Last Friday, me and 3 other colleagues went to Bukit Merah CC for badminton. What started out as a simple weekly activity turned out to be another dramatic episode for me.
I had booked the court online last week, and the system did not allow me to make payment (not the first time). So i called the CC and confirmed that my entry had been booked and i could make the payment in person on Friday. I did not think much of that as it was not the first time this arrangement was made.
Me and one of my colleagues took a cab to the CC for $10 and started playing. 20 minutes later, a group of ladies arrived and claimed they had booked the same court we were playing on. A dispute started and I decided to go down to the main office to check. When i walked in, there as absolutely nobody in the office. By then, my other colleague and his wife had arrived. They had brought their baby boy along. A lady was there in the office, but she was not dressed in uniform. Apparently, she had just finished her shift at 6pm. She started to call her colleagues who had disappeared and kind of told them off for skiving on the job. She was not comfortable attending to me without her uniform, but she nonetheless did so as there was nobody around and I was getting impatient from waiting for some uniformed staff to appear.
Not long after, the other girl who booked the same court as me came downstairs to make payment. To cut the long story short, the system had cancelled both our bookings. But when we both called and asked the CC staff, they had confirmed our booking and advised us to come down personally for payment. There was no way the lady could help us. 15 minutes passed, this old man in uniform appeared, and his female colleague updated him on the situation. He started to order her around to check in the system and do stuff. I interrupted him, asking him first why he was not in the office, and secondly why he is not the one doing the checking since it is now his shift, and not his colleague's shift. The lady smiled at me, but the old man kept quiet.
The whole thing just went back and forth for 1 freaking hour, but no solution. Throughout the one hour, the old man just kept repeating to me the problem without giving me a solution. He kept saying in future, if the system doesn't allow us to pay, it means there is no booking, that we need a receipt in future, blah blah blah.. I got so pissed off at one point i raised my voice, asked him to stop telling me the whole damn problem cause i already KNOW what the problem is, and GIVE ME A SOLUTION!! I had spent $10 on my cab fare, and my colleagues had rushed down to the CC to play. Every minute was precious. Halfway through the arguement, i told the other girl to go ahead to use the court from 6-7pm, and i will try for the 7-8pm slot. I was informed the CC's badminton club had booked the court from 7-10pm, so i wanted to request for one hour to compensate for my lost time.
By then, the other uniformed staff arrived. He was like 45 minutes late for his 6pm shift. When he arrived, he too was updated. And he too, repeated to me the problem, and ordered the lady to do some checking in the system. By then, the lady was doing 45 mins of overtime. Idiots. When i asked him to stop repeating the problem, he said he was just making sure i understand the facts. So i told him i do not need to understand the facts, i just need a solution. He asked me what exactly it was i wanted. So i told him that i wanted the slot from 7-8pm. I was determined to play since i had come all the way here. After much hesitation, he called the badminton club people, who of course rejected. Because the way the stupid men asked them made it seemed as if I was the one at fault for making the wrong booking, and I am requesting them to give us one hour of the court! I was at boiling point when i hear the way they spoke to the badminton club people. I told them that they are not trying hard enough (only one phone call), that they are irresponsible to leave the office empty during peak hours (an empty office in the CC after work hours at 6pm!), and that they had completely wasted my time. And not once did the 2 men apologized to me. Only the lady did.
By this time, a lot of people had gathered inside the office for other queries. And the only person attending to all of us was the lady in plain clothes. The other 2 men disappeared halfway, going inside the office to hide (mainly from a very angry me). I was totally disgusted with their behavior by then.
Eventually, i got a refund of $10, and one hour free court booking the following Friday. Before i left, i asked the lady for the full names of her 2 colleagues. She asked me what for, and i told her i wanted to complain. And you know what her response was? She pleaded me not to, cause they were after all her colleagues. OH MY GOD! After what they did to her, she can still say that. Sigh... no wonder she gets bullied by them.. she's too nice!
I ended up having dinner with my colleague, his wife and baby. It was a good dinner, but i'm still disappointed that i missed one hour of badminton because of some stupid system error and 2 totally incompetent men!
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