Eye phone four - the story

The scam people do, is abomidable.

Celcom is currently still having its iphone 4 promotion which, to me, is a money saving voice plus data plan.





I went to the dealer shop next to celcom's main ofice yesterday to buy the promotion. Finally, I thought, there is a need to change the smartphone to a more sleeker one to get a better advantage from the free medical apps.

Unfortunately, the iphone 4 is out stock. But, they can sell the package to me, minus the device. This is odd. In the advertisement, celcom is promoting both the device and the package together. So I thought it was a minor issue, and that I could get the iphone 4 elsewhere, at the same package price offered. I bought the package - i98.

Unfortunately enough, the whole town was out of iphone 4. The only iphone 4 left was those bundled with another telco's package, which I was not interested in.

Madam helped contacted the celcom's help line. Yes, that call confirmed my suspicion. The iphone 4 was meant to be sold with the package, and not separately.

So I went back to the dealer today, to ask them if they could get me the iphone from somewhere, for example, KL? Madam would be happy to assist me taking the device. The celcom careline officer informed that there are still many unsold iphone 4 in the Pavillion and in Celcom tower.

The dealer's reply - that was not possible. I went to the main celcom's office , which, was luckily next to the dealer's office to inform them of my ordeal. I wanted them to help me out to get the iphone 4 from elsewhere, but at the promoted price of course. Sensing something fishy is going on, a check on the account revealed that my sim card has been paired with the imei number of a iphone 4. Strangely for celcom officer, I do not have the device. She repeated what the celcom careline officer had mentioned - package and iphone not sold separately.

After half and hour of failed attempts to get the dealer's manager to come up to celcom, the celcom's officer led me to the dealer instead to resolve the issue. A few hagglings and soft contentions exchanged between us. Finally, they agreed that they will refund me my upfront money of RM300. And since I opted out of the package and revert back to my old package (Exec 50), the penalty incurred that cost RM500 will be settled by the dealer themselves - payable to celcom.

I did not get back the RM300 in cash, since it has been creditted from my account. So, for the next few months, celcom will debit my phone bills from my account.

Imagine having to buy the iphone 4 at market's price of RM2190. That's RM600 extra money. The lesson to be learnt here is, be aware of the your surrounding, people makes use of human's weak points to gain advantage. Be honest and straight forward in doing business. Beating about the bush, twisting facts (like politicians) in the hope of making people confused is not doing business, it is in fact cheating. Power to the people, the consumer is always right. Never let down your guns if you think that your consumer's rights are violated. Last but not least, every now and then we have brushes with people, different individuals with different opinions. Arguments or dispute or polemics need to be deciphered carefully and peacefully. There are ethics in engaging altercation.

I checked the celcom's website again later this afternoon, the iphone 4 promotion has been removed.

Another year older

This will be the second year in my 3rd decade of life.

Nothing to be proud, but enough to be thankful to Allah SWT. For without Him, a few things that I have achieved and experienced that not many people will have a chance in a lifetime, I have had my share in them.

The past will be passe. Only lessons from them are worth to be re analyse again and again, as food for thought for the future. We should not bother ourselves with past events and grieve over it. Happy moments are great, but it should not blow up our ego too.

I have a lot of resolutions to achieve. I have found the ultimate conclusion that befits all of them, that is, we breath, work and play hard is only for Him. This life is an amanah. This burden on my shoulder is an amanah too. The laughter that I erupt once in awhile too, is for Him and from Him.

It is only appropriate that I take care of this amanah. And that can mean this body too which acts as a vehicle for the soul inside it. Any deviation from the norm that exposes one to physical dangers or spiritual contamination will require immediate remedy. Increasing BMI? time to walk that extra mile. Feeling empty in side, time to read the Quran. Talking incessantly and hurting others, time to read up on the prophet's seerah. Not enough dimes in the coffers, time to earn more from extra job or find a way towards financial freedom.

This should not be a colossal burden to us. In the SMART accronym, objectives should be Specific, Meassurable, Achieveable, Realistic and Time based. Today, we start walking, next week we can start running. A page a day would not hurt or take a lot of time. Continuity or Istiqamah is all that we need to presevere towards that goal.

Enough said this morning. Time to put that plan into play.

The chemistry of Dung

Whoa..

Finally, they let it out. The cows have been letting it out.

Just before the Friday sermon today, the Imam announced a formal complaint to the jemaah. The complaint? People working in Jabatan Kimia finally cannot tolerate the cow dung that has been freshly accumulating at the main gate of the department daily. Surely, they would want fresh milk instead!

This has not been affecting the people from the Jabatan Kimia only, but the whole of the residents of the housing estate. Every morning, on their way out to work, everybody will have to maneuvre their vehicles to the likes of the Camel Trophy driver, carefully avoiding the brown excreta that was left on the road by a herd of innocent cows the night before. The owner is guilty, so leave the cows alone.

At night, since the only road that connects the housing estate to the main road is not lit, one would have to be cautious of the herd that seems to be ready to tuck into bed, in the middle of the road.

"Please, whoever it is, please tie up your cows and do not leave them to roam free" remarked the Imam. I really hope the person is there. It really is a nuisance that he can't keep his cattle in safer place, out of the traffic. Apt enough, the Imam went on saying that the dirt left on the road is a pointer to how clean the person is. Cleanliness is part of piety. Being unkempt surely says the otherwise.

To the cows: the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, not the pot holed tarmac.
To the owner: Its time to turn the udder cheek and moo-ve on. We do not take a bull from you.
To all of us: Cow-nt your belssing everyday and wake up in a good moo-d!

Easy-lah

How do we define easiness?

It is really a subjective adjective. There is no metric scale in order to measure easiness in doing something. Probably, to derive at some measurable conclusion, application of the Likert scale would be appropriate. My due respect for those qualitative researchers.

To a paddy planter, planting paddy is easy. He can cover a whole acres of land seedling new stalks within a day. Try telling the surgeon to do it. In the end, the nation will be starving.

If the "refuse engineer" (aka garbage collector) refuses to collect god knows what from the bin of your home, hell fire would be unleashed. Do not expect the high paying CEO to get their hands dirty picking dung from each house in the neighbourhood.

In the medical field, the epithet for an orthopaedic surgeon is "bone head". The psychiatrist looks from the above while the gynaecologist looks from below, if you get the catch. The surgeon "potong only"  as the physician would exclaimed. No doubt soft imperiousness of one to the other is felt.

As students, we may have received uninvited comments that suggest that the course of study that we are persuing in as easy. There are others, who humbled themselves saying that their course of  study is easier than others. I wonder if it really is a sense of humbleness or if there is a slight tone of inferiority complex seeking pity and favour?

Where have all the respects gone to? If it really is easy, may we suggest that you operate, plant, analyse, design etc - yourself?

I think, easiness can relatively be measured if we compare an apple to an apple. It is not possible to compare oranges to apples when their tastes are different. Strictly speaking, different species of oranges must be treated as different. Siberian oranges are not the same as the navel oranges. Hopefully, these analogies makes some sense.

The mouth is meant to support, encourage, and advice, and not to taunt or chastise. When a feat seems "kacang putih" or "a piece of cake" to some of us, think again, the learning curve may be steeper for the rest.

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