"Ah Gong"

I was scolded by a supplier today, and its all my boss' fault. Serious.

I have a very childish boss who, probably due to his height, like to use this authority as a manager to show others his power to hold payments. This particular supplier's payment had already been delayed for 3 months already and understandably, they were really pissed. The lady in charge of getting payment kept calling me every single day to chase for payment even though I told her that my boss purposely held back payment. The problem is I can't possibly tell her that my childish boss did that just so to artificially push up his revenue and perhaps just out of spite. Men can be such asses when they are in a childish mood.

Then today, the lady boss of this supplier called me up. She blasted me even before I had a chance to talk. Her first sentence was "Why do you people have to hold our payment for so long? Was it cos we did not provide satisfactory service or anything?"

"You payment is already being processed and you will be able to receive your cheque for the 2 outstanding invoicces tomorrow." I replied.

She however was not satisfied, probably cos she had already made up her mind to give me a hard time and this reply, although was what she wanted to hear, did not give her a chance to show her might in blasting people off. Or perhaps her staff told her that I was a nice and patient person and was always willing to help them chase for their payment so she thought I was a pushover and would take her scoldings nicely.

"You are under SembCorb right? How come SembCorb is always so prompt in their payment and you people have to drag yours?"

At this point, I was pissed. Probably cos of a certain reply on SPUG on my pathetic personal situation and probably cos I had been handling calls since the whole morning and buried deep under by my work.

"SembCorb is SembCorb. We are not SembCorb."

"So? You people are still filthy rich so why drag our payment?"!

"What do you mean by filthy rich? How do you know we are filthy rich. Please do not use the word filthy.'

"You people not filthy rich meh? You are all under Temasek Holdings, filthy rich wat? All backed by Ah Gong wan. Of course can drag our payments right!"

At that, I did not know whether to laugh at her lack of intelligence in making that "Ah Gong" remark, which I presume is referring to Uncle Sam or just hung up my phone! So I basically blasted her off.

"What Ah Gong?! You are seriously going out of point here! We are talking about your payments, so please do not talk about SembCorb or Ah gong here. SembCorb is SembCorb, we are we. Stay on track. Look, I understand your frustration in not getting payments and I've just told you your cheque will be reaching you tomorrow. I had already did my best in chasing your payment for you, if my boss did not approve, what the hell do you expect me to do?! In fact, I believed there was a chat between your boss and my boss, and they agreed on the end of June as the payment date. And there are procedures to follow in our place here, we only process cheques on the 20th of every month and your payment had already been expedited so you will be getting yours tomorrow. You take it out on me, I also cannot do anything. If you want, just give my boss a call and ask him!"

At this point, she was probably a little shocked. Perhaps she thought that my English was lousy and did not know how to talk back at her in English since I was always conversing with her staff in Mandarin. As you can see from the way she spoke, you probably had a good idea of her standard and her mentality. She sounded like those old maids who like to think that their English is impressive and bully people with it.

"I am not angry with you lah, just want to know what caused your boss to hold our payment lor.. So we can improve on it lor.. So we can get our cheque tomorrow lah, ok good.."

"Go ask my boss why he held back your payment, I told you I had no idea why already, bye."

Ok, I admit, I did not handle the situation well, but I was really pissed. I became her outlet of frustration cos of my boss' childishness!? I have had enough of becoming others' outlets of frustrations lately. And the fact that a certain reply on SPUG about my pathetic personal situation certainly pushed my temper up a notch. And besides, I had been rather moody and depressed so thats why this little incident triggered such outburst from me.

Actually I was glad that I burst out on here cos it felt rather great to let my frustrations out and scold this bitchy women who think that she can bully someone whom she THINK was a pushover just cos she was courteous and patient on the phone.

Fuck off lah.