Small Business Ideas

Lately, I have been having all these ideas about starting a small business in the office. Perhaps, I could add some pocket money to go to Mecca in December.

I did try accessories trading once. That was 6-7 years ago perhaps. I didn't work out well. Now my love is food. I like cooking and I love seeing people eat my food.

Fruits cocktail pudding is my favourite dessert. My mom makes the best fruit cocktail pudding.

Another recipe that I might try is kek batik. Super easy.You can google the resepi.

Another item that I might want to sell, is aiskrim Malaysia. Just a few simple but yummy flavours like bandung, jagung, milo, asamboi... Miam

I hope I could start the project over the weekend. We shall see..

Me & Spicy Food

Its lunch time. I am trying to cut back on food since I realized that I am expanding sideways. I didn't gain weight tho. But some of my post op clothes almost cannot fit anymore. So today I had breakfast, skipping lunch, drinking a lot more water than I normally does and I will take dinner so that I can sleep well tonight.

Being a typical Malaysian when it comes to food i.e we Malaysians love food. Local, western, Middle Eastern you name it. I love them all. My absolute kryptonite is coffee and cheesecake and spicy food. I used to love ice cream but now not so much and I don't know why.

Back to the topic, for those who don't know, I have a medical history. Last March I had an emergency operation for intestinal tumor. So, I figure after surviving the whole ordeal, I should take better care of my intestine right? I tried. Coz a few month after the corrective operation, my intestine does not digest as well as it used to.

So last week, I made chicken bolognese. Chili powder and coarse black pepper were amongst the ingredients apart from onion, tomatoes etc. It turns out tasty. The first night I had it, I didn't have any issue with it. Since the sauce I made was a lot. I get to reheat it and eat for dinner the next day. Coz I am trying to finish the whole sauce, I ate a huge bowl of pasta as a result.

I could feel there was a slight heat after finished eating the whole bowl of pasta, and then the toilet visits started. Didn't get much sleep that night and it continues till the morning. Its not diarrhea, lucky me. But having to go to the toilet instead of sleeping can drained you. So the next morning, I had a mug of black tea and slept in the whole day.

So I assume that I can't tolerate heat from spicy food as I used to. Recently I had bad experience after eating a smoked salmon sandwich with Tabasco sauce. I think I did go overboard with the Tabasco sauce. Another sauce that my stomach could not tolerate is Life Chili and Garlic Sauce. Its not that spicy but somehow, it irritates my intestine so much.

I need to take good care of my health as it is a blessing that I am still alive after undergoing 4 operations this year.I should start my exercise regime but I am too lazy and there is no cure for laziness.

Customer Service in Malaysia

On my way to work today, I stop by a Dunkin Donuts (DD) shop to get my morning coffee and some donuts. I don't do this everyday, let me tell you that. I just love to indulge in good coffee just to motivate me to go to work early on a Monday morning.

So, since it was pretty early and perhaps I was their first customer of the day and it is Monday, the server attending to me today was not too friendly nor smiley. I am not a cheerful happy morning person my self and I rarely take offence to such behaviour. But somehow today I was a bit offended. Me being me, I keep it all to myself and rant out on my blog instead.

So, I wanted to get iced latte and some donuts to go so when I walk in there is no welcome greeting (that is fine by me) and there is no "what would you like to have?" or "can I get your order?" from the staff. She just stood there looking at me while I look at the menu. After telling her I want iced latte without whipped cream, she went straight to making my drinks. It took her about 3 minutes or so and once finished, she asked whether I want anything else. Which is good coz I do want some donuts. Who went in DD without getting donuts is a weirdo in my book.

Anyhow, after telling her I want sugar raised, chocolate and blueberry filling she told me the total costs. I think it was less than RM 20, RM16.70 or sumthing but since I have no small notes, I had to hand her RM50 note. She asked whether I have smaller notes and I told her no, I don't but I have small change. So I fished out 70 cents from my purse and put it on the counter. As she was counting my balance, I told her, "here, I have shillings". She just handed me my balance and said, "we have so much shillings already".

I was surprised. I remember when I used to work as a cashier during semester break long long time ago, I begged for small change. Normally I asked for small change like 10 - 50 sen max but there will be time when we ran out of shillings that we asked for 50-70 sen. But today, I offered 70 sen and she rudely refused. Whoa... Probably she was mad that I gave her RM50 notes so early in the morning and she is now running out of RM10 notes. I've been in her shoes, that is why I didn't lash out. I simply said, "okay" and walked out. 

I have several other bad examples to share but I think, it all comes down to education. People working in customer service line, need to educate themselves well on how to treat customer courteously. I am not a difficult customer, so why did I do to deserve such a treatment this morning?

There was this one time my sister and I had the worst customer service experience at a Pizza Hut in Kampar that we immediately e-mailed a complaint whilst having our meal. We did not scold the staff or anything like that coz to me, its not their fault they are behaving that way. They did not get the proper training,  that's all.

 

photo from reflectionofsanity.blogspot.com

I was in Mid valley Kuala Lumpur a few months back. At that time, Antipodean, a new coffee joint just opened. It was noon I think and one of the owners were there. An expatriate, and he was showing his staffs who are mostly locals on how to properly wipe a table. I am sure that they were also taught on how to greet customers and how to take orders etc because I always had good experience having coffee there. Antipodean in Mid valley is just a normal coffee shop. No fancy furniture or deco, nothing. But they serve awesome tasting coffee by great servers. I could just sit there alone, having cups after cups of coffee. Totally addictive!     

Customer service in Malaysia is nothing to brag about. Some Starbucks joints do have those amazing servers that will try to make you smile and left an impression on you and there are some who tried too hard and left the wrong type of impression in your life ( I encountered those too) So, as a customer dining and transacting in Malaysia, I advice you to lower your expectation so that you would not be too dissapointed. If you have a fickle partner who had the tendency to complaint and lash out at every minor or major faults, I advise you to quickly run before your partner exploded in front of everyone (I encountered this too but too bad it was a drive thru transaction thus I had no where to run)

Have a great week ahead peeps!

Review: Teater P. Ramlee the Musical

Last Friday I had the chance to go and watch P. Ramlee the Musical at Istana Budaya so here is my humble review.

First of all, the lead actor Tony Eusoff was impressive. Strong voice and he played the part very well. Really as if we are watching P. Ramlee himself. Next, Lisa Surihani where she played Junaidah, P. Ramlee's 1st wife. She could improve on her singing  tho but I must say I was impress. I didn't know she could even sing. However, the part where she had to sing and cry at the same time, not too good.. I know she is trying to feel the character and all, however she really need to control her voice during that part. Good effort still...

Tiara, the Queen. Awesome performance. She is a super senior in Malaysian theater so, no surprise there. Love her part, her voice, her everything! Saloma was played by Nadia Aqilah. Seriously, I don't know who she is before the musical. Upon googling, I think she is a singer. Great voice, great performance. Totally blown away by her talent.

As for supporting actors such as the paparazzi. At first, I was annoyed with their appearance  but towards the end, their performance was getting more and more powerful. Great voice, really great voice, awesome scripts. JJ and Pak Nil did well so does the Shaw Brothers duo.

Overall, great performance.Awesome choreograph! Since this is only my 2nd time watching musical, my opinion is still limited. The first was Lat the musical and that was almost 4 years ago perhaps? Somehow I feel Lat was somewhat better than P. Ramlee. Just my 2 cents.

 Looking forward to PGL in November!

September

Tahun ni bulan September merupakan bulan yang paling pendek aku rasa. Tak sempat nak post satu entry pun kat blog usang ni.

September dipenuhi dengan pelbagai cuti dan aktiviti. Aku dihantar pergi training, bos aku cuti, aku dihantar pergi Singapore dan macam2 lagi lah.

Banyak benda aku nak kongsi kat sini tapi entah kenapa moof menulis tersangatlah nipis hari ni. Beberapa hari lepas aku dapat berita sedih. Berita ni lebih kepada peringatan buat aku. Tapi hati ni degil, betul2 keras masih alpha, masih kefur atas nikmat yg Tuhan dah berikan kepada aku.

Hati ini terasa kosong. Aku perlu kembali ke pangkal jalan...

Semoga dipermudahkan