Call 9067 6336 to make a PHP employee cry today!

The one nice thing about my job is that it allows me to make people’s lives difficult and get paid for it. The pent-up aggression which I’ve experienced over the last four days has found a vent in my job, and productivity has shot through the roof. Pleadings were served on me the day before yesterday, much to my glee, and last evening found me poking gleefully through my legal arsenal, and happily banging away at the computer in preparation for launching legal tactical strikes via the avenues provided to me by our legislature. Unsuspecting people standing outside my office would have heard exclamations of "what?", "you idiots!", "hahah!" and "I’ve got you now!". Very unbecoming, I must admit, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

I’ve also vented on one unwary salesperson. Who, in my judgment, fully deserved it.

Remember the little social faux pas created by what I thought was my pathetic hamster memory? Well, I’ve discovered that it was not the fault of poor memory at all, but instead an underhanded, reprehensible business practice by a company who aims to get your contact number.

Ego, who reads my blog (and enjoys it, bless him), was trying to arrange lunch with me via email when he told me that the exact same thing had happened to him, and gave me the same and organization of the person whom he allegedly met. Being possessed of a far superior memory than me, he clearly did not recall who this individual was who claimed to have met him, and pushed for details. Details were slow in forthcoming, consisting of "Oh, it was at a gathering,", and "I can’t remember who held it or where".

Understanding dawned when I realized that the company name of the person who had met him and the person who had met me was the same.

Never one to waste time in laying the smackdown on someone, I privately blessed the fact that I had kept the card.
I surfed the website given. Nothing.

I called the handphone number given on the card.

"Is this K___ Y__ G__?" I asked archly.

"Um, yes."

"What business does your company do? Exactly? Because I went to the website and there was nothing there."

"Oh, uh, our website is under construction now."

A likely story.

"So what does your company do. Exactly."

"It’s, aaaahh, it’s a sort of e-commerce. Um, actually, I can’t really tell you what the company does over the phone. Maybe you could come down for a presentation? It would take maybe an hour."

Ah. The light dawned.

"Why exactly can’t you tell me what your company does over the phone? You know what they do, don’t you?"

"Um…yeah….well…. it’s a sort of Internet shopping thing….uh..it’s really easier if you come down."

I know they’re supposed to have a script of some sort for things like this. But she was kind of losing it. I decided to get down to it.

"You told me you’d met me before. That you know me."

"Um…Estella, is it?"

"No."

"Oh, um, well, yeah….." a lot of nervous throat-clearing and giggling.

"Where exactly did I meet you? And when?"

I could practically smell the nervous perspiration now. "Um, it was some gathering, I think, um, aiyah, I can’t remember lah, um, yeah-"

I’m really not in the mood for any bullshit of any sort. Really.

"Where were you before this?"

"Ummmmm, Mindef.." You’d think the government would brainwash civil servants better than this.

"And before that?"

"I’ve always been at Mindef." She was practically gabbling by now. I love it when they do that. It makes me want to purr.

"No," I snapped, "Where did you study? Which University? Which junior college?"

"Uhhh, no, I went to Ngee Ann Poly…" She was definitely too freaked out to lie.

"Then HOW, " I snarled, practically spitting into the phone, "would I EVER have met YOU?" I then let lose a little tirade on their reprehensible business tactics, their total inability to lie and their sheer stupidity in pulling the same tactic on Ego. Throughout the dripping venom, Gerbil Woman made little squeaks of "Uh?" and "Ah?", playing it dumb to the best of her ability.

"Now, if you ever, ev-ah contact me, I will personally report you and your company to CASE and have you fired." I finished, before slamming down the phone.

(for all eager beaver out there who are clamoring that this isn’t a case for CASE (haha!), I know that, but I’m betting Gerbil Woman doesn’t.)

So, people, if you ever meet anyone from PHP GLOBAL NETWORK (SINGAPORE), please do NOT give out your contact number even if you feel like an idiot telling them you have no clue who they are. Don’t let them use social niceties to their advantage. Slinky’s social welfare message of the day.

I told The Boy about it, and he said that if it ever happened to him, he'd take their namecard, then scream something like "Let me go, woman! The child is not mine!"

Yes, he cracks me up.

The Slinky Cat KNEW there was no one else with her hair