SMRT FiascoS......Trilogy of Disruptions

Thanks to SMRT, the number of hits on my page has increased. It is hilarious that I am an unwitting beneficiary of SMRT fiascos. Note that I put the S in the header in capital on purpose.

Apparently I missed one important cock up on Wednesday 14 Dec. So the breakdown on Thursday 15 Dec was the second incident. The major disruption on Saturday 17 Dec completed the trilogy.

This time, it is so huge that even PM Lee had to step in and make a comment. I have to break my policy and say "WA LAU EH" on my blog. (I try not to use Singlish when I write lah...) It's unbelievable.

It may be bad maintenance, sabotage or pure bad luck.

We are still waiting for an explanation.

SMRT Fiasco

Recently SMRT went under fire for frequent disruptions of its train operations. The worst incident so far happened on Thursday night where there was a 5 hour breakdown along the busiest stretch of its North South line during peak hour. News reports reveal that many passengers were trapped in train carriages without light or air conditioning. Someone even used a fire extinguisher to smash a window for some ventilation. Passengers had to be evacuated along the tracks.

The CEO of SMRT had to make a public apology. There were promises to look into the entire system and review, etc. Until now, it's only possible causes which had been found. Nothing concrete yet.

After that, someone saw an inappropriate message broadcast to SMRT taxi drivers, alerting them of an income opportunity due to the train breakdown. Talk about adding fuel to the fire. This is amid unhappiness with taxi fare hikes.

I saw an article on Yahoo with the headline "Singapore Stocks-Down at midday; SMRT Corp outperforms". SMRT was seen to be a beneficiary of the taxi fare hike. It's a logical win-win situation for SMRT. Taxi fare hike may result in direct revenue for SMRT. They win. The taxi fare hike may drive more commuters to trains. They also win. In August, a 1% increase in bus and train fares was approved by the Public Transport Council. SMRT still win.

And here the government is warning about possible economic storms, etc.

It is not surprising that many Singaporeans are unhappy about the situation. It is a definite let down that such a corporation gave the impression that they did not have a Business Continuity Plan or a Disaster Recovery Plan. Actually, this may not be relevant because no disaster seemed to have actually happened. What seemed to have happened was something broke down somewhere on the tracks, in the stations, or related place. There was no obvious Act Of God, no natural disaster, etc. How such an embarrassing situation can happen under the management of such an establishment is not something laymen, like myself, can comprehend.

At work, I stress to my team that a detailed Standard Operating Procedure is very critical. However, we are humans and cannot predict every single possibility. We may miss something because humans are totally unpredictable. I've learnt that the hard way. A classic example happened a couple of weeks ago. I asked someone to help me courier some documents. For some unfathomable reason, this person did not send the documents out until a week later.

What I've learned is that we are allowed to make mistakes. But we are not allowed to not learn from them. We usually acknowledge our mistake, come up with a corrective action plan, fix the issue, come up with a control point to prevent future occurrences and move on.

That being said, the situation with SMRT is admittedly different because it is about public transportation. To be honest, I seldom take train and bus. I cannot claim to understand how the commuters affected by the recent SMRT fiascos feel. However, I can say that with service providers of public services shoulder a heavy responsibility and they should live up to the expectation of the public to the best of their ability.

With prior small occurrences, someone should have said, "Let's review the whole system before something major happens." Of course it's easier to say that with hindsight. I hope that there won't be news about the top executives of SMRT being paid fantastic bonuses despite such incidents just because the bonuses have been declared. That would really endorse the saying that bad things come in threes - train breakdown, income opportunity and skyrocket bonuses.....good luck to Saw Phaik Hwa.

Back from holiday

We had another stay-cation at Resorts World Sentosa this week. The kids had a lot of fun and we decided that it was probably more worth it to just check in at a local hotel for future holidays. This time, my parents came with us. My mom used her Resorts World membership points to redeem 2 nights' stay at Festive Hotel for us.

The kids loved the hotel pool, almost endless supply of ice-cream and candy and the cosy hotel room. Ryan keeps wanting to go back to the "hauntel" room....creepy but funny. Keane calls it "The Bed".

The day trip to Universal Studios was not exciting, as expected. We bought the tickets on Monday for entry on Tuesday. We had a bonus discount of 15% for 6 of the tickets because hubby was NTUC member. There's a promotion going on.

We went to the park at about 10am and hit the carousel ride first. That may not have been a wise move. Read on to find out why.

We learnt from last year's mistake and gave the 4D show at Far Far Away Land (aka Shrek land) a miss. But we went onto the mini ferris wheel. The kids enjoyed that ride and it was the first time I heard shrieks and yells coming out of a ferris wheel cabin! Imagine if we were on a roller coaster ride....

We went for the Donkey Live show. Still at Far Far Away. I was expecting a real donkey or at least a fella in a donkey costume. Turned out to be an interactive animation show. The most fun part was when Keane took part in the show. Conversation with emcee Ross and Donkey.

Ross: What's your name?
Keane: Keanetan!
Ross: Keanton?
Keane: Keanetan!
Ross: ???
Mom: Keane.
Ross: Oh! Keane Tan!
Ross: You had a question for Donkey earlier. What was it?
Keane: Erm....because Donkey can sing anything?
This threw Ross off for a couple of seconds...
Ross: Erm...yeah, Donkey can sing anything. (recovery taken place). So how old are you?
Here I'm starting to sweat cos Keane has not been able to differentiate the questions "how old are you" and "how are you"...
Keane: Five! (phew!)
Ross: Where are you from?
Keane: Singapore! (well done Keane!)
Donkey: Are you married Keane?
Keane: Yes!
Donkey: Oooh...where's your wife?
Keane shrugs.
Donkey: You don't know where's your wife?!?! Ah! Did you leave your wife at home?
Keane: (still clueless) Yes!
Donkey: Ah! That's a good plan! Leave the wife at home and come to Universal Studios by yourself!
Ross: Alright Keane, can you dance like Donkey?
Donkey does a tap dance and Keqne follows suit. Donkey shakes his booty and Keane does it back at him.
Ross: Alright Keane, let's help Donkey get started for his next song. Can you say 5, 6, 7, 8?
Keane: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!
Ross: Erh....that will work too. Let's give it up for Keane!
You couldn't find any prouder parents that day.

We went for lunch and Ryan promptly fell asleep after lunch. We left him with Perla and went to check out the rest of the park. Went for a boat ride at Madagascar and shopping at Jurassic Store.

Hubby wanted to check out the Transformers ride but found out there was a 115min wait at the queue! We should have gone to the Transformers ride first!

Hubby headed back to hotel with Xavier and Keane while the rest of is went for coffee.

We took the train ride out to Vivocity for dinner on Tuesday evening. The rest of the time was spent in the hotel room.

Even though it wasn't glamourous, we still had good fun as a family and that's what is important.

The night baker

For some strange reason, I am now quite keen on baking. I watched a lot of Australian Junior Masterchef Season 1 on Starworld when I was on medical leave. Although I couldn't see very clearly, I could manage to follow the show. Thereafter, I started to explore cooking on my terms. What are my terms? Read on.

I tried to do some traditional cooking - soup, fu yong egg and pork balls. That was my only attempt at making a meal for the family. I ended up putting too many prawns into the soup and the egg. The pork balls turned out alright.

After that, I attempted to do some baking using a miserably small oven which my mom gave me before. It's one of those which do not have a good seal so there is a small gap between the oven and its door when the door is closed. The thermostat is not near precision. That's my excuse for my failed attempts at baking scones and a chocolate cake. The cake turned out undercooked and the scones ended up like cookies.

I tried the chocolate cake again and it turned out alright. Not great but alright. The scones turned out ugly, still looked like cookies, but tasted better. So I decided to invest in this new hobby. I bought a proper oven. It came with multiple pre-set modes and a big steamer which can be used in the oven.

The day after I bought the oven, I had to leave for a 2 week work trip overseas. I came back and tried the oven. It was pretty cool. The scones still turned out ugly but tasted better. It is probably not due to my oven. I actually tried to use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. I think I will try to use top flour next time. Top flour is in between cake flour and all-purpose flour in terms of protein content. I read that in a cook book.

With work, and my unstoppable enthusiasm, I baked at night when I got home from work. Hubby was laughing about it. I tried to make sesame cookies. Had to prepare the dough at night and then leave it to rest in the fridge for at least 3 hours. Then I baked it early in the morning, before I left for work.

I tried to make a vanilla chiffon cake yesterday. Twice. Both were failures. The first attempt was pathetic. The cake tasted funny and I suspect it was because I didn't mix the ingredients well. The second cake tasted better but was flat. Not very chiffon like. I need to try again with another method. The recipe called for folding and I obviously can't fold very well. Cut, fold, turn. Cut, fold, turn.

I am not going to turn this into a cooking blog because there are many of those around. But I'll keep you posted of my attempts. I'm not giving up yet.....

P1 results

Xavier received his results this week. He came in 4th in class and 12th in the standard. He also won the Character Value award for his class. I am very proud of his achievements. He was delighted with his trophy. It's encouraging to know that Xavier is doing well. I think he should be fine going ahead. He has a long way ahead of him but he is off to a good start. I had a lot of things to say over the last 2 weeks. But work travels have since dried up my thoughts......

Analysis of my blog

I just realized that I can see how many times each of my post is viewed. I have come to a conclusion that I have 2 regular readers. I think one is Gabriel who recently told me that reading my blog is the only way he knows what is happening in my life. I'm not sure about the other one. I guess it might be me?

The post about my domestic helper woes drew the most views. 27! I know that is not much by blogger world standard but that is the highest view count on mine.

The posts about the General Elections drew the next most views. 12. I think many views may be accidental browsing. Some might be the government scanning the internet. I'll never know.

I seriously need to put in some effort if I want to have a higher level of readership.

Toys are us.....

We did a partial clean-up of our store room this week. Partial because there was too much stuff in the store room. The store room contained an unbelievable amount of paper bags (in our attempt to recycle), bags (for travel and previously for golf) and toys. We kept some toys, some being an understatement, in the store room because we didn't want the clutter in the living room or bedroom.

After rummaging through the mess, I have come to a conclusion which is a lesson I've never learnt and hopefully will. Toys are definitely not a must have in a kid's life.

There were so many toys which the kids never played with and never missed.
My general rule for cleaning is "if you haven't touched it for more than a year, you probably do not need it unless it's an official document".

We have a Toyogo box full of Thomas and Friends trains and rails. Yes, I bought thousands of dollars’ worth of trains and rails. Last count was 27 trains and they were all bought pre-Keane, i.e. during Xavier's time. What was I thinking of, buying train sets for a 2 year old? I thought that the kids could play with them even when they are older because the rails are components of what may be a huge railway track. I found the sets on display in various stores fascinating and thought that Xavier could produce something like that when he was older. The reality was probably me entertaining my own fetish for building stuff.

I guess I was trying to fulfil my own lack of such sophisticated toys when I was a kid. My family wasn't well to do and I was happy was paper dolls and books. Remember the paper dolls? They came in sheets which contained one girl and some clothes. You tear the girl and the clothes out. Then you place the clothes on the girl and fold the tabs over her shoulders and hips. You could interchange the clothes and if you bought a few sheets, you'd have a fabulous wardrobe. This was before I knew about Barbie.

Barbie was too expensive and the only Barbie I owned was a gift when I was twelve. My mom bought some additional clothes for my Barbie but I created my own with some unwanted clothes and cloth. My Barbie lost her hair to a beautiful crop after I mistakenly believed someone who told me that Barbie's hair can grow. That person decided not to cut her Barbie's hair after seeing mine around with a crop for a long time. Back to my present mess......

We also inherited a few sets of toys from Xavier's cousin. They were in pretty good condition and I guess it was a result of Xavier's uncle being meticulous about his kid's toys. We never played with those. The kids had more than enough of their own toys. So I think I will not pass on toys to any other relative. It just moves the clutter to another home. My brother took some of our Fisher Price toys when he had a girl who is 6 months younger than Ryan. But I observe that my brother and his wife still buy toys for her. It's like us. We couldn't stop buying toys even when we had some toys given to us. It also never stopped when the kids had more than enough toys they could play with.

The excuses frequently used for buying toys:
1) It's educational - they can learn the alphabet.
2) They can improve their cognitive skills.
3) It allows them to explore their creativity.
4) It's an investment which can last years.

I buy most of the toys in the home. Not because my hubby is cheap. It's because he's smarter when it comes to spending money on toys. I always cave in to pleas or the pity me look. I bet that if we took stock, we would find that the amount of money I spent on toys could have bought us something substantial. And no, I'm not tempted to do this count.

We have not done a count of the number of cars we have at home but I am willing to take a bet that it's more than 50. These are the miniature cars from Hot Wheels, Tomica and Matchbox. Tomica ranks first in quality. Hot Wheels rank first in design. Matchbox is almost non-existent in our home. I found endless parts of Transformers in various Toyogo bins. There were also body parts from Ben 10's aliens (Lego). There were tires of cars which I cannot find. Yes, these are rubber tires that came off what were probably model cars. Did I mention Keane's obsession with speed and cars? He can tell a Lamborghini from a mile away.

I threw out an almost endless supply of freebies from McDonalds as well. I surprised myself when I was able to recognize some of the parts of toy sets which have been "disintegrated". I managed to regroup a few sets. I really think I bought some of these toys for my own entertainment but Xavier proved me wrong. He could also do the same thing. I guess this skill is hereditary. Yes, yes, who am I trying to fool here? It's rubbish.

My conclusion after this clean-up boils down to one thing. The only things worth investing for your kids are: books, music and Lego. Our books have been read and re-read by the 3 of them. Music is a skill they pick up for life if they are interested. Lego is something they will never tire of. If they do, the Lego sets will always have a backup player - the parents. Speaking of which, I need to start work on my AT-AT Walker.