Your Right as a Consumer

I think it is a Malaysian culture to tolerate in so many things. That is a reason why the consumer power is not very strong as in western. It was my friend who made a claim last time about a speaker that he bought and within one day, the customer service arrived in-front of the door replacing with a new one. That was the scenario happened in the U.K. But in Malaysia, most of the customer service will asked 1001 questions to confirm the defectiveness of the product. Such as "have you turn the switch on?", "Make sure you connect the cable right", yada yada... At the end of the day, we felt frustrated and finally we prefer to solve the problem by ourselves.


So, about my experience yesterday, I went to Giant Hypermart in Senawang. I just don't know why, I felt attracted to this travel set tooth brush. After make a few nano-second of thinking, I made a decision to own one (since I spending most of the time at office, sometimes I might forgot to brush my teeth). It was recorded in my mind the price was RM15-something. It just happened that my eyes were pin-point at the display during the cashier scanned the bar-code and I saw it was RM16-something. WTF... Hey why should I pay more than the displayed price? I contacted the guard on the right channel to make the complain, and the guard asked me to see the supervisor.


After giving a simple explaination, I have to show her the place where I took it and verify that it was their mistakes. I was given RM1 refund and the supervisor just innocently move away. It was not a big deal isn't it? What can we do anyway with RM1 in today's world? If you are thinking in this way, then you are wrong... When I was a QA in my previous company, our senior manager told us the company is like a ship, sailing through out an ocean. Customer complain will act like a bomb and if there are too many of it, will cause the ship to be drown and finally all of the sailor will be jobless. Maybe malay people are too kind to put a bomb on a sailing ship?
Even if it involves 10c, we should gather to build the consumer power here in Malaysia. We put on the bomb not to jeopardize the company, instead to make their service better and will benefit us as a consumer in the end.

Happy Chinese New Year 2009

Happy Chinese New Year to all Chinese readers and also all Malaysians.. Hope this year of Ox will bring you happiness and prosperity.

Economy -> Aku-no-money

Some might not really feel the effect of global recession. Industries which depends on local market such as telecommunication, agriculture, food and beverages, government related, or education might not directly feel the impact of this hard time. But industries such as manufacturing and automotive are now struggling with the super low demand especially from the west.

This time recession is worst than 1997, where at that time only Asia's currency was drop. The ringgit value was depreciating but the order from the west were still sustainable. So, any company who are exporting at that time can profit more when exchanging the value of dollar to RM.

But now, the situation is totally different. Companies are trying to minimize the their losses. Hundreds of thousands were unemployed. Some was been given unpaid-leaves.

On the other hand, it is the good opportunities to grab. All the stocks market are going down, so as the unit trusts. If the fund allowed to do so, this is the golden opportunity to invest. Make sure you study first on how to invest, and make sure you are investing, not gambling.

On time like these, peoples always thinking on the way out. I can bet many entrepreneur will be born at this time and making millions of ringgit in the next few years. I was thinking the same way too. I need to have enough sum of income to welcome the new members into our family around next March (insyaallah). But I don't worry too much, because I believe in God. He's the one who provide us with all the rezeki.

Barack Obama - Change?

Today, the first black president of US will be officially step his foot into the white house and starting his duty as the president. How far can he make the "CHANGE" which words that always been use during the election campaign. Just wait and see.

Happy New Year 2009

Thanks to God for giving me the opportunity to continue living in this year 2009. As usual, when new year came, new calendar to open, new date format when sigining (oftenly people will put signature and still past year date during early of new year), new vision and target setting, new diary or organizer, and of course for those who in the school, new year of studying.

It was the global recession lately and Malaysia too have to face the effect which originally from the sub-prime crisis in America. Since the electronics industry depending on American market, it has the greatest impact from the crisis which caused these companies need to consider retrenchment plan. One of the good news is many shutdown days.

I really felt like having a trimester break (since last time MMU have 3 semester per year, we have trimester break instead of semester break). I'm using this opportunity to stay with my wife, since we live a part. Before this I am considered weekend husband, but now I have the opportunity to feel what actually is a weekdays husband.

Beside, I have discovered my new interest. I planted some of the chilli plant, which one of my favourite food was the sambal lada - a minang cousine. It really fills-up my empty schedules during these long holiday. At least it will give me some experience before I plant it in a large scale in the future.