Cogito ergo scribo

Ok, i know, i was supposed to be writing about my Kuching trip. Obviously i didn't and let my memory of the trip slip a little bit more. Sigh, talk about procrastination.

Yesterday was the last day of my 6-day medical leave (weekend inclusive) and i spent it watching Korean drama series that 贝 had downloaded for me. Of course i didn't watch it the whole day, just about eight hours of glueing my eyes to the laptop screen. It wasn't as bad as it sounds really, as i got something done in the morning and still remembered to take my lunch and bath.

What i did in the morning was something that i didn't have to do it personally but i didn't know. I went to the bank to settle my car loan, i.e. to pay off the remaining loan amount in full. Since we were gonna sell off our car in Malaysia and get one in Singapore, we had done some calculation and decided that it was better to do a full settlement of the car loan to save up on the loan interests of about RM5k. Then we would be able to get more cash back after selling the car. And in case you are wondering, no, we aren't so darn rich to have so much cash in hand for the settlement. We borrowed the money from 贝's mom and would have to return it to her once we sell the car.

I thought i needed to be at the bank personally to settle the loan, and so i went yesterday. Of course, i realized later that it didn't have to be the car owner to do it, and because i paid by a cheque, i would have to return another day to collect the release letter.

The whole experience at the bank was an unpleasant one. And for the record, it was AM Bank at Johor Jaya. The service totally sucked to the core. The tellers weren't efficient and worked like snails. Their attitude was terrible, and the service level was... wait, what service level?

Instead of greeting the customers politely, the teller showed her don't-ask-me-anything-because-i-don't-give-a-f*ck face. I told her that i wanna settle the car loan, and she just passed me a piece of paper with a sulky face and said, "write the car number." After i wrote it down, i asked if she needed the name of the car owner too. She didn't answer and just looked at me, still with that sulky face. Not getting any answer, i asked my question in a different way, "is the car number all you need?" She nodded, in her sulky look still.

She then checked the outstanding amount, wrote on the same paper, and showed it to me without saying anything. With that, i filled in the amount onto the blank cheque and handed it to her. She then did some processing, checked it with the bank officer, and then finally gave me a receipt silently, without any facial expression. I asked her about the release letter and was told that i could only get it after the cheque has been cleared. Then i asked if i have to come personally to collect the release letter. Her answer was "you'd better collect it personally". So was that a yes or a no to my question?

Fed-up with not getting any helpful information, i decided to go to the second floor where the car loan department was. I thought the staff there should be able to answer my query better, but what staff?

There were about six counters at the second floor, each with a sign indicating different functions, but only one was manned. Except for one, the rest were just empty chairs and tables. I sat at one of the counters with the sign "Release Letter" and waited. After about 15 minutes, there was no sign of anyone coming to serve me, nor the other customer who was beside me.

I was totally boiling inside. What kind of service was that? First, they had these unfriendly tellers to piss off the customers. Then as if they thought the customers weren't miffed enough, they complemented it with absence of staff. So it's basically telling the customers that, hey, it's either bad service or no service!

Finally, getting tired of waiting, i went to the only manned counter that was supposed to be for the payment of car loan installment and asked for information from the staff. Luckily this time the staff did answer my question and told me that i could write an authorization letter for someone else to collect the release letter on behalf of me.

When i stepped out of the bank, i was still fuming. I promised myself that this was gonna be my last time to deal with AM Bank. With this kind of service, or lacking thereof, i wouldn't wanna have anything to do with them again, ever.

Labels: life, rant, trivia