Service

As I spent more time here in Macau and Hong Kong, the retail sector's service quality was just plain "LOW". The retail sector is totally catered to mainland Chinese - sucking their money while it last.

I was at HKG's IFC, a major Shopping and office complex connecting the Four Seasons Hotel and Hong Kong Station for the airport. I walked into Victoriox. Saw a nice linen travel shirt that I was looking for and wanted to try it on. Guess what the salesperson told me. "You have to put it over your shirt.". I said "What? My shirt is bigger than the one I want to try. How can I put it OVER?". The salesperson was taken aback didn't know what to say for 5 seconds. Dumbfounded. He then said "sorry we have no facility for you to try it on". Well, he had just lost a sale. There was no accommodation to clients. I would have thought of at least one solution, such as: "How about a deposit with your credit card? We apology for the shortcoming. There is a men's bathroom across the corridor that you can try it on. I'll watch your bags for you. If it doesn't fit, I can immediately cancel your deposit afterward."

Another incident. In M@c@u i was buying ginger flavored ice-cream for dad to east his Chemo. I walked into the ice-cream shop and said what I wanted. The staff looked into the freezer and said, "no ginger flavored; how about other kinds?". Ah... There was a whole tub in the display freezer of Ginger flavored Galeto. What did you mean? I kept asking if I can just buy in the display freezer, she said no. Cannot. She "actually" asked me how I could carry home? I said "what?". "You put it into your carry-away tub and take it home". Finally she said "we don't have carry-away tub". Soooo that was the problem. Ah, now I understood your purpose, concern and your circumstance. Dealing with locals and Chinese here in Macau and Hong Kong just make you scream - STUPID!!!!!!!!! So no carry-away tub, only cones. Well, you know what I would do next time? I will bring my own styroform tub w/ dry ice. Order 10 cones and just dump the ice-cream into my tub.

Same problem w/ another ice-cream shop. I believe in Macau, everyone wants to work in the casino for much higher monthly wage. Min 5000 MOP to start. Why bother working as a shop staff and get paid 2200 or so.

I believe people here are getting stupid by the seconds with the brain only pointing toward consumerism of LV, Prada, etc... The casino biz here had created a lot of jobs and revenue for the local gov't. These in turn had slotted people into a one-track mind of a future oblivion.