Last saturday, my cousin and I went for a meal at the Coca Restaurant located at resort world sentosa. This is my worst experience at in my life. The food there were not fresh. And I almost swallow a baby cockroach in!
Its only when I was blowing the spoonful of soup then I realise there is this black thing in my soup which on closer look I realise thats it’s a baby cockroach which i always saw in the car! And this cockroach totally make me filled with goosebump and lost my appetite.
My cousin called the manager and showed her the bowl of soup with the special ingredient. To our horror, this manager dont seems to be surprise or apologetic when she saw it. She can just told us that its just a small flying insect and cause we are seated near to the door the swing door open and close and its normal that this will happen. My cousin and i was more shock when we hear this.
And she did not even bother to do anything until my cousin said then what are you going to do now. Arent you going to change a new utensils and everything then she bothered to change.ue t And she just leave without even apologise to us or anything. But honestly I’m already too disguised to eat anymore. The manager then just continue to do her things like nothing happened at all which makes us even more unhappy about it.
When we asked for the bill and said that your manager did not even apologise for the incident that happened or give any form of compensation only then she came and apologise to us and said that she will give us free desert as compensation. Who on earth still have the appetite for desert after seeing a cockroach in her soup. And if i were to just drink the soup without blowing i might just drink it unknowingly.
As an F&B establishment, i seriously don’t think this is acceptable especially when the location is filled with tourist. It just goes to show how terrible is singapore standard. That was my first visit to this restaurant at RWS and I am pretty sure I am too freak out to enter this particular restaurant anymore.
For a small delivery fee, he will take your grocery shopping list that you have specified online, visit the store, call you if the products are not available, and deliver on the same day.
Mr Achmad Sobirin Suhaimi, 31, is part of a new wave of service providers taking online shopping to a new level.
The former full-time construction safety officer used to squeeze in grocery deliveries before or after work to earn some extra bucks.
Two months ago, he started his own company, and today, earns $3,000 to $4,000 a month helping clients – both individuals and businesses – do their day-to-day chores such as dealing with couriers, and personal grocery shopping.
“Raise fares to improve train service”, says the title of the letter to the Straits Times forum page on Wednesday.
Mr Jonathan Toh Joo Khai, the writer, pointed at the Public Transport Council (PTC), which regulates public transport fares, as the “root cause of SMRT’s frequent train breakdowns.”
“The fare hikes are miserly compared with the rate of inflation,” Mr Toh said.
He then rattled off a litany of “financial indicators” of the SMRT which, he said, “had been falling for five straight years.”
“Unlike other companies, SMRT cannot shed its money-losing train business,” Mr Toh said. “Yet, it is yet expected to improve reliability even as the PTC moderates fare hikes to meet the demands of commuters, some of whom even want a freeze to fare hikes until reliability improves.”
“How is that possible?” he asked.
He argued that “train fares in Singapore are low relative to gross domestic product per capita.”
Mr Toh thus called for fares to be increased, and that discounts be given to those in need.
“The rest who happily use our latest flashy iPhones and Samsungs to kill time on the trains can surely afford a fare hike,” he concluded.
The public transport operators (PTOs) make yearly application, usually towards the end of the year, for “fares review”, which the PTC will consider and decide on several months later, usually around March.
Mr Toh’s call is not new and is the latest in the last two years or so from various quarters who have also also called for higher fares for buses.
In January 204, for example, this report appeared in the TODAY newspaper:
TODAY, Jan 2014
“Rather than complain about both poor service and fare increases, perhaps it is time for a shift in commuters’ thinking towards paying even more, so that we get the transport services we deserve in a world-class city,” the writer said.
About four months later, the former chairman of the PTC, Gerard Ee, echoed the same sentiments.
Straits Times, May 2014
“At the end of the day, buses and trains are about transporting a lot of people from Point A to B as affordably as possible,” Mr Ee said. “So by that very nature, they are going to be crowded. They’re not designed for comfort.
“If you treasure your time and treasure your comfort, you pay a premium – there are premium bus services. If you value your time and comfort even more, buy a car. And then ultimately, get a chauffeur. You have to decide for yourself what it is you want.”
Straits Times, Jan 2014
But in January 2014, the PTC itself delinked the relationship between fare hikes and better service, particularly breakdowns of the system.
The PTC’s remarks were in response to public sentiments that fares should not go up when trains are still breaking down.
“[The] Public Transport Council (PTC) has said that the two issues should be kept separate,” the Straits Times reported.
Nonetheless, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in September last year that progress and improvements have been made, and that “there are not so many breakdowns as before.”
But just three months later, the TODAY newspaper reported that the “number of major MRT delays had hit a] four-year high.”
Sept 2014
There were 12 “major delays” in the first nine months of 2014 alone, the newspaper reported. This was more than the 11 for the entire year in 2011, the previous record number of delays.
And on Thursday, 30 July 2015, the Straits Times reported that there have already been “five major delays in Q1, nearly half last year’s total.”
Straits Times, 30 July 2015
“[There] were five service delays lasting more than 30 minutes between January and March this year,” the Straits Times said.
This included a disruption in February where a breakdown in the line between Yew Tee and Kranji station lasted for four hours and 38 minutes.
And earlier in July, the entire train system was shut-down for several hours due to a train fault, affecting 250,000 commuters.
Would all these problems disappear with the simple solution of increasing fares?
One would be hard-pressed to argue for such a simplistic expectation.
Yet, the truth is that much public funds have been poured into the transport system, billions in fact, and billions more have been earmarked for the same in the next decade.
And are the PTOs making losses?
If they were, there would be no justification for them to double the salary of their chief executive officer, as SMRT did this year, raising its CEO pay from S$1.2m in 2013, to $2.25m to $2.5m in 2015. (See here: “SMRT CEO paid $2.2m to $2.5m – a multifold jump in three years?“.
Service standards in Singapore have fallen sharply, said Mr Arthur Kiong, chief executive of Far East Hospitality, the largest hospitality chain here, leaving industry players and policymakers worried at a time when the sector is hit hard by a labour crunch and dwindling tourist arrivals.
Expressing his dismay over the state of affairs, Mr Kiong told TODAY: “Is it that we don’t get it or are business owners not really convinced that service is related to keeping customers and (to) profitability? The disproportionate response to this major issue from business owners is shocking. Many are so financially driven that they refuse to look at the larger picture.”
Taking no comfort in data showing productivity gains, he added: “Yet overall, our productivity has actually improved. Clearly, that is not real. It is because we can’t find people. There are fewer people doing the same job, so productivity looks to have gone up, but the quality has fallen.”
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said earlier this week at the Singapore Service Excellence Medallion awards that while service standards here have been raised over the past 10 years, there is still much room for improvement.
“Ask any tourist or even a Singaporean which country has good service, (and) I don’t think Singapore comes immediately to mind. In Singapore, I don’t think our culture and DNA are naturally service-oriented, but we, too, can learn from Hong Kong and other countries and transform our service industry,” he said.
Mr Kiong said the productivity push is also taking a toll on Singaporean workers. “We are trying to squeeze productivity, but Singaporean workers are feeling the heat as they realise that they have to do much more work at a comparatively lower pay increase. They originally thought their salaries will be better if there were no foreign workers. Now, fresh talent refuse to join the hospitality sector, looking at the hard work,” he said.
He added that Singapore should stop borrowing from other countries and instead reinvent itself, as he seeks to promote a unique “Singapore Hospitality” defined by three key attributes: Comfort without excess, aesthetics without ostentation, and attention without pretention.
“There is place and relevance today for this Singapore-inspired hospitality, both in terms of our strategy and the evolving new generation of travellers who are redefining service standards. They want comfort, but do not want to pay more than they should. Also, we need to understand well that they are in Singapore to enjoy the destination and not the hotel. The hotel is a small component, so we should be less arrogant about ourselves.”
Come July, with a focus on its key markets including Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, the United Kingdom and India, Far East Hospitality will launch two year-long campaigns: Heritage Food Trail, which will focus on local food; and Far More Singapore, which will showcase the Singaporean way of life.
With its portfolio of brands, the hospitality giant is targeting the mid-tier market. “We have different brands catering for different psychographic categories and are the first to do this. Others go by demographic, segregating products by price points,” Mr Kiong said. The psychographic approach targets consumers according to their attitudes and aspirations.
Far East Hospitality operates nine brands of hotels, serviced residences and apartment hotels, including Adina Apartment Hotels, Medina Serviced Apartments, Marque, Oasia, Quincy, Rendezvous, Travelodge Hotels, Vibe Hotels and Village.
After Chinese New Year next year, it will launch several new properties in Singapore.
Far East Hospitality is a 70-30 joint venture between Far East Orchard, a company under Far East Organization, and The Straits Trading Company. It operates a combined portfolio of more than 13,000 rooms across 80 hotels and serviced residences in eight countries — Australia, China, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore, with more in its development pipeline.
Such claims and actions by the PAP Town Council such as lawyers letters, etc are certainly typical.
A visit to the Income Tax office informing the officer of my reasons for not being employed for a certain period of time plus proof of non payment such as mortgage, PUB, etc, and thus not able to pay my outstanding income tax on previous years was rejected by the young BITCH officer. Her demeanour during the interview came across rather pompous and arrogant. She asked me to wait for her foe about 30 minutes while she reviewed my case with a SENIOR officer.
She got back to me after 50 minutes and told me that she did NOT believe my reasons for non payment thus she has to impose a penalty fee.
These young and stupid bookworm Tax officers, WHAT do they know about hard life? They come from comfortable generation and up bringing and is now being put in the TAX Government office as a intern/under study and behave like Demi Gods in deciding the faith of pheasants.
Not accepting the outcome, I decided to ask to speak with the senior officer whom she claimed to have a discussion regarding my case. This b*t*h told me that the officer in charge is engage in a staff meeting. I then told her to assign me to another officer. She told me they are all engaged. Thus, I told her that I will wait for the senior officer to finish the meeting and to get back to me while I wait at the desk where I was interviewed.
The b*t*h officer tried to wayang with me and told me she would try her best to get the officer to attend to me. Five minutes later, the senior officer attended to me. It took me within 5 minutes to explain my predicament, showed paper proof and mentioned of the wasted time which the young b*t*h officer had put me through including the statement she made to me earlier regarding her disbelieve. The senior officer returned within 5 minutes and gave me an acceptable solution. The young b*t*h who was with her appeared slightly upset and her demeanour seems deflated. My point is some of the officers working in PAP Government offices or under the umbrella of the PAP acts like a big fcuk thinking that we owe them even after we show proof of our predicament.
Please note that the income tax office of Sinkapore uses high end PLANTRONICS earphones and some high end Herman Miller office chairs. Tax payers are paying for expensive chairs in the Tax Dept to accommodate to these tender backsides working there. Is it necessary??
