Singapore is not F**KING part of China!

Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008:

Relatively uneventful day.

Went to the Acura dealership in the morning to discuss the sale of the MDX. Will now have it consigned for $31,000, which means, if I do have to pay anything, it will just be slightly over $500. Best option at the moment. Also managed to arrange for Charlie to drop off the car after he takes me to the airport on Sunday. That solved the problem of Shasta's crate, which is HUGE and occupies the entire trunk space of the MDX.

Did some more packing.

Steven came by to pay me for the Accord in the evening.

And Matt and Jon came by to pick up the Wega in the evening too. 

Matt comments that the house doesn't look any different than it looked 2 weeks ago. Thanks Matt!! That completely put me in a panic state. I was leaving in 5 days and the house looks like it was 2 weeks ago, when Jessica was still here. Wonderful. I have not gotten rid of enough stuff. Time to start tossing out or packing it up a little faster.

Went out for dinner with Matt and Jon.

Thursday, Jan 17, 2008:

Jessica had made an appointment with the vet to get Shasta a check up before he gets on flight. In addition, in order to bring Shasta into Singapore, he needed a Health Certificate and an updated Rabies Vaccination Certificate. The appointment was at 8:30 am but I was advised to go a little earlier so that the vet will know what information Singapore needs on the Health Certificate. I got there at 8:15 am. 

After checking in with the vet tech/receptionist, I am told by another vet tech that Shasta also needs a USDA certificate. This is the first time that either Jessica or I have heard of that. In fact, the only times I hear the words USDA mentioned is when I eat steak!! I'm definitely surprised and the vet tech adds to it. She says that in order to get this cert, I will have to go see an "authorized" vet and the only one around the SF/Peninsula area is in South San Francisco. When I enquired about the immediate need and appointments, etc, she said she would give me a number and I can call and find out. So what if he cannot give it to me by the time we leave??? She has no answer for me. GRRRRRREEEAAAAATTT!!! Well, I guess we will find out. I plan to call him after Shasta's appointment. They make me take a seat while they are filling out some paper work. 

The first vet tech (not the one that told me I need a USDA cert, she is an older Asian lady. This one is a young white girl) calls me back to the counter and asks me to write down our current address and our future address in Singapore. I write that down for her and hand it back to her. With the information I have written down, she proceeds to complete her paperwork. I continue standing at the counter when she asks me very casually... "Is Singapore in China?" 

That has to be my most favorite question.

"NO, YOU STUPID IGNORANT DUMBA$$, SINGAPORE IS NOT PART OF CHINA, NOR JAPAN, NOR KOREA, NOR TAIWAN, NOR ANY OTHER F**KING COUNTRY!!!!"

But I decide to be really nice and just say no. As with all American forms, the following fields always appear: "City", "State", "ZIP" and sometimes "Country". 

She was now REALLY confused: "What about the City?" 

My answer: "Singapore."

In an even more confused tone: " The state?"

My answer: "Singapore."

Now, completely out of her comfort zone and seconds from being EDUCATED: " So, the city, state and country are all Singapore?"

My answer: "Yes." Still trying to remain calm and not say: "Look here b*t*h, get a computer, get an internet connection and have you ever heard of wikipedia? Try wiki-ing Singapore." Relax, everyone, I didn't say that. I wanted to, yes, it was right there, at the tip of my tongue, just on the verge of rolling out, but I stopped myself.

She continues: "So, how big is this country?"

I say: "Oh, it's an island"

She says: "Like Alcatraz?"

I say: "Yes, maybe just a little bigger... (and only for you Singaporeans to enjoy) but feels like Alcatraz..."

Incredulously, she says: "Wow! That's a tiny country."

I say: "Yes, it is small. (I think but do not say: "but not smaller than your brain")"

Conversation ends.

I repeat. 

SINGAPORE IS NOT F**KING PART OF CHINA OR ANY OTHER COUNTRY.

Ok, let me get back to my story.

Shasta gets his check up. He gets his Health Cert and Rabies Vaccination Cert and we are off, $143.58 poorer. Damn this is one expensive dog.

I continue to call this USDA vet throughout the day but keep getting his voicemail. I return home to drop Shasta off and go in to the office. I need to clear up my last expense report and some other stuff because I was not planning on coming in on Friday. I stay a few hours at work and then I go home.

As I am walking back from the train station, I decide to take care of our "3 days to pay or quit" notice. By the way, in addition to that notice pasted on our door, we also got a similar notice in the regular mail. It is now time to put on my acting face...

I enter the leasing office and there is one "resident relations" person helping a resident. I wait for him to get done with the person and then toss (I really did toss it at him, remember, I have my acting face on and I'm playing an irate customer) the notice at him. He picks it up, tells me he is going to look it up. He is seated at a desk, I am standing in front of the desk.

He says: "It looks like you owe us $400 something (I don't remember the exact figure), how would you like to pay this?"

I say: " I don't owe you f**king shit. We have never owed you any-f**king-thing. You all are a complete model for incompentency."

He says: " Thank you for the compliment."

I am not actually angry. We are leaving in 4 days and I couldn't exactly care less what ParkMerced was going to do. I was never going to pay the $400 something odd anyway, but since I had gotten the ball rolling, I might as well just continue with my act and take it all the way.

I say, very loudly and angrily: " Don't be a smart a$$. This is our notice of our intent to leave because you guys are just one big f**k up. (I also toss him the bill/notice that Jessica got when she paid the final rent). This is the amount the notice says we owe and this is what we paid. If you are so incompetent and can't get that right, that's your f**king business, not mine. Due to your incompetency, you do not have any right to embarrass us by posting a "3 days to pay or quit" notice on our door. Fix it!! (I'm really not sure what there is to fix though... LOL!)

He says: " If you don't calm down, I will have to ask you to leave."

Extremely well trained (sarcasm intended) customer service. No, don't try calming the irate customer down, threaten them instead.

I raise my voice even more: " You can ask me to do whatever the f**k you want, but I'm not leaving till you fix this!"

At this point, there are 2 people standing at the door leading to their internal offices looking in on us. 

He repeats: " If you don't calm down, I'm going to have to either ask you to leave or call security."

Woah... the ParkMerced security... the people that carry batons and patrol ParkMerced and keep us residents free from harm. The same security that has allowed 4 cars in my parking garage of 16 lots to get broken into... damn... I'm trembling with fear.

I say: " Call whoever the f**k you want to call, ask me to leave, do whatever the f**k you want to do, but, fix this problem first.

One of the ladies standing in the doorway steps forward and stretches out her hand. I refuse to shake hands with her. She does not introduce herself but asks very softly and politely: "Sir, I see you have a problem, would you care to explain what is going on?"

I repeat the story... Our last day is the 23rd. We came in to pay rent up till then, but we still get this notice of not paying rent stuck on our door, yada, yada, yada... I go on to add: "How would you feel if this was done to you?" 

She immediately apologizes and gathers the notices that are now all over the table and in my hands. In the meantime, as she is listening to me, the first guy I was talking to was actually calling security. When she was done with her statement above, there were now 4 people peering through the door from their offices and 2 security guys standing behind me.

I look at the first guy and say: "That's excellent resident relations you have. Learn how to handle difficult situations and not continue to strive for the mediocrity you have already achieved exceedingly well." (Yes, I am continuing to be a punk a$$)

The lady waves the guy to signal him to leave the room. He stares at me as he leaves and I take one parting shot: " Don't be giving me no attitude. We can always take it outside.", knowing full well this was going nowhere for him and he had to swallow whatever else he wanted to say.

The lady also tells the security guys they can leave. I still have 4 people staring into the room at us but now the conversation is between me and this lady, whom I soon learn is the Resident Relations Manager. To her credit, she handled the situation very well and possibly used everything in the book of managing crisis to calm me down enough so she could deal with the situation. She tells me she is going to go into the back and research the notice a little more. She invites me to her office which I decline because we are still now in fairly neutral territory and residents walk in and out and I can create another outburst when/if I feel like it. I think inviting me to her office was a way of preventing that.

When she is gone, a guy steps in through the door and apologizes to me. He gets me going again. I tell him: " There are no amount of apologies that can help me remove all the bad taste I have had from this place. We are an ideal renter. We pay rent on time. We don't call for anything and replace stuff ourselves as much as possible. We don't have loud parties. And all ParkMerced has done is f**k us over time and time again. No amount of apologies will suffice." He apologizes again and states that he is the new manager of the entire complex and is not familiar with my "file". 

I tell him to go look it up. I quote him the inefficiencies of the complex and the problems that we have had with them, not to mention this last problem which is embarrassing. He agrees and PROMISES to look into my file. Before he leaves, he says: "You will be hearing from me." 

I say: " Yeah right."

He says: "I promise."

I say: " Yeah right."

I am currently sitting in Singapore, 10,000 miles away from ParkMerced, 4 days removed from the above conversation... and you guessed it... I have NOT heard from him!!!!! 

This is not the end of the story about ParkMerced. I will be describing our entire experience with them, most likely on a different blog so that I can post it up for future renters to read on www.apartmentratings.com. 

PAY BACK'S A B*T*H!!!

Anyway, back to the rest of the story. The lady returns, apologizes again, tells me she will take the notice out of file (like I really care) and that it was an oversight on their part and they are working to fix it and blah, blah, blah. Nothing she said really solved anything except, I think it help me relieve some of the stress I was having because of the move. I walked out and it was continued my walk back to our apartment... nothing gained, nothing loss.

The rest of Thursday evening was relatively uneventful as I continued putting more stuff away and ran to the storage one more time.

I spent the rest of the evening psyching myself up for the going away party the next night (Friday night)... to be continued on next posting.