Friday, July 23, 2010

Maikling Patalastas

Para sa mga na-Ondoy sa nakaraang taon, may mga nagbebenta ng libro na "on sale." Kasama dito ang iba't ibang Powerbooks branches, at ang bodega ng Books for Less sa (loob-loob ng) Pasig. Kung kaya niyong mag-dyip o fx (kahit galing Shaw) upang makamit ang iba't-ibang mga diskwentong inaalok dito, saludo ako sa iyo. :D

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

how to kvetch...

this horrible storm (Basyang) reminds me of Milenyo, a howler of a storm that knocked over plenty of power lines. if going without electricity for 16-24 hours is agony for you, imagine going without it for almost two weeks.

despite reporting the situation several times to customer reps at Meralco, it really grated on our nerves to see neighbors have electricity and we didn't (eventually the servicemen discovered that part of our line had been stolen)...and it got so bad i didn't want to see another candle, not even on my birthday cake...so i emailed every Meralco branch in the area with this letter (result: we had servicemen by the end of the day) :


Imagine if you will being without electricity for more than a week
since the onset of Milenyo. Imagine the utterly ridiculous situation
of your neighbors having electricity -left, right, front (even the
squatters nearby have electricity) and YOU DON'T. Imagine the surreal
and frustrating experience of following up this situation with
apathetic customer service reps who don't log in your complaint. Then
again, why don't you try coming over to (street address deleted) in QC and SEE FOR YOURSELF? I and my family do not have the luxury of checking into a hotel when we don't have electricity. And it is obviously useless talking to a customer service rep when they don't
bother to log in a complaint from paying customers.

What kind of amends
can Meralco make other than a lame "we'll schedule someone to check
out your situation but right now we don't know when we can service
you..." Wow. How about making up for our discomfort by waiving our
electric bill for this month? No? It seems your company is quite
content to allow us to go without electricity for another week, maybe
a month if your people seem inclined to do so. We have an invalid
96-year old grandmother we can't even check into the hospital so she
won't have to suffer from the heat and mosquitoes.

If your people cannot even inform us when someone will actually
restore power to our home (preferably this century, thank you), please
do us the courtesy of informing us if we should bother paying your
company for not doing a thing or if we can switch to alternative power
sources like solar energy, wind power, maybe hook up 100 hamsters to
exercise wheels to power an electric fan? 10 days without electricity
in a very populated and almost-commercial area is a pretty long time
to do without this urban necessity.

But then, I doubt your company CARES. Your neglect speaks volumes.




Sincerely,


(name deleted)
(etc deleted :D)

Thursday, July 1, 2010

They did it again, and again, and AGAIN...

Pardon me as I lose my temper.

Years ago, my car was broken into, after making the common mistake of parking it in what I thought was the safest possible place: a guarded parking lot in a busy business district. Turns out you don't pay for "secure parking" --you just pay for that bit of land your vehicle sits on, and the succeeding hours fund those fancy attendant uniforms, computers that keep track of how many minutes you went over your alloted time, and that mechanized arm that swings up and down to set you free from the damned place after you pay through the nose.

As much as possible, I avoid any parking lots managed by that company, thanks to their shoddy handling of the situation. And now I learn that someone else recently had his car broken into IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. Where are the rent-a-cops when you need them? It's as if thieves view these places as their personal candy jars, to raid whenever they please.

One blog post pretty much summed the experience for many who were victimized. While there were those who had plenty to say about leaving one's personal belongings or parking in unlit areas, this reply did the job. (Thanks Annie)