remarks I made will get me into trouble. Hopefully not. Its just some random ranting.

I have entered/am entering my third month of work, which will be my last month. Looking back, time really flies; I have (fortunately) survived two months without much problems. Soon A Levels results will be released, and before I can settle down from the excitement/happiness/sadness of my results, I will be entering the army and missing out of the delights of civilian life.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Somehow there are people in this world who loves to spoil your day at work.

"Err madam do you have smaller notes? Because we don't have enough $10 notes. Very sorry..."

"What? I thought [the store I work at] should have enough small notes what."

"Err because throughout the day many people give $50, so now not enough change. Ya. Sorry..."

"Like this you should tell your superior about it."

Not wanting to make the situation worse, I gave her her change.

"Thank you very much."

*Gave me black face and walked off*

That was one rare occasion where I nearly, very nearly, blew off and spewed a whole of vulgarities at that woman and her eighteen generations of ancestors.

The abovementioned situation happens nearly every weekend, where the cash registers will be short of coins and notes, because the boss does not work on Sundays, so there is no one to open the safe and retrieve the money we throw in at the end of each shift. Most of the customers will reply politely that they do not have smaller notes, and usually add in a sincere apology. Some give a slight black face, shake their heads, and say nothing. But giving me a very black face and giving me dumb replies really put me off.

I almost wanted to decline that business deal, and let her scold me and take pictues and write in to whatever online newspaper portal, but my head was still cool enough to tell me not to do so. Maybe I would have done so if I were the boss of the store, and not some low down employee.

This job has certainly allowed me to broaden my scope of view on this world, and see the so many different types of people that exist.

Luckily there are customers who will brighten up my day. Especially those who acknowledge my efforts in helping them, with generous servings of thanks or smiles.

Chinese New Year is coming, and I think because I am no longer in school, I no longer feel any excitement. In school I usually look forward to CNY, because the eve usually meant a trip back to primary or secondary school to meet long time no see friends, or an outing with friends. Of course the main highlight was a much needed break from schoolwork.

Now CNY means stocking up the store with enough stuff to last the entire CNY public holiday, because stock doesn't come in during CNY. The only thing I look forward to is the long break from shortage of coins and small notes and cups and lids and straws and chopsticks and spoons and forks and everything else.

That's all the ranting I have, for now.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

What a week!

Earlier on I was complaining how my work schedule for this week sucked because I had to work six days a week, all in the afternoon shift, with only a day off on Wednesday (which I requested because I had to go back to college to help my juniors).

The reason behind my packed schedule is due to the fact that the store, already short of "store assistants", was facing a crisis as the three Olvls kids, together with another guy, were all quitting soon. There wasn't enough people to cover them.

Anyway, unable to take it, I got my brother to stand in for me on Tuesday, thus having another day of break for me to play my Need For Speed: Carbon.

I went to bed on Wednesday night feeling very sian, because of my next four working days. But I woke up with a sms from manager asking me to work the overnight shift instead, and going an additional two hours earlier, effectively meaning I work 10 hours.

So I worked the overnight shift yesterday. Initially I thought i was going to work alone, until someone from a nearby store came and helped me out. She was great, doing all the washing and cleaning, which I hated. Haha.

Then I realise that my original schedule for today was to work in the afternoon, starting from 3pm. But with my overnight shift ending at 7am this morning, it is impossible for me to start work at 3pm again. So I smsed my manager, and was delighted when she replied today is off for me.

At around 6.15pm today, while I was sitting at the sofa waiting for news to come, I got call from manager, asking me to go to work immediately, from 7pm to 11pm. So poor me rushed down.

A new schedule was out, and it stated that I have an off day tomorrow. Looking through I think the off day tomorrow is assured, since one colleague has just been promoted to a full time staff, so she has to work 6days/week now.

Anyway I just hope I will not receive any call from her tomorrow to go down immediately.

Next week's schedule is already out, and because two of the four guys leaving are the ones who usually work the overnight shift, so now that they are leaving, I am assigned to the overnight shift for four days in a row. >.<

As mentioned, I went back to college on Wednesday, to help teach my grand juniors in something which my juniors doesn't know, at the same time assisting them in their organising of ViCOMP 2007. Nothing much changed, except that most computers are now using LCD monitors.

I'm tired.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Its damn frustrating when I am one step away from getting Vista but could not because I do not have a credit card. I wonder why credit card payment is the only mode available.

As mentioned earlier, my computer is eligible for a "free" upgrade to Vista, needing to pay only for the shipping charges (which cost $29.99 for me). But I am still at square one because I am from a poor family.

Vista is no great operating system actually, which I found out after reading this and this. (It doesn't matter if you don't understand what its saying, I don't either.)

Besides those above, there are also issues like hardware requirements and the use of DX10.

Of course there are always teething problems when an operating system is launched, just like what happened when XP was first launched.

As for me, the main reason why I want to get Vista asap is solely due to the fact that it is cheap (The retail version of Home Premium upgrade cost $200+! The Ultimate cost $600+!!) But I have not decided if I want to install it after I get it. Maybe I will wait until it becomes more stable. It affects me greatly because I don't know if the software I use can work in Vista or not, like utorrent (heh), hamachi (gateway to fun!), DAEMON Tools (heh), all my games, avast, adaware, among others.

I need a bloody credit card now!