#28 The Transmogrification of Unitrex

     Not long ago, I encountered a problem with my new phone’s battery which was draining fast after every short-term usage.

   Without much hesitation, I called up the company’s customer service department to figure out a solution for that problem.

     Attending to my call was a young American and I have been blown away by the amazing service provided by him.

     I have always think one of the biggest challenges in customer service is the emphasis of tone.

     In fact, there are a multitude of ways a customer service personnel can help clients to solve a problem, countless methods to persuade someone to choose a sale and a myriad of measures to make customers happy.

     You can be excellent in providing solutions to everything that comes to you, yet it can still not be enough. For example, during a 10-minute conversation with a client, a customer service personnel may not necessarily focus on tone and emphasis exercises.

     That is to say that the verbal tone is an extremely tool in judging whether a person is cheerful, pleasant or robotic.

     The way that how a listener perceives you when you are talking indicates the parameter of the excellence in your job. As a matter of fact, producing great results in something you do is hardly enough and creating impressions is even harder than we can imagine.

     It can be obvious of course, to notice how the others perceive us. The way someone replies and body language are a good measurement of how much people like us.

     And that is the reason I am talking the importance of the emphasis of tone in a conversation, just like the customer service personnel did in the other day. He was calm and patient, taking note of every minor details I pointed out without showing any sign of ostensible cracking up.

     Sounding overly cheerful to create a lasting impression may seem a little under-rated and eagerly asking too many unnecessarily questions would put someone’s teeth on edge.

     The question is, how to improve and elevate the level of customer service performance in Malaysia?

     You know it is important to be nice to everyone because your profession is about dealing with people besides maintain positive attitudes. The problem is, as human beings, we are not always in good mood. We would not always be as motivated as at the beginning of doing something new.

     One of the ways to drastically improve customer service is to inject the sense of purpose. Xandria Ooi, a Malaysian TV and radio personality, wrote about working with purpose.

     It is the sense of purpose that enables us to distinguish between working for money and working for happiness and pride.

     Not only in customer service, the idea can be well applied in almost all working industry.

     If you are working JUST for money, you are waiting for the clock to hit the five every day and expecting to get your salary by the end of the month. For you the job is about getting a fixed amount of salary and there is no point to work with any sense of purpose.

     However, if you are working because you can see happiness in your job, you are expecting different kind of challenges in your work every day. You may not be moving briskly or working enthusiastically but there is no ambling.

     Of course, everyone is expecting an income for their job but going to work just to work makes the definition of a job sounds even more mundane.

     When the computer diagnostics was completed, I was pleasantly surprised when the friendly customer service personnel told me that I was the most polite customer he has ever attended to since he started working at the company almost one and a half year ago. Funny.

‘And you speak good English too’, he added.

     I could do nothing except for saying thank you to him for his great service and assistance without dragging the conversations any longer because my ear was feeling hot by the heat exuded from the phone.

     Instead of treating his comments as a compliment, I found them hilarious.

     Although I was flabbergasted and extremely honoured at the notion of getting praise from a native, I think my proficiency in that language is just somehow above average and I had little or no confidence each time I am speaking English.

     Despite attending a national primary and secondary school, I seldom speak English with my friends like I do for now. In addition to that, English is not my mother tongue.

     The only reason I was more fluent in Mandarin than English was because I spent most of my childhood watching Chinese movies and speaking Mandarin.

     Neither do I attended a single Chinese tuition nor been to any essay writing classes. Which may be translated into another way of saying me have a mediocre proficiency of Mandarin.

     The only writing of English essays I had done were short stories contributed to a school column for a year.

     When I started out writing column for this blog, I had given little thought to writing. At the beginning, it took me few hours to write and put down all my reflections into several pieces of paper.

     I nearly lost my cool at some points as I ran out of ideas and feeling the urge to wrap up the latest article.

     Today, I am still writing and I have to say writing has enabled me to really grow as a person. Most of the time it involves deep self-reflections and discipline, it is a journey of my mind. Little did I thought that writing has become part of my life.

     The great news is, I used writing to strip away unnecessary distractions in my mind and let my writing to do the talking.

By: Vincent Ti

#27 Merry Christmas!

Dear Mr. Santa Claus,

     Hi, Mr. Santa! It’s nice to write you a letter in this great Christmas season. My name is Vincent Ti. I'm a seven-year-old boy and I live in Malaysia. Although I don’t know if Mr. Santa can really read my letter but I would like to thank you for the miniature toy car you presented me last year. I know Mr. Santa must be busy sending out gifts and attending to every children around this time. You must be tired. I’ve been really good this year, I stopped bullying my sister whenever my parents are away from home and I always finished my homework. Mr. Santa, I saw a big big remote control car at the supermarket last week. Can you fulfill my wish by giving me that this year? The car is red in colour and I like it very much! And how are you, Rudolph the reindeer? Please send Mr. Santa to my home. Great love. I’ll give this letter to my dad so that he can mail it to the North Pole tomorrow.

                                                                                                                                Love   Vincent   xoxo

     This is the letter I found inside my dad’s drawer a little while ago. Based on the date written on the letter, I believe it was playfully scribbled by me exactly 15 years ago.

   

     There are more than dozens of grammatical errors in the contents of the letter and it took me some time for editing before posting it here. Indeed, the contents were not very much different form the original one except for some funny remarks that I purposely removed (laughs).

    Ironically, I was taken aback by the wordings naivety back then. The way I expressed my gratitude to Santa Claus, the way I cheated in return of precious gifts from the benevolent figure are amusing. 

     Little did I guess that when I discover the letter 15 years later, I noticed my dad was actually the Santa Claus! Of course, to answer everyone’s question, I got my Christmas gift that year! That was the so-called big-big remote control car with its distinctive red coating.

     And I recalled that was also the greatest gift of my life.

     Growing up, my anticipation for Christmas slowly faded and my interests shifted from the noble fairy-tale to the mysterious cracking Sherlock Holmes stories.

     It is inevitable that we all gravitate towards maturity as we grow older. We explore new things and parted company with old habits. One of the main reasons is that people see things differently and develop heterogeneous beliefs.

     I saw my friends happily attending Christmas parties and celebrations, but I found it hard to sacrifice the popcorn gnawing time in front of the TV at the same time.

     I realized that when we’re so used to the habitual nature of how things used to be, we might feel wee bit uneasy should the dynamics shift.

     It’s pretty normal considering how scared we can be to contemplate things working in the wrong direction. It could be the comfort of the stability in staying unchanged. It could be the fear of losing. It could be lack of motivation or loss of enthusiasm.

     This is where I’m beginning to alter my mindsets to view things differently. Just because we’re getting older day by day, we don’t know what is going to happen in the next moment. Sometimes, most often indeed, life is too short for emotional self-preservation (I’m pointing to myself!)

     I realized that I appreciate socializing much more nowadays than in the past, or I simply become less aloof.

     If I stopped enjoying life then there must be some reasons behind it. If the situation remained unchanged after some time, then probably I might not feel happy anymore.

     The next thing that pops up in my mind was that I should not stay at where I’m being for now. So that’s why I called for a change.

     The word change can stand for several meanings, to be precise. It can be changing for a different living environment because we want to forget about the past. It can be changing your own attitudes and the way you view the world. It can be changing the desires and ambitions.

     Personally. I would like to embrace changes in accordance to all of the criteria listed. Because, that’s the most important step to move forward.

     So I believe I’m in the process of seeing the beauty of life again. Unlike previous years of getting to bed early on Christmas Eve, I’m sure to have great fun with family and friends this time around. No less than Christmas cookies and opulent family dinners, great way to go!

     That’s what we call improvement, right?

     Although my dad will not hide his Christmas present under my bed like he did, I’m feeling blessed for what he did for me over the 22 years. Perhaps I should choose him a nice gift in return for all his graciousness.

     To all the readers of this column, it has been a quiet month in terms of updates for December. To make it clear, I've excluded the entries of other blog posts to make this sole article of the month even more special!

     Readers will be able to catch up some missed topics like The Wedding Diary 1.0, In the Eye of the Beholder, The Transmogrification of Unitrex, The Mother of all Scoundrels, It’s not Easy being Christine and some more in the following months.

     Lastly, I would like to wish every reader of The Happy Fruit to have a wonderful celebration and best of luck! Merry Christmas!

     See you again in 2015!

By: Vincent Ti  J

#26 Rise of the Crescendo

       It’s towards the end of the year again. Traditionally, as we approach the final weeks in the calendar it gives us more reason to celebrate.

     Kids would be joyfully throw their bags aside awaiting parents to bring them for holiday. Our colleagues would probably be busy clearing their annual leaves in the company whereas some will start putting some Christmas decorations in their home.

     Coincidentally, it’s also the period when most of us will look back throughout the year to assess one’s personal self-development.

     I have a friend who told me that when it comes to the end of the year we usually have an outlook for things happened to us over the past 12 months and resolutions for the coming year. It’s not unusual for someone to ask himself if he’d explore something new over the course of the year. 

    Because, after all, trying out something we’d not experienced before serves as an indication of improvement in the sense that we take new challenges like no before.

     Recently, I got a chance to prepare salad by myself. I remember I went to the market that morning handpicked and bought the ingredients all the way.

     The preparation process required a significant amount of work, as the lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, eggplant and bell peppers had to be individually sliced before being put to the plate.

     I fully understand that preparing salad for the very first time may be no big deal for certain individual, but it’s the logic behind the action that speaks louder.

     Although the idea of preparing a salad is nothing like setting up your own business company or going for ice skiing or even trying out a bungee-jumping – for the first time, the principles could very much be the same.

     If you don’t explore something which is new to you, then you are always oblivious to the hidden risks and opportunities that are present. The point at here is not to encourage you to become overly eager in ‘tying out’ whatever that comes to you.

     We always have a clear perspective of what is being positive and the ability to weigh between options should the chance arises. The way our brain is wired, enabled us to distinguish between the good and bad.

     When we ever come across with any situation that defeats logic, defies parents’ teachings or against the religious law, then it’s certainly a no-no for whatever reasons.

     As I’ve repeatedly mentioned, it’s good to explore a whole new experience (it can be healthy activities in form of widen you social cycles, going for yoga classes, etc.) or simply picking up some new skills at certain point of our lives, but strictly no other than that.

     I remember when I just started writing this column in the beginning of the year, I put too much emphasis on my personal feelings. Remember what I said before?

     Those moments are arguably the lowest point in my life and if there is a scale to weigh between happiness and sadness with a rating from 1 to 10, with the level of happiness increases in ascending order, I would put myself at 2.

     I encountered the tough challenges I’d never endured in my whole life, I’d to fight off the depressions, I lost all my friends, I met a female Casanova who jive at affairs, blah blah blah.

     Luckily enough, those experiences have provided me with the invaluable knowledge and the often required maturity to fit into this society.

     In 2014, I've met dozens of new people, probably more than the number of fresh faces I’d met over the past two years combined. The environment I’m living in, all the great peoples, not only made me feel appreciated, but also gave me the warmth and happiness.

     And yes, there were still dooms and glooms until I met a couple of really fantastic people this year – they’ll know who they are. I truly feel grateful for all the kind of support they’ve given to me, which particularly helped me a lot to grow into a better person. So take my hats off to them. Thank you.

     Face it or lose it. Do you want an environment surrounded by good vibes and positive peoples? Or you prefer a lifestyle which eventually resulting in a downward trend?

     Depending on the decision you make today, these options you choose will manifest themselves into a chain reaction of events which you ought to face in the future.

     In conjunction with the Thanksgiving Day (I wrote this article yesterday), let’s us be grateful with what we have and treasure the people meant the most to us because nothing in this world is inevitable.

By: Vincent Ti

#25 Epitome of Wisdom

To walk the talk is not a walk in the park

     Basically, we have an undeniable habit of not practising things we’d promised, occasionally, if not most of the time.

     Of course, we can argue there are reasons which hindered the efforts from keeping our words but when the talk and action are not in line, we’re pulling someone’s leg.

     A promise not to repeat mistakes, try to perform better in examination or even pretending to be sick in order to skip classes would be what most people have done.

     It still cannot be considered as lying, though, because there are stark disparity between lying and failure to keep a promise.

     Lying indicates the telling of false statements with intention even knowing what repercussion it might bring afterward. Whereas the latter indicates that a person has no desire to go back on his words initially, but under certain circumstances, the promises failed to materialize, for whatever reasons.

     For instance, your mum asked you to put all the laundry into the washing machine but you are too busy with your video games and the dirty clothes are never washed even after the next day. Another good example would be keep telling yourself that you will do a task later and the delay goes on.

     Talking about myself, I was extremely masterful at procrastination which in turn, I felt had held me back in many ways.

     I can always put my assignments on hold first just because I wanted to catch a movie. I can always go to bed later because I wanted to trawl the web reading sports news. And the list goes on.

     Sometimes, it resulted in the habit of delaying the works which we are supposed to do. Our mind keep telling ourselves to do a task later because we think there is still plenty of time for that. But when the moment of doing that arrives, we are simply running out of time or don’t feel like doing that again. Then, the cycle repeats itself.

     Interestingly, I was taken aback when I had the chance to meet my little cousin, Carmen, recently. It’s astonishing to see how determined she see out everything she’s promised to do (I can see that from her behavior and body language because she was staying temporarily at my home). I felt ashamed as a kid can be that wholeheartedly fervent whereas as an adult, I failed miserably in this area.

     I did not realize how impactful this was until I started noticing that my philosophies and principles have been slowly edging towards a more lackadaisical edge.

     Nobody is perfect and everybody has weaknesses. It just depends on if we ever make a conscious effort to right them.

     Here are the five reasons I’d listed out on the pros of eliminating procrastination and doing exactly what you say (or think) without any delay:

1.      You’ll never push things to the eleventh hour

     Often, we have a wide array of ‘To-do lists’ when it matters. This is because we neglected their importance and not knowing the debilitating consequences of doing things at last minute.

     Well, since the ‘bad attitude’ is now gone, you will find yourself more relaxed instead of feeling panic in meeting deadlines.

2.      You’ll earn the respect (or trust) of others

     Not only do we like to work with people who are trustworthy and responsible, we are also keen on reliable counterparts. Definitely the attention now shifts to the people around us.

     They are more likely to place their trust on us more than ever. It’s always fascinating to see how much people like us for being steadfast, hardworking and reliable.

3.      People around us will feel motivated

     Maintaining good attitude consistently is no easy task. Perhaps once in a while, when you are feeling tired or ‘lazy’, you put things aside again. To understand this, procrastination is an overwhelming, all-consuming voice in the end. It can easily infect people of any age, all the time.

     Imagine. What if the boss of a company is a slow-starter? For sure the staffs have the tendency to be sluggish in their work attitudes as well. It is true that model breeds action. Procrastination is highly contagious; it can affect every one of us before we realize it. In contrast, if we don’t procrastinate, it works the other way around.

4.      You’ll feel happier

     Here, it seems to have general correlation of idea between this and the first point. The key is, however, Point 1 refers to how delightful a person can be to not prolonging an action. The latter tends to explain the joy of being a man of action rather than talk.

5.      You’re a winner

     As I’ve repeatedly mentioned in this column, we are always in the process of growth. In every aspects of life, there is room for improvement. Since transgressions cannot be avoided, all we can do is just to embrace past mistakes and file them up for future references.

     The moment you feel you have achieved the aforementioned points then you are a natural winner. Life is not about winning because the ability to conquer and win over yourself matter more than anything else.

By: Vincent Ti

#24 A Freakish Halloween Experience

     Last weekend, both of my cousins, Vicky and Foong paid a ‘surprising’ visit on the evening of Halloween.

     While my family has not been a habitual celebrant of that occasion, we had our dinner and rushed back home early to avoid the expected congestions on most major roads in the city.

     Just because we had our dinner near a popular shopping mall renowned for its celebratory count-downs in festive periods, we started to observe teenagers roaming the streets in grotesque costumes waiting to prey on passerby with their threatening minor pranks.

    In one occasion, I saw a lady got freaked out as one of the ‘monster’ waited in ambush and suddenly leaped in her back, much to her terror. Little did I thought that ‘my turn’ to get spooked is just lurking elsewhere.

     As I got home, my instincts told me something was not right as I could see Foong smirking cheekily with his sister, Vicky and I probably sensed it may be associated with me. It won’t take long just as I turned my back and headed into the kitchen to get a glass of milk then in split seconds, Foong ambuscade from behind.

     I were caught by surprise because the prospects of a mysterious, shadowy figure coming without any hint gave me all the creeps.

    To add to my fear and anxiety, the kitchen was lightless and I noticed Foong covered his face completely with powder. Haha!

     Not bad, not bad. I have that thought in mind, considering how clever an eleven-year-old boy with the effort to make himself look more horrifying in attempt to pull out a hoax on a faint-hearted person like me! [ Laughs ]

By: Vincent Ti

#23 From Paris with Love

Understand the language of love, not question it

     It’s just tired’’, said a friend with regards to starting a new relationship, after enduring a disastrous one not long ago.

     This friend of mine has rarely been in a relationship and when he is in it, he is meant to be serious. Listening to his ordeals, I could really feel for him because I think calling off a bad relationship is way better off than struggling and stuck with it.

    At the end of the day, feeling happy and contented with what we are doing matters most. Regardless of being committed in an intimate relationship or platonic one, they can still end up in tears if either way doesn't feel it right.

     Then again, it brings us back to the very beginning of a blossoming relationship. It just tastes so sweet and we could hardly notice any flaw in our partner because everything just seems so ‘perfect’. And it do wonders how many relationship can stand the test of time with the lifestyles revolution we'd seen today.

     When I asked my friend KC, who often has polygamous relationships and whom I perceive of having good ‘knowledge’ in this area. He said: ‘‘To make yourself and others less stressful, you must learn the way of forgiving and see not only the bad aspects of your partner.’’

      In a way that I didn't expect, that made sense. By putting this in another way, we have been saying that tolerance is the key to happiness. Today, we are still saying it. Sometimes all it requires is some effort and disciplines.

       And on cheating spouses? Then just leave them alone and go on with your life, he remarked.

     Having said that, KC thinks when the apple is showing signs of rot, the spoils are almost as irreparable. It may sound easier than said but the stigma of getting rid of a rotten apple is better than obsequiously sucking up to it, isn't it?

     Honesty, sensitivity and sensibility are all important qualities in love. Without one of them, a relationship may not feel that perfect. This is why we see many people striving to ‘fit’ themselves into the categories which people find likeable.

     

     Sometimes in an argument, the fit of anger could hardly keep those cutting words and hurtful actions from us under restraint. Suddenly we have all the emotions that get over us and eventually they wipe out the qualities we wished to have.

     Of course, it does not mean we cannot get angry over misunderstandings and conflicts in a relationship but does getting frustrated solve problems?

      No matter it is in a relationship or something else, we are always in a journey of growth. When we find our first relationship does not work, we will make sure the second to be better.

     Our anger management is equally important in a relationship too, if you can appreciate the virtue of being affable enough. Ever noticed when a person gradually change and become mellower as he grow older? That’s the point.

       As we grow and change, our definition of managing temper may shift.

     I have always thought that love and care go hand in hand, in fact they do not. We may love someone, but they may feel smothered. Then, our love is not effectively translated into care by them.

     So it comes to a question how to make someone feel loved and being taken care of at the same time?

     What about an ideal relationship? Does it really exist? I have repeatedly asked myself for more time than I can remember. 

     Many people would associate having an ideal relationship with absolute economically stable environments.

      After years of close ‘surveillance’ and observations, I realized love may not necessarily evolve with pecuniary value – at all. At least, there is still an element other than money that can make all the difference – sincerity.

     Sincerity can mean a lot. When we feel sincerity in a conversation or someone’s behavior towards us, we are more inclined to treat that person in the same manner. It is sincerity that makes us feel valued and important to someone. All in all, sincerity goes a long way.

      Xandra Ooi, wrote in her column Sights and Sound, being an attractive person can mean having the qualities people find adorable.

     In other words, we are the one who determines what kind of person we want to be. There is constantly a scale in our mind that measures the parameter of our merit.

      My friend Jayden, who recently told me about his spectacular experiences living in Paris over the past three years, he shared that he’d met with dozens of people out there but he would not just settle down with a woman ingenuously because he want to get married.

     ‘‘I don’t want to live under illusion, I will only settle down once I find someone who share mutual interests and are willing to accept what kind of person I am in reality’’, he pointed out.

     I have come to the conclusion that apart from the few decent qualities needed in a relationship, being sincere certainly outshines the idea of a moneyed-domineering ties alone. Most importantly, is finding the right impetus, at the right place and time.

By: Vincent Ti