Moving on....

Moving is sometimes momentous

Looking back on my time in Singapore, it’s amazing, quite amazing that I’ve been here almost 8 years already. 

I recently celebrated my 40^th birthday, as if you didn’t know, and while I haven’t managed to update my blog since then, it was a truly wonderful affair – and I hope I’ll get time in the near future to do just that – and perhaps share a photo or two.  I know many of you are not on facebook and didn’t see the pics yet.

At my birthday speech in Singapore, I listed out a long list of changes since I landed on these fair – if ueber-hygienic – shores.  And there were many.  It seems the place hasn’t slept for a second in the intervening time and upwardly-mobile buildings are testament to the ongoing development of a relatively tiny plot of land on the nub of the Malaysian peninsula.  And more is planned – unstoppable?  Undeterred?  Certainly, unabashed..!

And it is amongst all this continuing change, which I, too, find myself crossing a Rubicon of my own that will bring about a huge transformation in my life.

I’ve had the blessed good fortune to travel the world, to work in many different places and meet marvellous people from all walks of life.  Working in Paris was beautiful beyond belief; living in Tokyo, tantalisingly unique.  Then came Singapore and travel from a very doable base to places of exotic superlatives such as Bali, Langkawi, Borobodur, Angkor Wat and Chiang Mai.  (Indeed, I’m zipping off to Burma in a couple of weeks’ time to wonder at the temples of Bagan.)

I’ve sipped tea in Beijing, guzzled gyoza in Kyoto, scoffed dim sum in Hong Kong, built houses in Mongolia, been awestruck at fireworks in Sydney, discovered a charm oft-hidden in Manila and still yearn to know and see more about Asia.  And yet....

And yet, the time has come to move.  And move quite a distance.

There is a place in the world that is actually growing faster than China, believe it or not.  There is a place that holds great promise and potential.  A place where corruption and state kleptomania rob its own people of health and prosperity.  A place that holds the most beautiful sights on earth; I’m moving to Africa.  Kenya to be exact and will live in Nairobi.  I will stay at Synovate and take on an operations role covering 10 markets.

Business will take me to incredibly legendary (and sometimes infamously so) places across sub-Saharan Africa.  Where I once would say, “I’m boarding the plane for Delhi”, or “I’m about to zip to HK and BKK for a few days”.  I will probably find myself quipping, “About to board for Lagos”, or “Just got back from Tanzania & Mozambique.”  My excitement is almost tangible.

Am I nervous?  Why of course, I am.  I think that’s natural when I’m over-turning, up-rooting my current way of life in such a radical way.  But I feel that trepidation is mollified by the wonderful adventure that awaits me.

So there you have it: I’m off on a new journey; off to write a new chapter of my life; off to find new challenges, new friends & new traditions.  I might even pick up a bit of a new language – they speak Swahili over in Kenya ;-)

I suspect that my blog will get more updates from now on as I discover a whole new world: a world that is AFRICA.

They came good

It's not often a company turns things around - I mean, can take an unhappy customer and make him positive again.

But following my electronic altercation with Rubicon Wines, that's exactly what has happened here.

They have come good....Here's the email trail so you can read for yourselves....

This is a great example of customer "centricity" in action:

From: Platinum Wine Club
To: smith@yahoo.com
Cc: darrenfrommaryport@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: Sat, 26 March, 2011 22:01:50
Subject: RE: Platinum Wine Club - New Orders Received - Order Ref No. 983

Darren

Apologies for any potential misunderstanding, but vouchers do not apply to
the Moet & Chandon Champagne . (I have requested of my marketing and IT staff
that the potentially confusing wording be changed.)

As a compromise, we can offer the same champagne without gift box at SGD64/
btl or SGD256 for 4. This saves you SGD20. Alternatively we can void this
order and you can order from the selection of wines that are eligible for
coupon utilization.  Please let me know you preference and we will process
the order accordingly.

Best Regards
Stephen 

_________

From: Darren Smith [mailto: darrenfrommaryport@yahoo.co.uk ]
Sent: Sunday, 27 March 2011 4:11 PM
To: Platinum Wine Club
Subject: Re: Platinum Wine Club - New Orders Received - Order Ref No. 983

 

Stephen,

That's a bit annoying.
Why does your online ordering allow it then?

Void the order.
I can get Moet cheaper elsewhere.

Disgruntledly,

Darren

PS You may want to read just how disgruntled I am on my blog...!

__________

From:	Platinum Wine Club ... Add to Contacts
To:	Darren Smith
Cc:	Natasha Ford

---

Darren:

 

I appreciate your disappointment. Our arrangement with AMEX is that we manage and sell wines via the Platinum Wine Club. We try and offer AMEX customers value. To do so, some of the products offered are not eligible for further discounting.

 

(I won’t bore you with the technical details, but changes to the wording on the site must be agreed upon etc. This takes time. In looking into this situation, I’ve notice several things that arguably could be clearer to the customer.)

 

As a business person, I’m sure you appreciate our need to manage this line of our business profitably. (Making it up in volume by selling it at a loss doesn’t work!)

 

I want to challenge you – find Moet & Chandon in Singapore (duty paid lah!) at less than SGD64, delivered to your door and I’ll pay you the difference. But the difference won’t be much and probably won’t convince you to work with us in the long term. But by all means feel free to do the due diligence and let me know!

 

Our business has been built one customer at a time. So I need to do something to make you happy. Rubicon Reserve Wines recently did a promotion with Groupon where for SGD38 people received a bottle of wine and were invited to attend a Sabrage course (using a saber to open a bottle of champagne.)

 

The marketing guys will get upset with me for mixing sales channels, but I’m inviting you to attend this course the next time it’s offered. I’m cc’ing Tash who’ll be in touch once the next session is confirmed. I’ll offer you the promotion price of SGD38 dollars for a bottle of wine & a bottle of sparkling wine, but you have to pick up the wine and attend the course to get the sparkling wine! Or just attend the course, gratis and I’m sure you’ll get a glass or two of bubbly!

 

(BTW, we won’t be using the Moet for this course, but if you find a bottle for less, you’ll have a great story to tell as you expertly pop the top with your saber – or carving knife!)  

 

I look forward to hearing back from you and I hope you are slightly less disgruntled

 

Best Regards

 

Stephen 

___________

From: Darren Smith [mailto: darrenfrommaryport@yahoo.co.uk ]
Sent: Monday, 28 March 2011 4:09 PM
To: Platinum Wine Club
Cc: Natasha Ford
Subject: Re: Platinum Wine Club - New Orders Received - Order Ref No. 983

 

Stephen,

I work in market research and do a huge amount of customer loyalty work.

It is not often that "dissatisfied" customers are tackled head on and even less so that their disappointment is transformed into delight.

I am impressed that you took the trouble to answer my points AND offered something over and above to regain my loyalty and, potentially, my renewed trust.

I will take you up on your Sabrage offer - gladly - it sounds like fun.

I will of course be updating my blog to put the record straight on how Rubicon Reserve Wines recovered this situation in an innovative and customer-centric fashion.

THANK YOU.

Darren

PS The search is now on for Moet at less than S$64....!  Will keep you posted.

________

From:	Platinum Wine Club ... Add to Contacts
To:	Darren Smith

---

Darren

 

Thanks for your note. (Most of the notes I get are of the ‘where’s my wine?’ nature.)

 

We’re not perfect, but we’re always trying to improve.

 

I’ll cancel the order and reverse the AMEX charges tomorrow.

 

I look forward to meeting you, and perhaps suggesting a few other champagnes or sparkling wines we carry, that may impress you more from a cost / benefit perspective!

 

Cheers

Stephen  

__________

PERFECT RECOVERY!!!!!

Thank you Rubicon Reserve Wines

Thought I'd beaten the system

When something seems too good to be true - yes, unfortunately, it usually is.

I have vouchers for a wine club here in Singapore (Reserve Wine Club with my Platinum Amex) and they promise S$50 off your purchase providing you spend S$250 or more.

So I checked the price of Moet - yes I like a sparkling tipple or two.  And when I bought 4 bottles applied my discount it worked out at a very nice S$59 per bottle.  A bargain.

Or so I thought...

Nowhere does it say I can only buy certain types of wine.  But then I get an email from the Sales Department stating that the coupons are not valid for this type of purchase.  WTF?


Read the small print - that's all I can say.
And did the company in question (Rubicon Wines) honour my purchase?
Did they hell...!

I feel another boycott coming on.  How dare they make me pay full price for Moet - it's not that bloody good.
Now Bollinger?!  Now that would have been fair.

Don't you all agree?

Christmas cheer?

What should I do?
Customary round robin - although it's not customary for me.
Send lots of paper cards - stopped really doing that a number of years ago; and it's environmentally challenging.
Blast an email or post on facebook wishing all and sundry the same simplistic Yuletide Yahoos?

Well, I have plumped for a slightly less impersonal but easier to disseminate blog update.

Now that I've established the medium, what about the content?

Should I rant on about what a wondrous year it's been?
Reel off ad nauseum the number cities and other places I've set a tick against this year?
Tell the readers to distraction how lucky I am to be who I am and where I am and what I am doing?

No, no, no.

That would be tiresome enough for me to type, let alone for you to plough your way through.  I think I'll make myself a cup of tea and hope for inspiration.

***

I'm back, having spilled the demerara sugar all over the work counter. 

I have had a "problem" with ants all year long and only recently managed to keep them at bay with more thorough washing down of my work surfaces, using the dishwasher more and keeping a tight lid on sugar and honey containers.

Then I go and advertise my sucrose abundance for all sugar-loving insects to wiggle their antennae at.  Sigh.

Well it's cleaned up now & hopefully my mince pies will remain vermin-free.

What did I go to the kitchen for?

Ah, yes inspiration.

Not sure I found that - but the perspiration definitely started.

And this on top of leaving the flat without my keys this morning, verbal fisticuffs with my bank about verifying my identity, wine being delivered to the wrong place, and a thumping headache from indulgence the night before.

I ought to be humming Deck the Halls or something but find myself rendering Gloria Gaynor miffed hoping I Will Survive.

Now the man below has started drilling.  DRILLING on Christmas Eve - what the eff is he drilling for!?  Installing a coat hook for Santa's gown?  Putting up a hook to dangle his devilish pentacle on?  Oh, honestly I give up.

Bah humbug....I'm a Christian, get me out of here.

***

Let's start again.

I *have* had a good year.  There have been the usual tribulations and a few zeniths to counterpoint a sprinkling of nadirs.  Let's see if I can get a calendar filled:

January saw a fab New Year at Forlino's with friends and a fleeting romance.  Then a cold birthday in Montreal and New York.

February had me rush back to Maryport to visit my grandmother in hospital.

March took me back to say goodbye to her - and remember her wicked sense of humour and the love she showed me.

April roared with beasts on safari in Kruger, South Africa, we slurped wine in Franschoek, gobbled down zebra in Cape Town and basked in the wonderful sunshine of Camps Bay.

May turned pink in Singapore and I had the worst ever reaction to cat fur...yuk!

June led me to a bar and a man.

July allowed me, thanks to subsiding ash clouds, to zip to Reykjavik with a good friend: rocks, raw nature, thermal springs and a reindeer pelt.

August opened up Manila in a whole new way for me - a surprising realisation of a city with more to offer than you might initially think.

September saw birthday coffee and cake, a Filipino wedding, and a volcano through the mist in Tagaytay.

October had my parents visit Singapore - yes, the entire month - but they're so low maintenance it's unreal.  Also, managed a *weekend* in London - yes a weekend ;-)

November bestowed a work trip to Bali on me - how cool is that?!

December took me to Hong Kong and my heart on a new journey.  Christmas in Singapore, New Year planned for Sydney and spending lots of time with friends and several glasses of plonk.

Well, I've done what I set out NOT to do.  Round robin it is....!

Hope you enjoyed the 2010 - as much as I did.

Here's hoping that 2011 will be tremendous.

A few pics below (also 12 of them) which almost match the events above.

D

Wishing you a splendid Yuletide filled with love and peace.

Of puppets & boot polish

I've been holed up over the last couple of days with a relatively mild bout of flu.

And while (naturally) I've been convalescing, there is always energy to type a few search mnemonics to keep the mind occupied.

I was thus tempted and ultimately intrigued to find some delightful memories of my teenage years and before on YouTube.  Do you remember Spitting Image?  I was once again engrossed in the lampooning of everyone from Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock and Emelda Marcos, to some of the perhaps less offensive faces from the 80s, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Desmond Tutu.

I smiled to hear the Chicken Song and equally nostalgic about I've Never Met a Nice South African.  They were great skits indeed.



Another childhood memory was stirred by The Black and White Minstrels.
This was a classic BBC masterpiece that ironically had white men black themselves up and then serenade white women.  All kinds of dancing and singing had white girls fawning and ultimately (symbolically of course) fornicating with the boot-polish clad young white/black men. 

Forget the PC-vomiting middle classes' views on this - I find it great forward-ahead-of-its-time support for inter-racial relationships - or am I being a tad myopically revisionist?!  No replies needed on that - my tongue if firmly wedged in my cheek.

Will leave you with a single link and you can YouTube search the rest.  This link combines the above two memories with a splendid rendition of the Black and White Minstrels as the South African Apartheid government of PW Botha and nicely-done white on white mocking of the regime back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_eSUQgLZXg

And remember only a few days left til Christmas...mine certainly won't be white - but I'm hoping it won't be too black either.  Keeping my chin up.

Keep yours up too.

Management fees? Agentic forces amok....

I have the grave misfortune to have one of my properties managed by a company called HML Hawksworth and every interaction with them is a source of lime-juice-in-an-open-wound kind of smarting.

And I correspond with them in the most ascorbic of English whit to no avail.
My latest "letter" - although it's more of a ranting vent - curses the fanciful increases in management fees and I fear the proverbial seed will fall on barren ground.

Here's what I said ( I do hope it was not only clear, but scathingly abrupt to jolt them into action) :
-----------------------


Pam,

I trust you are doing well since our last exchange.  There was one item left unanswered and now it's raised its irrepressible head again.

It was the question of email correspondence.

I asked if I must request each time a letter is sent to my parents to have that sent by email - which in all logical sense defeats the object of email communication.
But since the "papyrus" has once again thudded against the lobby mat of my parents' house, I feel compelled to ask the question a second time.

Why, oh why, in 2010 can I not have my (sometimes extortionate - and more on this anon) demands requested of me by email directly without the archaic apology for interaction that is Royal Mail being deployed so religiously?

My second intriguing question is on your increase (yet again) in charges.
Some points to answer please:

a.  What was the nature of the fire?  I did not see any other communication on this from either yourselves or my agent.  Shouldn't we sue someone?
b.  7% is abominable in these times of austerity - indeed I said this last time and my words fell upon deaf ears.  Please comment.
c.  Did no-one else complain at this Alice-in-wonderland kind of increase?  If so, what is being done to address the communal concerns about annual above-inflation increases?
d.  I find it incredulous that you "look[...] forward to receiving prompt payment" and then wish us a "Happy Christmas" when all we have to "look forward" to is more outlay.  No need to comment on this point.

I, equally and impatiently look forward to *your* prompt reply.

Disappointedly, again,

Darren

Agents and their egos

I love telling you all about my letters I write.
I recently had missed a notification of some management charges for an apartment, that Baxter and I own in the UK.

I pleaded with them to waive the charges as getting mail to Singapore can be a tad challenging and also to jolt themselves into the 21st century and perhaps adopt email as a means of notifying owners of their liabilities.

Below is the reply from the company and my answer....hope you enjoy my not-so-subtle sarcasm - I'm sure it's bloody well lost on Pam Dhillon.!!!!

__________________________________________

---

From: Pam Dhillon
To: darrenfrommaryport@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: Tue, 16 November, 2010 17:11:47
Subject: Service Charge

Good morning

Thank you for your email, I can confirm that the charges cannot be waived, I did request this to my MD.

We will send demands to the address provided by yourself.

Kind Regards   

Pam Dhillon Senior Property Manager HML Hawksworth Ltd Gillingham House 38 - 44 Gillingham Street London SW1V 1HU Tel: 020 7802 0000   Fax: 020 7802 0001 Email: info@hmlhawksworth.com   Web: www.hmlhawksworth.com

MY REPLY:

Pam, I should thank you for your email - even though I had to chase. I'm disappointed (yet again) at HML's intransigence and inflexibility towards overseas landlords who need to be made aware much more in advance than UK-residing owners. When you say "cannot", I believe your MD and HML actually mean "won't".  Thanks for not-a-lot. BIG SIGH. Anyway, I won't get anywhere with such a rules-driven, non-customer-friendly organisation - will I?!!?  Unless, you're going to prove me wrong....could you!?!? Finally, please confirm when you say "address" you mean email address as requested.  I have to ask clarification on so many points. Thank you in advance, Darren - disgruntled and deflated.   Tel: +65 6501 9808 - work / +65 98717903 mobile