foreign talents in Singapore dream blogpost

I waited 16 minutes to get an operator to clarify a small issue on my new DBS bank ATM card.

Heard from my friend that there are many big companies that outsource their call center to other poorer or cheaper country. Example, when we call to XXX company, they will divert our call to their call center situated in Republic of Banana United where cost of living is cheap and the salary for the operator is only US$150/month!

Thats why, save cost..... customer service in singapore had been getting to a lower standard since we get more foreigners to take up this position. did you realize that position like

1) walk in customer service officer

2) receptionist

3) tele-marketer

4) any job related to 'robotic speaking'

will hire people from a particular country? lets not point finger at that country now because by putting the name of that country in my blog may cause trouble to everyone. ok... lets call that country Republic of Banana United (RBU), so people from that country is call Bananaians.

ok, Bananaians speaks english with a very strong accent. the moment they speak, we know they are a Bananaian. Yes, as compared to many other 'Foreign Talents' in Singapore, they are the ones that could handle English better but so what?! they understand English but they do not understand what we want.

We went to repair my Fujitsu laptop. we bought it just for our round the world trip. It had been a very good traveling laptop. We bought Fujitsu because they have

#1 WORLD WIDE WARRANTY!!!

The specification is the same as the other brand we wanted to buy but the other brand is 30% cheaper and do not have WORLD WIDE WARRANTY.

#2 Fujitsu provide free

1 year WORLD WIDE WARRANTY

3 years LOCAL WARRANTY.

when we were in Brazil, Sao Paulo, something went wrong with my laptop. we need to wait about a week to get a reply from singapore to know were can we sent in our laptop for servicing since it is still within the 1 year WORLD WIDE WARRANTY. yes, after one week, we got the right person to talk to and the nearest place to sent the laptop is USA! we have to ship the laptop to USA?! no thanks. this is what they call WORLD WIDE WARRANTY.

then when we come back, we went to the Fujitsu servicing center to resolve the problem of our laptop that had been bothering us for the last 2 and half years. The laptop is still under the 3 years LOCAL WARRANTY.

friends, do not think that warranty is everything is FOC. We have to pay S$80++ to the company just to let them have a look at the laptop that they sold me 2 and half years ago. then i have to wait almost 1 month for a part to arrive in order to get it solved. when the part arrive, i have to hang around Funan for 5 hours to wait for them to repair.

What's worst is they did not solve my problem! WHY?! I also don't know why. anyway what I want to say here is that the customer service officer that served me is a BANANAIAN!

I told her my problem is ABCDEFG.

She gave me a look that I need to understand her because she just broke up with her boyfriend and she had her period today. There was no smile involved.

She looked around my laptop, type a lot of things into her PC.

Asked me to fill in some particulars and I need to sign some papers.

Then I read what she understands from what my problem is:

GF ED CBA.

She totally took my words, made into her own translation and mis-understood what I want to say.

'Yes sirrrr, your problem of your Laptop, problem A-G is in my list'

'yes lady, but ABCDEFG is not the same as what u meant by GF ED CBA'

then she took the papers back, continue typing at the same time, i realize that there is more than her breaking up with her boyfriend, she gave me a stronger look that she had lost all her shares market and going to the court next day.

I was so afraid.

Then she gave me a newly printed revised edition of what I wanted:

instead of

GF ED CBA

she improved it to

GFEDCBA

'i told myself, com'on. i just came back to singapore. maybe this is happening everywhere.'

i accepted her correction and yet, in the end after 1 month of waiting, after paying $80++ to see a lady and understand Banananian lady had just broken up with her boyfriend and had a bad day coming to work to serve me, my laptop is still the same.

I love foreign talents.

But why is this group of Banananians had such a special attitude? Is it because their mother married a western man and they are kind of a upper class citizen as compared to their fellow Banananians, then they could migrate out of their Republic of Banana United to come to Singapore, thus making them very 'high class' citizen in Singapore.

I remembered I did praised her, I said: lady, u looked very pretty. Are you a Bananian?

She added on, with her nose pointing up: Yes, but my dad is from America.

Q)Do we owe the Banananian a living?

A)I bet not.

Q)Do they have communication problem in Singapore?

A)Absolutely not because they can speak English and many of them are University Grads!

Q)Are the local big business company welcoming the Banananians?

A)ABSOLUTELY YES! they can pay 3 Banananians the same as hiring a Singaporean. So this poor Singaporean, after working for so many years for the company, got a little 'pension' and had to leave the company. or what's worst, the boss look out for some opportunities to kick the Singaporean out so that he would not need to pay the 'pension'.

Q) Are Singaporean adapting to the Banananians?

A) I really hope so.

Another thing I notice that the 'operating system' of a Banananian is different from us. They think differently. A very good example is telling numbers.

We input info from our eyes, we see the number, goes into the 'CPU' (our brain), then we speak it out.

Example the number 912312.

I see 912312, goes into my brain, then output from my mouth is:

Nine One Two, (with a pulse), Three One Two.

But for the Banananians, they are:

Nighty-one, (with a pulse) Twenty Three, (with a pulse) Twelve.

YES! THEY ARE CONVEYING THE SAME MESSAGE!

But whats wrong?????? do u get what i mean?

I really welcome foreign talents. We need them to be here for certain roles to BENEFIT SINGAPORE and SINGAPOREANS! Lets support our leaders in their plan for the Singapore. We should not look down on them even they might be different from us. yes, i am not happy with their work standard but it takes time for them to adapt to us. Singapore too, is made of people from many other countries and today, we are going to built a stronger Singapore by welcoming people that migrated from their country to Singapore. Just like our grandparents did. (for my case, it's my father that came from China).

Now, I am going to google to see which nationality falls under the list of Foreign Talents in Singapore. I hope the Thais fall under it because they had contributed their lives for the construction industry in Singapore for the past decades. Without them, we will have no new buildings today, that you and I are stepping on.

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oh, what the hell im writing about all these, i want to show you guys on our next blog posting on how we ship our bike across the 7 island of Indonesia, how people scribble and vandalize paint onto Hope Too. How we took on the last gamble that we 'show handed'.