Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Nightmares with Beglas Home Decor

It has been a really frustrating experience with Beglas Home Decor http://www.besglas.com/home.html. The tagline of the company is "We don't just open the doors to your dreams. We make them". But this company has been creating nightmares for me right from the start.

I have shifted into my new place for slightly over 2 months, but renovation works are (my gosh!) not completed yet - all because of the glass company. Beglas has been to my place at least 5 times and they have to be back here for at least 2 more trips, provided everything goes smoothly.

Glass doors are a key part of my home decor - I am supposed to have 8 pieces of them in my place as toilet and wardrobe doors.The first time they came to install a few of my wardrobe doors, they left black marks on my cement floor, and I couldn't figure out how those marks came about. Also, the company was rushing quite a few jobs at the same time, and could not install all my doors at the same time. This meant I had to clean up each time after they did their partial installations, and this could have been avoidable if they installed the doors all at one go.

The second time they installed the other wardrobe doors, they left 2 huge scratches on my floor. I was pretty unhappy and asked my interior designer to warn them about it, which he did. My interior designer even brought one of the glass representatives to my place to show him the damage his workers had created.

Despite the warnings, when they came for the 3rd time, I finally realised how the black marks were created. They used small sheets of carpet to rest the corner of the glass. But the bottom of these carpets was made of black rubber, which had disintegrated badly. So when they dragged the carpet across my cement floor, they disfigured my floor by leaving a huge black stain. I told them that cement floor was very sensitive and porous, so they had to be careful. But the workers seemed to turn a deaf ear to my words, and used chemicals to clean the floor. When I caught a whiff of what they were doing, I immediately told them to stop cos the cement floor was sensitive and they couldn't just use any cleaning chemicals! So the workers left an indelible mark on the floor. The chemicals soaked right through my floor, removed the layer of e-proxy (floor protection) and left a dusty patch which could not be cleaned away. And the workers didn't even apologise. They merely said that they had never dealt with cement floor before.

Despite all the upsetting events, the company can't seem to improve on its sloppiness. As all the paper pasted on the glass doors were badly done (which the company explained that particular batch of paper used was of poor quality), all the doors had to be removed for them to redo the pasting. But when the glass doors came back, I still noted some problems. Some of the issues were just evident of the sloppiness of the workers - eg. upside-down door knobs, rusty/dented knobs, using 2 separate pieces of rubber edges on the door, not cleaning ink marks thoroughly even after I requested them to help me clean away some marks.

So I asked my interior designer over yesterday, and we marked the problematic spots with masking tape. When the glass workers came over, we left them to do their work. Only later did I realise that they had removed the masking tape without thoroughly rectifying the problematic spots. That was the final straw. I told the workers off right away and was on the verge of screaming my head off. I would have fumed more if not for my interior designer who was around and he told the workers off too, although his tone was a lot better than mine.

But what else could one expect from me. After going through numerous inconveniences from the workers spoiling my floor, chipping my table tiles, and having to clean up my place again and again cos of the dust they leave behind each time they came, I just want a decent job done. Beglas is unable to deliver - both product and service quality are substandard. At the minimum, the workers should have left the masking tape on the problem areas and explained to me what they could do and what they could not.

So when I told them off, they gave a can't-be-bothered reply that they would just bring the glass doors back. And they expected me to check for the problematic spots all over again without the markings I made initially. Yah, how convenient for them.

Anyway, in the end, they brought back 4 of the 8 doors they installed. The glass representative explained they had inserted the hinges before the glue had fully dried, resulting in air bubbles they couldn't remove. So they were going to leave the paper to dry entirely this time round before inserting the hinges, and it would take a longer time. Well, why couldn't they have done this earlier if they were already aware of this problem?

It's no fun having to inspect every corner of the glass doors to spot for problems, and having to tell the workers to remove the doors. I actually feel a little bad at the numerous trips they have made, but the company is really unable to produce decent quality.

I just hope things will move more smoothly now that the glass representative is aware of my unhappiness with the company. They probably think I am a picky customer, and honestly, the more sloppy their workers are, the more unhappy I am and the more demanding I become. I'm not sure whether this applies to others, but somehow when service quality is good, and staff is cooperative and willing to accept their mistakes, I tend to be more accepting. But when they are rude, give excuses time and again, the more I would demand for perfection. The glass doors also don't come cheap - almost a total of $6000. And for such poor quality, I would really advise everyone not to use this glass company.

I have decided to be really firm with the glass company and will be asking them to exchange 2 more of the glass doors cos the marks are not acceptable. Not going to care whether the workers are fed up with me (anyway, I think they already are). All "thanks" to the company, I probably can't organise any housewarming anytime soon. This is so frustrating.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Morton's


I first tasted Morton's steak sandwich during its weekday Martini happy hour, and for someone who is not too fond of red meat, I fell head over heels with the sandwiches. So for the longest time, I've been wanting to sink my teeth into the restaurant's famed beef steaks, as well as its Godiva hot chocolate cake.

The opportunity finally came yesterday in the form of a belated birthday treat for my cousins. My cousins and I have something in common - a love for gooood food. So I figured Morton's was probably a suitable place for us meatlovers to enjoy dinner together.

It was a Sunday evening, and the restaurant was packed, mostly with foreigners though. It felt as though I was dining overseas. There was lively banter all around, and the service staff were generally quite courteous. Except they seemed so busy, we had difficultly getting their attention at times. What I found interesting was that a service staff would come round to introduce the choices of main course. They pushed a cart containing the actual cuts of the raw meat, and even a live lobster!


The food portions were huge, especially E's porterhouse steak. I shared a steak (think mine was a Double Cut Filet Mignon, which according to the service staff, was the leanest & most tender cut) with my hubby, while my cousins each enjoyed a choice cut of their own. Among us, we also shared garlic mash potatoes and spinach with mushrooms. All the dishes were really good. My steak was really tender. It was also a little burnt at the edges which gave a really nice chao-ta smell and taste. The main course had me feeling satisfied, my hubby craving for more beef, E with some remainder of her huge portion, and K really bloated cos he actually managed to finish his steak!

I was looking forward to dessert which comprised of the Godiva chocolate cake and a Grand Marnier souffle. The desserts were not as great as I thought they would be. The cake was a little tough on the outside, but the molten choclate that oozed from the center made up for everything. I found the "egg" taste in the souffle a tad too strong although my hubby thoroughly enjoyed it. In comparison, I think Bakerzin's desserts are better, though my hubby didn't agree on that.

So overall dinner was pretty good. Pricing was on the high end, but you get what you pay for. Definitely worth the splurge. And from the greedy looks on my hubby last evening, I think I'll definitely be back there again =)

Sunday, March 9, 2008

My New Camera

Vday present from my hubby this year was a new digi cam!!

My previous Nikon always resulted in blur shots whenever I used the no-flash mode, so it was really frustrating when photos were taken at night. Pictures always turned out overexposed, and there was no way I could capture the nice hue from yellow lights. Now I finally own a Canon Ixus! Goodbye to all previous photo-related problems!

Anyway, I couldn't resist using the camera straight away, and took some pictures of my new home, as well as my sumptuous (& not very healthy) vday dinner. Somehow my place looks better using the new cam..guess its worth paying more for better quality!


















Monday, March 3, 2008

Life after Term 5

Exams ended on Sat, back to school for an entire day of projectwork on Sun and school starts today (Mon). No time to rest, still trying to catch up from lost sleep, and just feeling a little blue. And it didn't help that the workers came to my place earlier and ruined my cement floor.

I wish I could have an entire day to relax and take a break. Hopefully I can get a well-deserved break this weekend.

On the bright side, this is my final term in Singapore (finally!). Can't wait for it to be over...

Movie Outing

Exams ended on Saturday afternoon and I finally caught the movie that I've always wanted to watch - Jumper. The movie had pretty good action, but plot was not that great. But something happened at the theatre that evening.

Shortly after the movie started, I heard wierd noises from a boy 3 seats away. He sounded afraid and probably his fear prompted him to start hitting the man (who is probably his dad) sitted beside him. His father tried to restrain him and asked him to calm down, but to no avail. As the boy was making a fair bit of noise, someone went to inform the movie ushers who came and requested them to leave the theatre. What was supposed to be a fun movie outing ended up not too favourably for the father-son pair.

I felt sad at what I saw. The boy was just hitting his dad, who was accepting the hits and trying to restrain him at the same time. The father was probably going through an emotion whirlwind - worrying how they are affecting the movie audience, thinking of ways to calm his son down, and the emotional pain from having to bear the hits from his son. My respect goes to the father who has made the choice to raise and love a son who is very different from others. And as a bystander, I can only hope that the boy's condition will improve overtime.