Amateurs and Pros

I just noticed the Christmas decorations at Fahrenheit 88:

Now, what on earth are they thinking?  That is an absolutely miserable attempt.  On a good day that could almost be considered tasteful.  That will not do at all - they have got to learn from the masters at Pavilion:

Now, THAT is how it's done.  Nobody can make absolutely mad and utterly tasteless decorations than the guys at Pavilion.  They have taken the art form to an entirely different level.

Brilliant Air Asia "Service"

Just received this SMS from Air Asia:

RM0.00 Urgent! AirAsia flight AK 828 from Kuala Lumpur  to Phuket on 22nd Nov 2011 is now DELAYED to 2110 hrs(09.10 pm). We apologise for the inconvenience caused

I got two problems with this. First of all I received this SMS at 8.05pm 5 minutes before scheduled takeoff. Second problem is the delay was actually until 11pm. Useless!

Healy Mac's Cattle Hoarding

As readers of this blog have probably realized already, I am generally not impressed by the service in Malaysian bars and restaurants. Generally poor and inattentive service is caused by uneducated staff and clueless owners and it is not particularly malicious.  For the past year or so I have been a fairly regular visitor to Healy Mac's in Changkat Bukit Bintang, but yesterday I had what I can only describe as a quite shocking experience there.

When I arrived I bumped into a friend of mine who was seated at a tiny table squeezed into a corner.  One of the staff approached us and suggested we moved to a larger table.  While moving I pointed out to the staff that this larger table had a sign saying "reserved" on it.  The staff said that was not a problem and removed the reserved sign from the table.  I now proceeded to order drinks and dinner for two.  About five minutes after the drinks arrived, but before dinner arrived, another staff approached us and informed us rudely that "we had to move to another table since this table is reserved".  I pointed out that we had been seated at this particular table by one of the staff (and pointing out to said staff that the table had a reserved sign) and that I found it extremely inconvenient to hoarded around like cattle - in fact inconvenient to a point where I would rather enjoy dinner in an alternative establishment if they insisted.  A few minutes later the manager of the place arrived and ordered us to leave the table.  He used the word sorry a lot but this must be the particular Malaysian type of sorry (which is just a word with no meaning whatsoever) and the fact that we had been seated at the table by a member of the staff didn't seem to have any influence whatsoever.  At the end of the day I gave up and went to another restaurant for dinner.

While having dinner at Finnegan's, I couldn't help myself thinking about good old Fawlty Towers:

It is extremely funny watching John Cleese make an arse of himself, but trust me - my experience in Healy Mac's was not funny.

I can't help myself thinking if this is in some way related to the infamous quiz night.  Last year Healy Mac started having a weekly quiz night on Mondays and in the beginning it was great fun.  Unfortunately at some point the whole thing started being way too serious and to me that reached the pinnacle when I was invited to join some kind of "championship" and without being told or asked turned out to be representing Healy Mac and the name of our team was forcefully changed to reflect that ("Healy Mac's ...). I pointed out that I don't represent any commercial entity without getting compensated so I immediately resigned from the team and have not participated in the quiz night ever since.  I guess in some way this might have been the manager's little revenge but it is mind boggling how something that should be fun can turn into something this serious.

Speculation aside nothing can change the fact that the staff and the manager of Healy Mac's stepped out of line in this case and what is worse - they did this knowingly.  How on earth they can justify treating their customers with this little respect is beyond me and I can only urge everybody to avoid this place completely.

One last thing.  I did notice a few complaints on Healy Mac's facebook page, and I did in fact comment on one myself.  However, within 24 hours my comment (and the other negative comments) were deleted.  I have seen this before and I can only repeat that places who do not stand up to public scrutiny but have to hide criticism has got serious problems and that alone is reason enough not to visit them. A serious pub or restaurant listen to their customers complaints - that is the only way they can improve.  A place who ignore and try to hide negative comments is a place who have no intention or wish to improve.

What are the Odds?

Just now I was waiting for a while outside McDonald's on Bukit Bintang and there was a group of 6 deaf ladyboys chatting away using sign language.  At first I didn't think much about it, but I was bored waiting and then it struck me - this was actually quite a unique experience.

I mean - face it - how many guys discover they are ladyboys?  1 in 1000?  How many people are born deaf?  1 in 1000?  That means that 1 in a million guys is possibly deaf ladyboys.  In other words - there are perhaps 10 in Malaysia - and 6 of those were right in front of me.  Quite incredible.

A Very Careful Promise

The Malaysian Immigration office web-site states the following:

"Remarks: Passport can be ready in 1 hour after payment"

That is really not much of a promise is it?  It can be ready?  On the other hand - it might actually take 8 hours or several days?

Craftsmanship Malaysian Style

I've been annoyed for a while that my own wireless Internet is just exactly out of reach when I'm at the pool.
Finally the management installed wireless Internet at the pool side and that is a good thing.

I am however not exactly impressed with the craftsmanship and I am not sure how long it'll work.
It's not exactly the most professional looking installation I've seen.



Let's zoom in on that a bit.



In-fucking-credible - it would have taken what - half an hour more to extend those wires up to the roof and hide the damn thing up there.

Update, Nov. 17, 2011

OK, I guess that was too ugly and shabby even by local standards, so while having my morning coffee today, the maintenance guy showed up.

He was messing around for about an hour or so, and this was the result:

A tiny little bit better but still not fantastic is it?

Learn From the French and the Russians

The French managed to sell subs and the Russians managed to sell planes. I bet it's mostly a matter of proper motivation.

Nice try!

Christmas is arriving in KL and as usual it arrives way too early.  Pavilion usually have the most bizarre Christmas decorations and it would appear that this year is no different.

Today I noticed these:

The fun begins when you move up close:

It looks to me that this year they are actually trying to grow Christmas trees and they obviously got it all wrong :)  I don't think they'll be done before Christmas.

Why?

One of the latest monstrosities on Bukit Bintang is the oddly named Fahrenheit 88 (see pic).




Never mind Fahrenheit is exclusively American these days, but 88?

If I am not mistaken, 88 Fahrenheit is roughly 31 degrees Celsius and I find that somewhat odd. What are they trying to say and what's the bloody point?  It's not as if 31 degrees is sort of not cool - and not really hot too - just sort of lukewarm really.

Lars' Principle (or: Avillion Port Dickson Lost the Plot)

The Peter Principle describes how "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".  I'd like to use this opportunity to announce the Lars Principle, which describes how in Malaysia every hotel and/or restaurant keep increasing the price until there's absolutely no value for money left.


The latest example of this is Avillion in Port Dickson.  Avillion have always been expensive.  In fact it has always been damn expensive, however - in my opinion - it has got two things going for it:

• The rooms are awfully pretty
• The "adults only" pool

The service have never been all that great and the food is absolutely not spectacular in any way, but those two things sort of made the place worth a visit anyway.  However, now they have raised the price to RM 600++ per night (and that was on a damn Sunday - absurd).  I guess 600 per night would be ok if everything about the place was fantastic, but seriously - it is NOT and in that light the price is truly absurd.

I arrived a bit early on Sunday Oct. 30, 2011, so the room was not ready.  Since I did arrive at 11 that wasn't really surprising and I don't blame them for that.  I just went to the pool to wait there.  However, arriving at the pool, things really went south.  The pool attendant more or less ignored us completely, and when asked about towels his response was: "towels out - no towels - half an hour".  I am sorry - 600 ringgit per night and they are out of towels.  Around 12 I went to see if my room was ready and it was.  While at the reception, I did tell the girl in the reception that it was kind of absurd that they didn't have towels and she promised to take care of it.  She also promised to fix the TV in the room (which was not working).

At 1pm, towels still hadn't arrived at the pool, so I decided to give the manager a call and raise some pulses a bit.  The manager promised to take care of it immediately.  Well, I don't know what was/is her definition of immediately, but the towels finally arrived at 3pm - JUST as it started to rain big time.  In other words - the few hours of sunlight there was, we couldn't really use the pool as there was no towels.

When the rain started, we went to have some lunch.  While having lunch I asked the guy who appeared to be the manager at the Crow's Nest if there was anywhere I could watch the Formula 1 race in the late afternoon.  He promised to check it out and came back a while later and said that it was not possible since they did not have Star Sports channel anywhere.

After lunch, leaving the Crow's Nest restaurant, I went pass Avillion's karaoke bar, and on a sudden impulse I went in and asked the girl in there if they could show Star Sports since I wanted to watch the Formula 1.  The girl said that she would see what she could do and call me when she knew more.  Half an hour later she called and confirmed that of course she could show me the Formula 1.

At 5pm I went to the Karaoke bar and watched the Formula 1.  I did have a chat with the girl working there, and it turns out she was a student and she had only been there for 2 weeks.  Now - let me repeat that - she was a student and had only worked in Avillion for 2 weeks.  In my opinion she was the ONLY person I came across that actually behaved as she worked in an exclusive and expensive resort.  She obviously went above and beyond what is generally expected of staff there and honestly - it is not her that should be a student - she should be the teacher educating the rest of the staff there.  I sincerely hope they pay her well, because she is the only staff they got that actually go out of her way to make the guests feel welcome.

The conclusion is quite obvious though.  Avillion - or rather the owners of Avillion - look at the place as a cash cow.  They try to cash in on the fact that they are seen as the best resort in the area, but in reality they just want your money - they are (with the exception of the before mentioned student) doing absolutely nothing to make guests feel welcome or to justify their absurd pricing.  Needless to say I will try very very hard to find alternative places (and for that price I can actually fly up to Thailand and find one there).