Me. Myself & i

i realised i've got a bad habit, the nearer it is to exams, the more frequently i make entries in my blog.
I wonder if this helps to relieve stress..
But stress is when you are doing work rite? I'm not even doin work..

The price of movie ticket is increasing, and the companies insisted that they did not negotiated the increase. Well, perhaps it just so happened that all three decided that they should increase 50 cents for weekdays and 1 buck on the weekends.
I'm not complaining about the fact that there's a price hike, it is but a vicissitude in life. There's bound to be inflation and its a one way street that the cost of living will move in. Because with an increase in the amount you are paid by your boss, the company can only sustain it by increasing the price of its products. its goin to be an upward spiral.

However, this, together with another incident jus last friday, has made me realised that the consumers in singapore are actually very subjected to the power of the big companies. The disparity in bargaining power is just to evident locally.
Just last friday, i went to popular with my sister to buy some printing paper. The one that we used had only one packet left and when my sister picked it up, it was opened before. Being really fussy, my sister decided not to get it. Since she suspected the couple next to us to have opened it, she told me really loudly that "Why is this packet open? I don't want it anymore. How can people just open it like dat? If you don't know what's inside, ask the assistants lah!" Me, being blur, had no idea she was hinting at anything jus told her to let's go since she doesn't wanna buy anymore.
Only later when i ventured back to the same section, i personally saw the couple openning another packet of paper and the shop assistant was less than 3 metres away.
Anyway that's digression, my sister got a sales assistant to confirm if that was the last packet. so our dear popular assistant told my sister
"Oh, why is it open huh? I think it's the last packet, don't have anymore."
that's it, end of story.
i stood behind and uttered really loudly "WOW! That's helpful!"
yes, i'm being anal.
I simply cannot understand wat good is a sales assistant when all they do is tell you- oh, no more stock; this is the last one we have got (take it or leave me alone).
I don't ask much from them, all i'm looking for is - let me check the store room; how bout this other brand, it's really not much a difference; they renew the stocks on monday, perhaps you can drop by again then; let me check with the nearest shop whether there are anymore; let me show you this other design...
Look, i don't want to be told the problem, provide with some solution. The big problem with singapore's service sector is there are too many giant companies that are experiencing diseconomies of scale of LOUSY sales person.
Which brings me back to my point - they are not really making losses like wat we learn in Econs, because we do not have substitutes.
In northpoint, or anywhere near, there are no longer any smaller book shops for us to choose from if we're unhappy with the big names. It's just like if all the cinemas in singapore decide to increase the prices, what are we left with (legally, because my fren mentioned pirated vcds)? and other than going to malaysia to watch movie? We, as consumers, have so little bargaining power, because we cannot punish the big firms by not patronising them for bad service. you can write ten complaint letters to them, all they do is tell their people to be nice. There's no incentive for them to make a change in their training programs - because we still have to rely on these stores for our necessities. It does not make a difference to them whether they have good or bad services.

and i'm disgusted by that.
partly because econs is but based on many assumptions that we make.
i wan to do myself justice by patronizing some other store with another name, not to travel to woodlands to another popular...

anyway my student is here
cont nez time.