Probably most of you didn’t even heard of a Captain and Tenille song Do that to me one more time. I know, it’s from 1980, it’s old, it’s rusty but still, continues to be imho one of the best “bed songs” i’ve ever heard. Toni Tenille had a spot light career over the 70’s end, when she raised the audience in some of the US TV shows in that time; and in 80 she singed the “do that to me ..” song. What do you think. do u like it ?
Over the last weekend I’ve considered to be a good time to spend some time knowing my city; oh no, that was a total mistake. Except some customization made on a general level, and the pubs in the Pta Unirii - the Timisoara former city square - nothing is changed in the past 3-4 years. Nothing new worth mentioning, nothing new worth speaking about. I can recall most the the places being the same as 20 or 25 years ago, as if the years just made scars on the buildings walls but forget to improve them. Same pipes, same “under construction” with no constuction sites, maybe the same construction workers on the city streets and roads trying to fake the working process over a pet of beer (I especially love the working crews with 1 worker and 5 people watching him doing the jobs, you can almost say the worker is the medic and his bosses - I guess they where on higher ranks in the construction company since they where not working, just watching - as I said you can almost compare them with an student crowd watching the doctor doing the daily round).
One noticeable fact over “my promenade” was the attitude of the sales persons: most of them where more friendly, almost approaching to the European attitude of a vendor/tab person. I’ve even seen ice-cream people selling their products with a smile on the face, which is an totally unseen attitudine in the Romania, happiness and smiles from the person that sells you something can be seen starting from the Romania / Hungary border, heading vest.
Iulius Mall: ofc, I’m there almost every 2 days but now I spend more time watching over people’s faces; and my Romania’s impression was confirmed again: sad or grumpy selling people, with eagle eye, watching you all the time and worring that you might steal from them. WTF’s wrong !!!!
Friday was the chores day. One of the stops: RETIM - the Timisoara garbage collecting and recycling company. Over the past months, ReTim was trying to improve their image with lots of new programs, ads and improved garbage collection. Their staff has been submitted to qualifications and send to specialization courses for working with clients and software programs. In a word RETIM is trying to improve the image by using the means available on the market; ofc they are doing 10% of the job in marketing, but that’s call for willing in Romania. So, here’s the story:
- After waiting for more than 14 days for the monthly invoice, the person that collects the money from the clients arrived at my house with the wrong invoice
- One visit two days later at their invoice center; it’s morning, 9:30 AM, much too morning for my taste. I got to the office, and took the seat in front of a sales manager; she was talking to the telephone, of course to a friend or relative, about some trivial stuff. As I seat down, she noded at me, but she didn’t rush her call to end. Noooooo. …. telling to her friend what she watched on tv last night and her impression of someone she and the phone interlocutor knew WAS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THEN ME, THE CLIENT WHO JUST ARRIVED. After a few polite attempts to capture her attention, she FINALLY said “talk to you later” in the phone and hung up; this was 7 minutes after I was arriving and took the seat in front of her. 445 seconds counted. RIGHT! 445 seconds later! So I wasn’t important, I’m just garbage people (and BTW, what’s the trend of speaching from the company phone hours with your friends? RETIM, any idea why your phone bills are so high ? ). Finally, I started explaining that they made a wrong invoice, doubling over the night the number of people from the invoice, and the amount they perceived, and that I wanted to be billed by the number of persons from the contract signed 2 months earlier; she told me to make an request asking them to bill me after the contract. WTF did I signed the contract ? Again, for RETIM policy, CLIENTS = GARBAGE = AREA OF ACTIVITY AND EXPERTISE. The good news was that they promised the send the new invoice in two days. There’s no why in discussing openely with the lady in front of me, so I made the request to be billed according to my contract not to some fantasy some worker had over night, and leaved the building with the promise that 2 days later I will have the new invoice.
- 6 days later, oh you already guessed ? no invoice. So I called today, monday at their 0256 499 490 phone number. BIIIIG MISTAKE. The first men that answered was the centralist; with a tone raised he asked me what I want; no hellos, no how may I assist you; just a shouted what do u want. Again the garbage stuff. I started politely to tell him the story of the invoice, and he decided to transfer me to the payments dept. With an irritation on he’s voice (did I interrupted him from a BJ’s or something ? ) he made the forwarding. Again a lady, irritated and shouting at me; I haven’t said a word yet, but I was already yelled at. WTF! Again, I started to explain the invoice story, but the lady, with a more aggresive and much more irritation in voice than the previous men, decided to interrupt me 3 times, just without reason. As if I was GARBAGE, not client.., After finishing the story, the lady shouted at me: what do you want from me, this is an invoice problem, why did you get here. Ofc, I asked for the invoice phone interior number, and also for the invoice value, which she could tell me. Again, no presentation, no hello, no how may I help. WTF is wrong with the people there? and WTF do you have against your clients RETIM Timisoara? Why do you treat us so bad ? Having the monopol over the garbage market doesn’t give you the right to have grumpy employees that shout just when they answer the call, and ignore you when you seat in the clients chair.
Conclusion: I know I used and abused of this word in the article, but WTF is wrong ? Is anyone responsable for this situation (I’m already guessing not, but what the heck)? Long live and prosper Timisoara and the garbage monopol! I love you RETIM, keep it up the same way, we, your clients, just LOVE to be treated as garbage!
Poker world is something amazing from whatever angle you would look at it. The entry is free for everyone, but the tables and seats most of the time are forbidden to those with little knowledge of the game and human faceread. Maybe because World Series of Poker, the world known poker tournament wanted to be sure that the winner of it’s main event is given by the knowledge of the game, they postponed the final table of the 10k event to November 08; have you ever heard of Jamie Gold after his glorious win in 2006? I have seen him in a couple of poker shows - like Poker after Dark on NBC - but on a high stake table I haven’t. Anyways, here is the list of the top 9 runners up for the main title (Nov 9th - so long till then):
Seat 1: Dennis Phillips - 26,295,000
Seat 2: Craig Marquis - 10,210,000
Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz - 12,525,000
Seat 4: Scott Montgomery - 19,690,000
Seat 5: Darus Suharto - 12,520,000
Seat 6: Chino Rheem - 10,230,000
Seat 7: Ivan Demidov - 24,400,000
Seat 8: Kelly Kim - 2,620,000
Seat 9: Peter Eastgate - 18,375,000
There are 4 runners around 20M chips, for the rest seems to be allin time. Everyone in the first 9 is already a millionaire after they will finish the table, and the winner will bring home around 9,100,000 USD. I can’t even spell right that number 9.1M$.
I can say that i’m a fan of World of Warcraft, and although sometimes I don’t have much time, I like to play a little bit on the game. Ofcourse it’s a dumb’s game, time and money consuming, but I enjoy the fun; and to the fans of the wow, today the european servers updated to patch 2.4.3 - mounts at level 30 for everyone, and 22 slots bags on sale.
whoohooo!
Today John Reese launched the Traffic Secrets 2.0, the update to the best selling affiliate program from 2004, Traffic Secrets. It’s about online marketing, blogs, social networks, gadgets and optimization, and the purpose of the 12 dvd’s attached to the book is to teach you how to get to no.1 in google. Wholesale price: 397$, link is here: http://www.trafficsecrets.com/ . Good luck!
In the past days, during some small talk conversations I’ve been asked by at least 5 people, in a way or another, who are the music artists that made their influence over me, in my life. Of course, I’m not a singer , writer or composer, but the question made me think: do I have a top 10 or just a top 10 now. For now I think the music artists (just can’t call them singers) that made their influence over me, through songs I can never forget are:
- Michael Jackson ( a big childhood fan)
- Elvis Presley
- Julio Iglesias
- Madonna
- Selena (have you heard of the Tejano singer ? Or just seen the movie with J Lo? )
- Willie Nelson
- Whitney Houston
- George Michael
- Abba
- The Beatles
of course, almost each one represented a phase in my life, but I can say now that without them, the whole Earth experience would’ve been at least unpleasant. I don’t see myself growing up without black and white or give into me from MJ and for sure I don’t see me as teenager without Vogue, Freedom; I will always love you is probably the most beautiful lie that I can accept, and sometimes, it’s natural to cry in the chapel. Yesterday, the name of the game may have been different, but the words are still the same.
Today, as Steve Jobs liked to express himself, is the begining of an new era in the mobile industry: the launch of the new iPhone3G, which will change the world. GPS, 3G, more mobily, powered by Mac’s OS X, and about 7 milions items sold from the previous generation made the iPhone the best selling brand in the last year. I wonder when will we benefit from it in Romania, and what astronomical prices will be hidden behind the new iPhone; in the USA the starting price is 199$ in Romania probably will start from 1000$, as we all know the greed behind the mobile operators.
Anyway, welcome to the mobile market, may your stay be long and prosper for both, users and vendors.
In the last days, I had several poker and casino discussions with different people in the poker and casino industry, in Romania. To summarize all of this, I have only one unknown question: why do the Romanians consider poker and casino to be a place where you go only when you have money. This is totally the wrong impression, and I think, as I said to some of the Bucharest’s Casinos shareholders, they HAVE to change this perception; ….. of course, nobody denied that a casino is a place where you go with a full card, but it’s also a place where you CAN go to have fun ever with 25 RON (Romanian New ~ 11 USD is the value).
When you enter into a casino, no one ask you if you got money on your pockets, or how much money you got on your credit card; it asks for your name and ID Card, and check it with their database, same as you check your ID when you enter into a hotel room. Of course, they (casino employee) expects that you have money on you, but the fact is that you can enter and play into a casino with 10 or 20 USD in your pocket, and none of the casino staff will tell you that you’re poor broke or just your place is not there.
I really don’t understand why after more than 18 years of “liberty” since the ‘89 Revolution, the Romanian middle class and low class don’t go to the places considered tabu in the communist regim. I know, I mentioned that is the wrong-image of the casinos that still persists, the lack of information and promotional materials, the somewhat dark-stories about some casinos, but … c’mon, we have internet, we have media that writes almost weekly about Daniel Negreanu, about high-life in Las Vegas and since we’re humans, we have the curiosity. And we have lots of movies, the last one on the silver screen right now is 21, you can see the trailer below.
And, for you, the Romanians who never walked into a casino, please remember: IT’S FREE FOOD AND FREE DRINKS! You don’t have to spend any RON / USD / EUR for getting a free beer or soda, so why don’t you step in ?
over the weekend I’ve had a very interesting experience. I was sitting in the middle of the town, in a lounge bar terrace, overlooking the central place of Timisoara. Of course, my eyes went from a girl to the next one and from one cushy bottom to another while I was drinking the cappucino.
After more than 10 minutes, a girl having no more than 23 yrs came to me, looked and asked me straight: what do you want ? Ofc, was a shock the way she acted, and the quite direct approach, and … the rest is personal history, but after the evening I remained with one question: is this better than 70’s ?
(picture from http://opoza.blogspot.com/2007/09/sunny-sunday.html )
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