H f*&%^$^&))(&*( -P

Yes, if you could not read the title. That was my swearing! Incompetent came to mind and NOT cultural difference.

1) Course began Monday at 8:30am. Normally external trainer arrived the night before and expected Monday morning everything is ready to go. NOT.

2) We arrived on the Thursday before in the evening. Friday morning first thing, we contacted the company's training coordinator.... The phone was disconnected!!! Bad sign. (OK, the company name was the first letter and the last letter). The contact information was issued by the company to US! What to do? Google it. Found H Y(^%^^^(*()-P switchboard in Singapore. After some REAL English to the person on the other side, we found him, the training coordinator. He assured everything was ready for us. Security passes will be ready at 452 Alexandra Road and the room at 60 Alexandra Terrace (ComTech building) will be ready. Re-confirm on Friday afternoon.

3) Friday... tick tick tick.... We spent 5 hours at the Singapore Eye Institute with the phone on. No call from the training coordinator. We called and texted, nothing! Repeatedly.

4) Sunday night, we called and texted, called and texted, nothing!

5) Monday morning, 5am, we were up ready to go. 5:45am, showered. 6:30am, b'fast (Bill Clinton said he only inhaled? ) we INHALED our b'fast that was. 6:50am, taxi to 452 Alexandra Road.

6) Security guards... no, no, you don't need passes for the other building, just go there. Taxi waited and drove us.

7) At Comtech building. Security guard was totally fucking useless. Didn't know anything, didn't want to help. Guess he must have lost money in the stock market as he was trying to read WSJ. Hey buddy, this newspaper is going down the toilet after Mudock bought it. Didn't you know?

8) We called taxi. Good thing we had our Sig cellphone. We called. Automatic machine booked our taxi. We went back to the the H*dhjfd*^^&*%^&%LN -p building again. This time, I waited in the taxi and iron-wife trying to talk to the security staff. After 15 minutes, nothing, we drove back to Comtech building.

9) H*T^*&^(*&)(-P has a floor there, OK, if it is hurting for cash and want to save money why the f^&ck does it have a huge complex on Alexandra Road, a whole floor on Comtech and still need to rent a room for this training. On top of that, there was no space for this training? Hammer that stock I say! Totally useless. Unbelievable!!! We got to 7th floor of Comtech. H*^*^-p Training Centre. Didn't know anything. I could see deer seeing headlights. We had to get the key ourselves from the building management for the conference room.

10) My Singapore mobile finally rang, it was the fuT&*^*(*()I_I_*(^&*^$%^&%cking H^&^^%*^-p training coordinator. O.. today's session is at 452 Alexandra Road. Ring that taxi again. Hey, I like doing Marry-go-around....

11) This is not a typical Singaporean operation here. This is more like a F*&^&^()cking 3rd world corrupted infrastructure that no one knew what was going on. We finally gained access to the room we needed. No one was there. Just us. And seems Singapore didn't think International visitors. All the plug-ins and power bars were only for the local adapter. Huh? Even Shanghai has multiple adapter power strips.

12) O... arranging lunch? The training coordinator didn't do any. You want water? Maybe you can go get it yourselves on the 4th floor. OK, the training is on the 8th floor. Students expect to be fed and provided so they only need to focus to learn.

13) I kept getting txt messages from the training coordinator inquiring about lunch. And the kicker was I believe I got a call from HP Bangalore to try arranging lunch for the training!!!! My ears must have heard it wrong!!!! Definitely Indian accent as I could not recognize anything resembling English coming thru my mobile phone.

Something is really screwy here. I think incompetent came to my mind a lot. Or just plain stupid. Just hope iron-wife had a smoother morning and afternoon today.

I had to change my flight for tomorrow so that I could go with her to another location to set things up for the last part of the course.

And this country, I think is getting totally ridiculous. I had to fuc.....king give my id at the entrance to a business building so I could get to Cathay's ticket office!!!! How silly was that? I think I must be in a pre-42 commie country here!