Category: Family

How My Family Stopped Eating One Particular Fast Food Brand and the Lost Art of Service Recovery.

Today marks a full month since my whole family stopped having burgers, fried chickens and fries from this one particular brand. It the quintessential fast food brand. People can’t talk about fast food without mentioning the brand.

Our family loves fast foods. We really really love them. We probably can’t go through the week without the crunchiness of a fried chicken, that juicy greasy burgers, that crunchy and fluffy fries with that oh-so-sweet chilli sauce. I picked up this habit from my Yed (father). The memories of him taking us to KFC Jam Besaq Sungai Petani in the 80s is still fresh. He would also picked up random kids (whose parents were probably hawkers in Jam Besaq food court) playing on the street in front of KFC to come and eat with us. We had KFC so often back in the 80s that I have somehow made it a habit of mine as well and this continues with my kids.

You can see the aforementioned KFC Jam Besaq in the photo above. This is a photo from the 90s.

Back to the matters at hand, I have this habit of quitting a restaurant, shop or even brand if I encountered a very bad service recovery. The wife thinks I may have overreacted sometimes. And you know the wife is always right, If the wife is wrong, remember that they are not wrong, they are right.

Notice I said ‘bad service recovery’. Some folks describe service recovery as ‘complaint handling’. I personally prefer the term service recovery. We want to recover the customers from their bad experience. We don’t want to just handle the complaint.

So, it’s not the initial bad service, product or situation that caused me to quit them. It’s bad the recovery that made me quit them. We all make mistakes. We are all human being. Even experts in their fields make mistakes, much more us, normal folks working minimum wage salary in fast food joints. I am very tolerant to bad service and bad product. I just can’t tolerate bad recovery. And when the bad recovery is done by a high ranking management team, I more than happy to quit the brand/shop/restaurant.

The bad service and product

I’d like to share what caused me to quit this brand entirely. My kids have a Tae Kwan Do class every Saturday afternoon. Right next to the dojo is this big huge fast food joint complete with drive-thru. We make it our habit of enjoying lunch before class or having a snack after class together there. At the very least, we would just get a drive-thru snack. Every week I would spend at around 5o bucks. Not including mid of the week snacks and dinner in case both of us come home from work a little late and the kids are hungry. Easily 300 bucks a month on this brand alone.

Black belt kaler biru. Don’t play play ya.

Exactly 32 days ago, I went through the titular drive-thru lane and ordered the usual order of their spicy fried chicken and some burgers with fries. I will always change the drinks to Iced Milo as that is what the kids love. It was at this point the cashier Mr. Diaz (Not the real name – I borrowed the name from my current favorite TV show Cobra Kai), started to get on my nerves. He said there’s no Milo, but there’s a chocolate drink. I just need to add RM5+. Asked him if Milo is permanently no longer available? Mr Diaz said yes and only Chocolate Drink is available. I agreed to take up this chocolate drink since the kids really wanted Milo. Then I added a kid’s meal with a spicy chicken, Mr. Diaz said nope. That kid’s meal only came with the non-spicy meal. Disappointed again I just agreed lah. Total bill comes up to RM55. I paid and drove off. Kids tried the chocolate drink and both of them hated it. Not disliked it, but hated it. My youngest actually made this face where she almost throw up. I tried it, yup, hated it as well. I guess we aren’t fans of the chocolate drink. We discarded the drink after only a few sips. Well, it’s fine I guess, sometimes we got something we liked, sometimes not so much.

Here’s how one can screw up a service recovery

Disappointed, I then texted a former colleague of mine. He’s now working as one of the big shot there. Asked him if it’s true that Iced Milo is no longer there and replaced by this Chocolate drink? He said nonsense, they are still selling. I was happy to hear that. He added it could be that they ran out or perhaps not available due to there’s this water supply issue happening now. I said ok lah like that. Then I told him about that ‘no spicy chicken with kid’s meal’ issue. Of which he replied my text with a reply of a facepalm (🤦🏻‍♂️) emoji and followed up with a “terrible service bro”. I then shared a copy of the receipt so they can trace the cashier Mr Diaz and perhaps coach him for improvements.

No more replies from my friend. No apology, no thanks. That’s Strike one.

This is the last reply from one of the highest ranking person there. Cool!

Strike two is when someone from the outlet called me a few hours later. They called me and introduced themselves as XXX from outlet XXXX. Did not tell me if they are the supervisor, cashier, or manager. Just XXX from XXXX outlet. Their first question was “I understand that you have a problem with our outlet. What is the problem?”

That really hit it for me. I politely asked, “Did you not have the details of my feedback?”. Only then did they started to tell me the details they got from my former colleague and started giving excuses after excuses why their service was so bad. No water supply, bad cashier, bad drinks barista and a few other things. I tuned out of the conversation towards the end. I’m just allergic to excuses.

At this point I no longer am interested to hear them giving more excuses. I didn’t complain to hear excuses. I give feedbacks to tell them to improve the gaps since I’ll be frequenting the more place in the future and I’d like it to be better next time.

At this point, I felt that it’s a waste of time giving them my feedback. I even regretted it. I then told them “Okay, let’s not talk about this anymore, I passed the feedback so that you can improve and close any gap you may have. Not to listen to excus…” I got interrupted.

Strike three happened while I’m talking to them about giving them feedback for improvement and they interrupted me with some empty talks and asked me to come again and eat for free for the same amount I spent earlier. Never interrupt an angry customer folks. Never.

The moment they finished talking, I waited for a few awkward silence then replied, “Thanks but no thanks. After talking to you I’ve decided stop spending money at your place and your brand altogether. Please tell my friend that.”

What to do so we don’t screw up service recovery?

So many things went wrong in the service recovery I experienced. It should be very simple. How simple? Let me share three QSR companies service recovery steps based on their training manual. I can verify that these are all correct at least since the 90s and 2000s. Huge thank to one of the best MIT trainer I have had the pleasure of learning from.

LEADS – My favourite pizza place!
1. Listen – Listen to the customer intently. Listen to understand, not to reply.
2. Emphathise – Express empathy. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes
3. Apologise – Say you are sorry and mean it.
4. Do whatever the customer needs – Solve their problems.
5. Stand by your promise – Make the customer happy. Give them a bit more than just solving his problems and thank them.

LAST – My favourite Fried Chicken place since I was a kid!
1. Listen – Listen to the customer intently. Listen to understand, not to reply.
2. Apologise – Say you are sorry and mean it.
3. Satisfy – Satisfy the customer. Solve their problems.
4. Thanks – Thanks the customer for their feedback, time and understanding.

TAALDTT – The place to get a Bigmac perhaps?
1. Thank the person – Thanks the customer for their feedback.
2. Apologise – Say you are sorry and mean it.
3. Ask for suggestion – Get from customers what we can do better.
4. Listen – Listen to the customer intently. Listen to understand, not to reply.
5. Don’t pass the buck – Don’t blame others, don’t pass the problem to others.
6. Tell the person what action you will take – Tell them you’re committed to it!
7. Thank them again – You can never thank your customer enough!

If you looked at the three examples above, we can see striking similarities. They all shared four main steps. They are Listen, Apologise, Solve/Satisfy and Thanks. So very simple, and yet so many failed to do it right.

I didn’t get any sort of listening from my former colleague. Obviously no apology. He didn’t solve my problems, and forget about thanking the customer lah. He did none of that. He did one thing though, he passed the buck to the person from the outlet. Good job there. He’s Director level mind you. Perhaps I’m just a lowly customer, so no need to entertain me that much. I totally understand that you probably have many more important things to do than recovering a single customer’s bad experience.

From the person who called me later that day, definitely no listening, I was interrupted in fact. You may ask, “How can they start the conversation and show to me that they actually listened?” One way to do it is by telling me the details that they received from my former colleague and then confirming if they got it right. If they got everything right, that means they really listened to my feedback and really understand them. So simple right?

Then she did apologise and promised to solve the problems they are having. Good that they did this. Though she did blame the cashier and the barista. It’s so easy to blame others right.

I may sound like I’m nitpicking. Of course lah. We are going through a case study on service recovery, remember? So we need to nitpick lah.

Let’s take this positively and learn from it. My wife will kill me for writing this as she told me not to write it. I feel I want to write this, by writing this, I need to really put my money where my mouth is. That is to continue not giving them my money and not succumb to temptation the next time CNY comes (that Prospe….be strong Shaik! Stop it!). And if somehow, in the future, I were to go back to them, they can be very happy to have recovered a customer. So it’s a win-win situation right?

That’s it folks. Remember, it’s not hard to Listen, Empathise, Apologise, Do it and Stand by your promise. It’s just a phone call away to listen intently and empathise. It’s not hard to apologise on behalf of your brand. Solving it was so simple in my case. Tell me you’ve got the product/service gaps sorted out and that Mr Diaz the cashier is coached for improvements. And lastly, you just need to thank the customer for their patient, their love and care of your brand (if they don’t love and care, they wouldn’t have taken their time to give you their feedback) and the time spent talking and giving you feedback. How you thank them is up to your creativity.

Till next time. Be safe and remember our SOP for Covid-19. It’s getting worse by the day thanks to our government incompetency and politicians lacking the discipline to follow SOP.

Peace be unto all

Let’s Think It Is Enough

Editor’s Note: It’s been some time so as you may have guessed, this will be a long one. Perhaps my long time friend Mat Not will be able to draw this whole for the challenged readers.

I don’t comment much on politics nowadays. It seemed there’s already so much going one where the country’s government changed hands, state governments changed hands, more than 70 ministers and deputy ministers get appointed, more than enough politicians get appointed to professional positions, people with political connection gets away from being charged, motion of no confidence, and so many more politicking.

With this much politicking going on, we can pretty much ignore the calling for less politicking since the leaders in the country are pretty much ignoring the call as well. Nothing is further than the truth when it comes to the Malay saying, ‘Abah borek, anak rintk’, right?

At this point, I think that ‘enough is enough’. Let’s all follow ‘Abah’ footsteps and let’s all all ignore the call to stop politicking. Just like ‘Abah’, the right way to go is “ALL IN” and make the change you wanna make.

Okay Abah, let’s all follow your footsteps in igoring the calling to stop politicking.

One thing that apparently is not enough and really grabbed by attention is how most Malaysians reacted to the issue of refugees from Myanmar. Granted this is an old topic but the solution is something that is apparently new to everyone. Pray to read on till it’s the part where we talk about solution to the problem.

The hatred seeps in.

A huge majority of Malaysian, and to my surprise, even the Malay Muslims reacted the same. I expected differently from my Muslims brethren since majority of the displaced refugees are fellow Muslims. Majority of the general public felt that the Myanmar Refugees, The Rohingyas to be specific, overstayed their welcome. More than that, many felt that it’s better to kick them all out of the country and let them be somewhere else. Here are some example what the netizens are saying.

This guy got 14.4K likes. You can look at the replies of the tweet above and see how racists we can be even to folks of the same religion. To illustrate, let’s change some words,

Aku dulu kesian la jugak dengan Melayu ni cam oh shit miskin kesian depa ni. Tapi bila duduk KL, bersepah Melayu curi Obike la curi pokok orang la, mintak sedekah lepastu bila orang tak bagi dia maki dalam bahasa dia(ini jadi kat aku) dia siap ludah lagi. Jadi? Makanya?

Let’s take a look at another one. This is a story that make the rounds in WhatsApp groups and Facebook postings.

Dulu ada satu orang tua pernah bagi tahu saya, ada 3 bangsa dalam dunia ni yang takkan ada negara sampai bila-bila

1. Bani Israel
2. Gipsi
3. Rohingya

Rohingya ni bangsa tak ada maruah, tak ada harga diri. Apa yang jadi pada diri mereka sekarang adalah balasan kerana lari dari perang. Mereka pernah lari tinggalkan raja dan ulama mereka di Bangladesh, mencari kesenangan hidup di Burma. Tergamak buat macam tu. Lepas tu Burma bagi senjata suruh lawan musuh, mereka jual senjata. Mereka pernah jadi talibarut British lawan Burma. Sebab tu orang Burma (nama baru Myanmar) berdendam.

Kita orang Melayu mana pernah buat macam tu kat raja kita. Apa yang kita nikmati hari ni mungkin balasan baik dari Allah atas pengorbanan tok nenek kita yang tak pernah lari dari perang walaupun asik kalah.

Bermula dari serangan Chola, Siam, Burma, Portugis, Belanda, Inggeris, Jepun, Komunis, militan Sulu, terbaru virus Covid 19, kita tak pernah lari. Kita lawan walaupun ada polis dan askar kita terkorban.

Tak macam Rohingya, sikit-sikit lari, sikit-sikit lari..

Bayangkan lah di Langkawi nuu.. orang kita bagi rumah atas bukit kat Rohingya ni, dibakarnya rumah tu, taknak, takde standard katanya. Dia orang demand nak duk rumah taman ada aircond. Mujur jauh, kalau depan muka saya, memang saya terajang tang muka tak kira jantan betina, tua muda.

– copy paste –

You guys can do the same exercise, change some words and replace it with Melayu. See if it sounds racist.

Apparently Rohingya is now at the same level of the Israelies. They hated the Rohingyas so much that they grouped the Rohingyas together with Israelies. Oh my…That’s one way to rile up the Malay Muslims. They immediately gobbled it up. It’s so easy to get under the skin of the Malays.

Remember when this was making the rounds. That is why now no Mulsims consume any of these products. Eh…Wait, did the Muslims really boycott these brands?

I’m also mildly entertained by the fact that the story above conveniently forget about our own history as a nation. With Malayan Union, we go against the what the Sultans and Rajas have decided. Of course we make it nicer by telling everyone that we are protecting the royalties lah. When in fact, we didn’t like what the royalties was doing and we were going against them.

Talk about “bangsa takdak maruah”, the Malays are well know to be running RM2 Alibaba businesses, well known to be oh-so-easy in accepting bribes. But I guess when the Malays are doing it it’s not an issue. We Malays give and accept bribe in full dignity. It’s so full of dignity that we call it ‘sedeqah’. We runs RM2 Alibaba businesses proudly without any shred of shame. But the Rohingyas…they are a shameful bunch.

Not Hatred but it’s the limited resources

Now, In my ‘debates’ or ‘discussions’ with my fellow friends on the topic, they denied they are being racist. They flat out denied. Okay, let’s agree to disagree there. So I asked why are you so hung up about helping the Rohingyas? They claimed it’s about resources. Our country have limited resources, those resources must be spent on Malaysian instead of the refugees.

The first of the resources the Rohingya Haters claimed is limited is Job Vacancies. One of the request from the refugees is to be given some form or permit to work here in Malaysia so they can get some form of income. Rohingya haters claimed that we have limited jobs hence we shouldn’t offer these jobs to them. So many Malaysian have yet to secured any employment so why are we giving these jobs to them. More so during this Covid-19 period. We shouldn’t give them things that even we ourselves don’t have enough. That’s what the Rohingya haters are saying.

Second example, money. Governments have limited amount of money. Hence if we spend the monies on the Rohingyas, there would be less money for the Malaysian people. Government doesn’t even have enough for us Malaysian, so again, we should not give them things that even we ourselves don’t have enough. That’s what the Rohingya haters are saying

Then a good friend of mine said this;

Minta kat ayah sendiri x dapat… Pas2 dengar cerita ayah jiran sebelah baik… Try pi minta.. dapat la plak… Nak buat camna dpt ayah baik… Syukur la… Harap2 ayah ingat/bantu anak sendiri dulu… 😁

Harap2 ayah x bagi ayam panggang jugak la… Nant tersalah anggap plak anak sendiri… Anak pun manusia jugak… Ramai plak tu… Susah jadi ayah ni… Kena adil..

Some folks claimed that it’s a matter of resources and not race.

Many of the Rohingya haters felt that they themselves didn’t get enough from the government so why should the government give to others than Malaysian?

That is the crux of the matter. We always feel that we don’t have enough of something, everything, anything. Mind you the people that I debated/discussed with are people who are educate and have university degrees, own house(s), families, a stable and good jobs/businesses, have a good future waiting for them and their kids, and clearly are in the M40 and a bunch of them are in T20.

Yet compared to the Rohingyas who only have the clothes on their back, no home, not even a rented home, no education for them and their kids, no jobs, no country to go back to and worst of all, no future for their kids.

These haters feel that they still deserve more compared to the Rohingyas. They still feel they don’t have enough things yet especially compared to the Rohingyas. They still feel that they must get what they wanted first before giving to the Rohingyas.

Among the most viral and verified demand of the Rohingyas was the letter by MERHROM. It’s mainly revolves around them wanted to earn a living in Malaysia with proper permit and with proper insurance paid by the employer along with lower treatment charge at government hospitals. You can see the scanned letters here. I purposely linked it to a website that echos the Rohingya haters so you can see just how bad these website that promote hatred against Rohingyas.

The real problem

Now that’s a long intro to come to a point that I want to make. We need to change our minds from this ‘scarcity mentality’ to ‘abundance mentality’.

Let’s try to understand the two mentalities. First up is Abundance Mentality. This is a state of mind that believes ‘there is more than enough’. And because there is ‘more than enough’ we can all enjoy the what we’ve been given by Allah. Since we can all enjoy it, we can all win. It’s Win-Win for the both of us.

The second one, the bad mentality that we want to lose is ‘Scarcity Mentality‘. They believe that ‘we only have so much of this pie‘. ‘If you take some, there will be less for me‘. So in their mind, they will lose if they give it away, or if they other party get some, the other party wins. It’s a Win-Lose or Lose-Win situation.

The scarcity mentality is what these Rohingya haters really believed in. They believed that we don’t have enough on this world. And that God didn’t give them enough to live on this world so they can’t share. If they share this wealth, they will lose out.

Let’s examine what Islam says about these two states of mind. Let’s look at Quran 2:268

Syaitan itu menjanjikan (menakut-nakutkan) kamu dengan kemiskinan dan kepapaan (jika kamu bersedekah atau menderma), dan ia menyuruh kamu melakukan perbuatan yang keji (bersifat bakhil kedekut); sedang Allah menjanjikan kamu (dengan) keampunan daripadaNya serta kelebihan kurniaNya. Dan (ingatlah), Allah Maha Luas limpah rahmatNya, lagi sentiasa Meliputi PengetahuanNya.

Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to immorality, while Allah promises you forgiveness from Him and bounty. And Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing

Quran 2:268

Here the Quran likened scarcity mentality as the devil’s tricks or threat. It causes us to feel jealous, hate, anger and pettiness. The Quran condemns these feelings as the trick of the devil.

In the example of the Rohingyas haters I shared above, they are jealous of Rohingyas to get a work permit? Pettiness of the Rohingyas to get more affordable hospital treatments? Just how much hatred are in your heart my dear friends? You have a job, you have a house and a family. You have a country that loves you and takes care of you. None of the Rohingyas have these. Will we lose our work permit? Will you lose your homes? Will you lose your country? Do you feel threatened? by the devil? and you succumbed?

In the same sentence, Quran highlights the abundance mentality through His bounties and forgiveness. The Quran promises abundance if we’give’ and ‘share’ His wealth. Not if you ‘keep’ and ‘hoard His pie just for you’. Here the Quran stresses that we should discard the scarcity mentality and adopt the abundance mentality so that we received God’s forgiveness and unlimited bounties.

For comparison sake, Let me also share what the Bible says about the same abundance mentality.

Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full–pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back

Luke 6:38

Even the Christians preach the same thing. Give and you will get God’s unlimited bounties.

The solution

I don’t want to talk about the isolated cases where the Rohingyas, were found to steal, rob and behaving in a bad manner. These occurrences do not represent the whole of the Rohingyas. Moreover, these are the symtoms of a larger problems. If there are those who break the law, take them to task. It doesn’t matter if they are the Rohingyas, Malays, Chinese, Indians or even the Martians. Take them to task. we have the police to take care of these issues. Don’t use this as an excuse to succumb to the trick of the devil.

My dear friends, you all pray 5 times a day, you all say your prayers. Some of are are teachers, headmasters, business owners, government servants, and some of you even lead the prayers at your congregation and yet you easily succumb to this simple trick of the devil. Don’t talk and preach the devil’s trick. Stop.

Start talking about giving more to the Rohingyas because they need it more than us. Then don’t stop there, give more to those in need no matter if they are the Rohingyas, Malays, Chinese, Indian, Caucasian, heck even if they are the Romulans. And in turn, you will get Allah forgiveness and his bounties. Quran guarantees it.

Please read up more on Abundance and Scarcity Mindset. I love what Stephen Covey wrote in his book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective people’. It changed my world when I first read it during my college years. Let’s hope it’ll do the same to you.

Peace be unto all.

Yup, even the Romulans.

RM278 monthly for retirement sounds good?

Recently I saw a friend of mine quit his job to take care of his ailing father. He had a pretty stable job. Probably brought back a good RM7-RM8 thousands a month with his job then. He’s the sole breadwinner. He will be going back to Batu Pahat Johor to live with his father. He will be taking his wife and his 2 sons with him. His father was too old to be living alone and his father just don’t want to live with him in Selangor. It’s not our culture to send old people to old folks home hence as a good son he is, he moved his home to Batu Pahat and lives with his dad. He earned a living by driving for Grab while doing some odd jobs here and there.

This situation is not at all uncommon. We find there’s more and more people living with their mom and dad. And this doesn’t look like it will change any time soon. According to the data shared by Employee Provident Funds, on average contributors who are aged between 50-54 only have RM200 thousands in their account. What’s worse, 67% of these folks have less than RM50 thousands in their accounts. The rich have so much money it inflated EPF average number for that age bracket. That’s very very worrying.

Table from 2018 EPF Annual Report. It’s scary looking at them.

Let’s assume that many of these old folks will indeed retire with RM50 thousands in the bank. Let’s further assume that these vintage folks will continue to live for another 15 years as Malaysia’s life expectancy is indeed 75 years old.

What can RM50 thousands give you over 15 years? That’s about RM278 a month. How much does a pensioner needs to live nowadays? This is what EPF shared.

That’s right folks, for a vintage couple, they need about RM3,100 or RM1,500 per person in a month. Probably more if they live in Klang Valley, Penang or JB. In 5-10 years, those in the age bracket with about RM50 thousands in their EPF account vintage folks will retire with only RM278 monthly income. That is if they don’t spend it at one go for umrah or pay up their housing or personal loan upfront. Even if we have double of that amount, RM1000 a month is not a lot.

Why am I sharing this? Because, where we are headed at our current rate, it’ll be way way worse than this. Lots of the folks in their 30s and 40s are still paying for student debt (PTPTN), fresh graduates have upwards of RM40 thousand in student loan alone. Most will have taken personal loan for marriage (I took out RM15 thousands loan for my marriage back in 2005. Then there’s car loan and credit card outstanding balances and many other loans probably.

We may ended up not having anything saved for out retirement. If we are part of the 67% of people that have less than RM50 thousands in our accounts by the time we are 50 years old then we need a miracle to be able to retire comfortably.

Remember that current adults and later our kids will not have it easy either. Even now people in their twenties are having a hard time to make enough money for themselves. Fresh graduates are doing menial jobs and paid at just slightly above minimum wage of RM1400. These are salary for folks working in fast food joints and restaurants. They don’t even have enough for themselves. More than 60% of graduates are unemployed in the first year after graduation. In total there are more than 500,000 adults are unemployed in the country. We don’t need statistics to tell us if these are younger folks or older folks.

So let’s be better prepared with our finances to better take care of our parents. Be better to prepare our kids so they fared better in the economy. Be prepared so we retired comfortably and won’t burden our parents nor our kids nor their kids.

If we aren’t prepared, we will be living with our kids later, together with their kids and their kids’ kid all in the same home. Singapore folks seemed to be ready and way ahead of us for this, for better or worse.

Peace be unto all.

The Story of My Second Wife

Since there’s all this talk about this Ustaz or Da’i or PU or whatever people call them nowadays, one thing for sure is these ulama’ folks are definitely NOT what we would call pewaris nabi for sure. Okay back to the main story, since this Da’i actually married his second wife and told people that he met his wife in front of or near the Kaabah and that he can’t resist her after the 18th times or something like that. I think it’s my turn to tell all of you about my second wife. I want to one up the Da’i this time. It’s our 25th Anniversary anyway so it’s kinda a good time to be talking about it. It’s also a good time to be sharing with all of you about my second wife.

Let me start about a few months before we got married. It was the year where I was sitting for my SPM. I first saw her in City Point Shopping Complex. It was the premier Shopping Complex in Sungai Petani at the time. It’s just 2 minutes walk from the gate of my school. So you can all imagine the temptation we all had to go through every day. Who in their right mind wouldn’t “lompat pagar” or skip school when the best place to hang out is just 2 minutes away.

This is a recent photo of City Point. It’s no longer the best place to go shopping, I believe only the ground floor are occupied and probably a portion of the first floor.

I first laid my eyes on my second wife somewhere in early 1996. She was in this shop on the second floor of City Point Shopping Centre. It was there and then that I vowed to take her home one day in the future. I was so determined to marry her, that first time I laid my eyes on her, no need to wait till 18th time. That’s how much I love her. Unlike the Da’i lah, took him 18th time to realised he needs to marry her. Apparently lambat naik.

This determination has boosted my zeal to go through my Form 5 and finish my SPM as swiftly as I can, so I can marry her. The next few months I spent most my afternoon with her at City Point. Everyday right after school, I’d hang out in City Point with her. I was lucky as the uncle who takes care of her in City Point allowed me to spend time with her daily. I’ll never forget you Uncle. So sporting at the time considering it’s the 90’s.

Fast forward a few months later, the day of my last SPM paper has finally arrived. It was an afternoon paper. I cycled to the school about an hour earlier. I stopped by at City Point. Met with her and told uncle that I want to marry her in a couple of months time. Uncle just smiled and told me to start working and earn a steady income first and be a responsible person. I hold on to his words. I started to save all my daily school allowance since the day I met her. I worked in a bread factory near my house the whole year almost everyday after school. I told Uncle that I’ll immediately start working after SPM and I’ll save all my salary so I can take her from you Uncle. He again smiled.

Immediately after my last SPM paper, my brother, who was working in KFC at the time hooked me up to work in KFC Jam Besaq Sungai Petani. That was THE place to work at the time. Number one Fast Food joint in SP. It was a privilege to be working there. I was thinking, there’s no way Uncle would say no to me knowing I now works at THE best fast food joint at the time. Exactly 3 days after SPM, I started working in KFC. It was probably somewhere in October of 1995. I worked hard and I was awarded the Best Rookie of the Month. I’m not sure if I was really the best or they were just being nice as there was only one new joiner that month. But, it doesn’t matter, I was happy because I was sure that this will further melts Uncle’s heart when he knows that I’m so responsible as a worker and that this award is the proof.

After working for 1+ months, on Sunday, 4th December 1995, it was payday. I have worked for a full month and a bit of extra days in October. I finally received my first salary. My first proper job salary. The total money I got at the time including my savings was probably over RM800. I remember we were only paid RM1.80 per hour at the time. With this much money in my pocket, I then decided to go and see Uncle and tell him that I’m taking her hands in marriage. Never before in my life I had that much money and with this money I can finally get married.

Immediately after my shift ended, I went straight home. Took a nice bath and wore the nicest Baju Melayu I have. It was a Navy Blue Baju Melayu, very fitting as that was her favourite colour. Took out all my savings from the beginning of the year, added together with my salary from KFC, I believed that I now have enough. I said to myself, “Asslamualaikum Cinta, Saya nak amik awak ni. Kuatkan semangat saya”. Went out of my room and I saw my mom at the kitchen, Immediately my brain moved my mouth and told my mom that I’ll be going to the Masjid for Isya’ tonight. My mom smiled so hard, it’s like her dream has finally came true. Yup, that’s a sin for me there. A white lie sin.

Now, I know what you guys are thinking, but hear me out first. You can’t tell your mom that you wanna get married right after SPM. We came for a not so well to do family. She expected me to study hard, go to university and probably be a doctor or something. And here I am, just content to be working in KFC and settle down with the love of my life right after SPM, so of course I can’t just tell my mother. The only option I have is to strengthen my will and told my mother a white lie. I was sure she will be okay with. As people say, it’s easier to say sorry after the fact than to ask for permission before we do it. Right? Right?

So after the white lie, I then head out to City Point on my sister’s bicycle. It was what we call “Basikal Mini” at the time. It was also in blue and it had a basket in front of it. I never thanked my sister for this. I’ll be sure to thank her later after I published this post.

If my memory served me right, this was what it looked like back then. At least similar to this.

I then cycled straight to City Point. Throughout the trip, I imagined Uncle smiling as I arrive in my Baju Melayu. I also imagined holding her in my hands. My head was racing with thoughts of what will be the first thing that I will do with her when I took her hand in marriage. It took me probably 45 minutes of cycling before I arrived at City Point but I didn’t even broke a sweat. I was on cloud 9 where the air is cool and refreshing throughout the trip. I arrived at around half past eight.

The exact route I took to go to City Point that night.

I parked my bicycle at the usual parking spot on the side of the building. Took the side stairs up to second floor and went straight to see Uncle. He gave me a big smile with a hint of suprised look. He never saw me in Baju Melayu and I think that suprised bit was because of just how handsome I was at the time. It was then I proposed to my second wife. I hold the controller in my hands and asked Uncle if I can take her home. Uncle gave his signature smile and said “Aiyaahh mai mai. Mai sini pilih game, selalu free 10 game saja. Hang selalu mai sini tolong Uncle, hang amik 30 free game”

My second wife with a controller and a memory card

I was so happy to get 30 free games with her instead of my initial expectation of only 10. It took me a good 30 minutes flipping through the game binders at Uncle’s place before I can finally decide the 30 games.

I can’t remember all the games but I still remember the first few games that I was so excited to play that night with my newly wedded wife.

On the left was European Cover for the game. Ont he right was a screenshot of the game.

The first one was Wipeout. Much have been talked about the game on the internet. The game still lives till today with a Wipeout HD and Fury released as remastered for PS4. It’s a futuristic racing game with an anti-gravity vehicle and weapons thrown in. It features a sleek art design of not only the vehicles and tracks but also the whole game presentations like the menu, logos of the teams and logos of the tracks. It boasted a super great collection of industrial music big shots like Prodigy, Orbital, Future Sounds of London and many others. This game is how I got my teeth into industrial and house music. Love this game to death. I’ve never missed a single game in the series on all PlaySation consoles.

Battle Arean Toshinden Cover and screenshot. The game that was supposed to kill Sega’s Virtua Fighter.

Second game that I played that night was Battle Arena Toshinden. It blew my mind when I first saw it. It was super fast paced and characters were circling each other on screen in 3D manner. It was unheard of at the time where most of the games are 2D. Even Sega’s Virtua Fighter had a more traditional 2D gameplay. Compared to Toshinden, the players can easily ‘circles’ the opponent or avoid a punch or projectiles by sidestepping. This gave the impression of the 3D space arena that they have. The game was also less blocky than Virtua Fighter and faster paced. That was why I got hooked.

Ace Combat cover and screenshot

The third game I played that night was Ace Combat. I was a big fan of the arcade game. I get to sit in the cockpit of a fighter plane with a big ass screen in front of me and a flight stick in between the legs. It was great to have the arcade game in our home. Later with Ace Combat 2, it came at the time when Dual Shock controller was introduced. It made the whole thing that much better.

If you guys read this up till this point, I commend you guys for a job well done. Onwards with the story with my wife, I got home that night with the PlayStation box and 30 games in a yellow plastic bag resting in the bicycle’s basket. My mom was still awake so I had to improvise. I took another plastic bag from the kitchen, wrapped the big yellow plastic bag with another plastic bag and hid my newly wedded wife outside the house. Once the coast is clear, I picked up my wife and brought her into my room. At the time my room had a small 14″ CRT TV. It was then that we consumed each other.

The next day, my mom realised that I slept with my newly wedded second wife and she asked, “Berapa ringgi Fikri beli tu?”, I answered, “RM200 lebih ja”. So that was another lie indeed. Mom, if you read this, and if it makes you feel better, I still lie to my first wife whenever we talked about the amount of money I spent on my second wife. Not sure when can I stop lying. I believe I’ve made enough money on my own to freely buy what I want but apparently I still get questioned about it. That’s what happened when you have two wives I guess. Always feel guilty of not being fair enough between the two. Always tipu sunat.

Today, with my second wife, we have been blessed with 5 kids. They are PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4. I’m happy to tell all of you that our 6th kid is coming next year insyallah. To keep with with the naming convention, we will call him/her PlayStation 5.

I love both my first wife Intan and my second wife PlayStation and I’m so blessed that we can all live happily together. Intan kids are playing daily with the PlayStations and they really love each other. I couldn’t be happier and always felt so blessed. In fact, even my first wife Intan spends time together with my PlayStation. They aren’t really in love with each other yet. They tend to get jealous whenever I spend more time with the other. For the record, Intan is more jealous of PlayStation since I tend to spend more time with PlayStation. I know I should be fair among the two but after 18th time PlayStation sent me notification to play more games, I can’t say no. So I ended up spending more time with my second wife.

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of PlayStation, I’d like to express my love to you my Dear PlayStation. Thanks for keeping me company during my highs and my lows, keeping my family together in home instead of outside and keeping me sane with all the worldly pressure and stress. Thanks for giving me all great experiences, the smile, the tears, the rage quitting, the shouting and lastly the friends within the PlayStation community. The PBMY Community and Destiny Community.

Here’s to another 25 years of PlayStation. Peace be unto all.

PlayStation iconic logo. Love you to bits!

It’s That Time of the Year Again

Selamat Hari Raya to everyone. It’s a day to be with family and friends. If you are working today, we are forever in your debt.

Those enjoying the Hari Raya, enjoy the company and the food. Be careful and watch what we eat. We have all heard how Hari Raya have brought together with it gout, high blood pressure, diabetes and the likes. We are what we eat people say.

To those travelling, always be safe and make sure we all have enough rest before starting our travel. Remember to rest if you get tired and don’t force yourself to drive while tired or sleepy.

I’d like to wish everyone a safe and joyous Hari Raya and Maaf Zahir dan Batin.

Peace be unto all.

Growing Old With You…

I’ve been thinking what I should do for the coming 14th anniversary of our marriage. Will it be the obligatory bouquet of flowers, the typical present (a handbag, show, phone, car and etc) and coupled with a nice dinner, or should it be another round of what I normally do, give my wife a nice big hug and tell her how much I love her after coming back from work.

Thinking about it, I think perhaps it’s more appropriate if I were to write about growing old with her.

Before I start, a friend of my wife told her that my writing on Mother’s Day didn’t mention her at all. Well, that’s because the queen of my life deserve a post of her own. The top two ladies in my life deserve a post of their own. Not shared between the two of them. And as always, my queen understood that. She told her friend, it’s Mother’s Day, so it was dedicated to his mother. Little that she know, a post is waiting for her.

When did I first met her…let’s see, it was probably around Apr/May 1998, in ITM Machang, Kelantan. We were going through Minggu Wawasan Siswa. Sort of an orientation week for all freshmen in ITM. The girls were separated from the boys. The only time we can see the opposite sex was when we were gathered in the main hall.

Aerial view of UiTM Kelantan in Machang. The place where I met the person I’ll be growing old with.

That was when I first saw her. She’s up on the stage, standing among the rest of the ladies that made up Class of 98. That was when I kinda got my first ever proper crush. Not a crush similar to the one I had on Meg Ryan, but a proper crush. She was probably 10-20 meters away from me up on the stage. You can’t really see her but there’s something in her eyes that drawn me to her. You could say she taught me the feeling of having a proper crush on the opposite sex.

Look at her, how could an eighteen years old not have a crush on Meg ryan in You’ve Got Mail

Five months in, we got to know each other pretty well. She’s the super friendly type while I’m the introvert type. We were on a bus going back to Kedah just after the first semester ended. We were together with a few more of our friends from up north. As the stars and planets aligned and our fate intertwined, the bus broke down and we were stranded somewhere in the middle of East-West highway near Gerik. With nothing else to do while we waited for the first light (and the replacement bus), we spent the night and the following morning talking to each other on the bus. It’s here she taught me how to talk to a lady properly and act like a gentleman keeping all 5-6 of us safe and helping each other.

We were stranded along the East-West Highway between Gerik and Jeli back in 1998, no smart phones, no internet. We only had each other company.

About a year later, we became closer together. She got a boyfriend of her own at the time. I always believed that I got a chance if she’s not yet engaged or married. I subscribed to this “best man wins” philosophy at the time. As she later realised, having me trying to be nice to her and trying to win her heart, probably made her situation with the boyfriend very difficult. She later told me that, it’ll never happen between us and to stop doing what I’m doing. She’s got a boyfriend and she chose him instead. Aaannnddd, that’s when she taught me how to face the horrors of rejection, sadness and bitterness.

Interestingly enough, the next few years were a period where I would look at her from far and keep the feelings to myself. We remained friends throughout and as luck (though I believed it to be my charming personality winning her over in the long run instead of luck. haha) would have it, the relationship with her boyfriend didn’t work out. It was then that I learned from her the true meaning of “playing the long game”.

Around 2001, we were studying in UiTM Arau, I learned another thing from her, that’s driving a car. Believe it or not, I got my driving skills from her nd no one else. We would be spending our afternoon and evening together in her car, around the beautiful streets of Arau, Perlis. She would let me drive her around, teaching me how to drive properly. To this day, she continues to correct me and scold me whenever I didn’t drive the way she taught me. Yup, imagine having this strict JPJ Officer next to you throughout your life, forever and ever and ever and ever, while you are driving. Aren’t I lucky? Lucky right? Right? Right? Anyone? Someone?

Typical scenery driving around Arau Perlis. I wish I have a photo of this scenery just before harvesting season. It’s oh-so-romantic as my wife would say.

Sometime in May 2014, both of us were in Kuala Lumpur, living the Malaysian dream of working in the heart of the city, I received a call from her, told me her mom and dad are in town. They would like to have lunch with me. I still remember my spider-sense were tingling when I heard that. But being in love, it has blind-sided me and I ignored it. I accepted the invitation and met with them in a restaurant somewhere near Jelatek. It was then I was asked the big question. Her mom (she’s one of the kindest human being I’ve ever know, al-Fatihah…) asked me, “So, you guys have been friends since the days in Kelantan. I believe it’s time to make it official. Don’t you think?” And that’s where I learned from her, not to ever, ever, ever, ever let myself ignore my spider-sense when it’s tingling. Hah!

Spider-sense is tingling!

On 3 June 2005 (3/6/5. 365…how can I forgot the date lah my dear) , we tied the knot. It was the happiest day in my life. Despite all the screw ups that happened throughout our wedding receptions, the thought of “I will now be able to grow old with her”, made me the happiest man alive on that day. It was then she taught me that a song doesn’t have to be popular to be your song.

So here it is Intan Suhara, it’s been some time since I sang this song for you. It wasn’t that great when I sang it to you back in the day and it sure won’t be great today. I was never the artistic one, it’s always been you. So I’ll let Adam Sandler have the honour to do it.

Happy Anniversary Intan. Thank you for all the love, kindness, support and most importantly, thank you for all the life lessons Alia, Danial, Ayra and of course, yours truly have learned from you.

The Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Valkyrie, Pepper, Peggy, Aunt May of My Life

This may be a little late, but as my Mother knows me best, I’m always late in everything, really, in literally everything when it comes to my Mom. She on the other hand, is always on time, on point, on the mark and on top of everything that she needs to be. She’s the Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Pepper, Peggy, Aunt May, Gamora, JJ, Nebula and all other Avengers, all rolled into one Super Mom, my own Super Mom.

That’s Bajunid’s Clan there, it’s the whole lot of us with some of my Aunt’s family thrown in. My Mom sits in the middle. That’s the Avengers in disguise there.

Just how super is she? For starters, she was the designated driver of our family for the longest time as our Yed (we call our father Yed) can’t drive a car till he was probably over 40 years old. So my Super Mom was the one who drove us all over Malaysia. Yup, she’s that super.

The earliest memory of my mom (We call her Mama) that I can remember was probably back when I was in kindergarten, a bit hazy though. I remember she was the one that sent and picked me up daily. At the time we were all in Dungun, Terengganu. She would drive our Toyota Corolla, with plate number TC1122 if I remember correctly. I’m not sure, it’s kinda hard to remember. I was only in kindy at the time. But Toyota was the first car manufacturer I know and the only driver was Mama.

Toyota Corolla 1978: If my memory serves me correctly, this was our car model and make back in the day. She was the sole driver for our family for many many years.

Fast forward a little bit, I was in Standard 1. I joined a school field trip to Kuala Lumpur with my brother. Being the only kid from Standard 1 joining a standard 5 and 6 field trip, I remember Mama was very worried letting me go. I can remember her worried face as she dropped us at the school that day. I remember she was telling my brother to take care of me. Though I can’t remember her telling me to be careful and be safe. Perhaps she knows I can take care of myself. Or perhaps did tell me to be careful, but you know me, I probably ignored it. It probably went into my left ear and went out immediately through my right ear. I can still remember her worried face looking at the bus and me as the bus drove off from the school compound.

Fast forward to 1990, she was super strong in going through her pregnancy carrying my youngest brother in her womb, all alone, as Yed just passed away a few months back. She was without her husband and carried my brother for probably 6 months. I can’t imagine what’s going through her head at the time. Having Yed just passed away, with her being pregnant and needing to take care of the four of us. It’s probably similar to the time Aunt May got to know Uncle Ben just passed and she needs to take care of Peter alone. But for Mama, needing to deal with being pregnant, taking care of 4 Peter Parkers, all still schooling, only 4 gajillions times harder I guess.
It would drive me nuts if it happened to me, but not Mama. She took it like a Champ. Super Mom with Super Strength indeed.

Mama and our youngest brother, she carried him alone for probably close to six months. That’s the very definition of super.

Fast forward a few years later, probably when I was in Form 2, the most rebellious period of my life. I just got back from a day out in the woods, we skipped school and stayed in a nearby woods, smoking tons of cigarettes , gambling and playing cards among the five or six of us. Later that evening, as I arrived home at about half past six, nobody was home…”weird”, I said to myself. A few moments later Mama arrived, and the first thing she asked was “Fikri pi mana tadi?”. Being the rebellious person I was at the time, confidently, I answered “Baru balik dari sekolah la”. PEDEPAAAANNNNNNNGGGG! a big snap slap full of anger and love all rolled into one, landed on my face. I got a few more slap afterwards whilst still trying to lie my way through it. That’s the Gamora in Mama bitch-slapping Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy.

I couldn’t believe it, the place is still there. That’s the are where we used to have our hideout. The woods is no longer there though. Just an empty plot of land now.

Fast forward to form 5, a post-rehabilitation period of my life, I like to believe I was a better person compared to a few years prior. If there was a time where the looks on Mama’s face is so very happy/soothing/proud, I believe it was at that time. I can still remember the look, I don’t think I can ever forget it. It was a few months after SPM, I was working in KFC as cashier back in Sungai Petani, Kedah. It was lunch rush time, there were probably 5-6 customers queuing in front of me. I then noticed Mama was also in the line queuing, she looked at me squarely, with a big BIG smile on her face. The kind of smile you can only see once in a lifetime. Her piercing stare went straight through my eyes, I even felt the smile piercing stare. As she inched closer, waiting for her turn to be at the counter, her smile got bigger and bigger. I swear, she smiled so big, it can fill the whole floor of KFC, her smile’s aura lah. By the time she reached the counter, she said “Mama dah tengok result SPM Fikri, nak tau tak?”. By then I know the reason she smiled oh-so-wide. For those wondering, she worked as a school clerk, so she have access to SPM results a day or two earlier than the public lah. Even then, she asked for my permission first if I wanted to know now or later when I’m with my friends together at school with the rest of public. That’s the Aunt May in Mama, even though she knew I was Spider-Man, she kept it to herself and be proud of it on the inside and not spoil it for me. Remember don’t spoil Avengers: End Game. Mama knew not to spoil way back then already.

That’s the KFC where I saw Mama’s biggest smile ever.

I have a bunch of other stories to tell, all of which are about the Super heroic feats in Mama. She’s my everything. I on the other hand, have not been a good son, I would always be too busy working, playing my video games and whatever else that I do. Always forgot to call her from time to time. I haven’t been able to ‘balik kampung’ as often as I wanted to. And I thank Allah that we have Internet Banking so I can automate the money transfer to Mama. If it were up to me I would probably forgot about that too. Like I said, I am not the best son Mama could have. There is a lot of things I need to do better, talk more often, see more often, make her happy more often and do many other things more often.

On this Mother’s Day, I would like to wish Mama, a big huge Happy Mother’s Day. You are the Avengers all rolled into one super duper awesome package for me and all of us Bajunids.

Thanks for indulging me, reading through this post about Mama. See you guys on the other side.

Peace be unto all.