this will be the last post in this blog...im not going to write anymore things in here

1918 to 2007

Yesterday at 5.30 in the morning, My grandpa passed away at the age of 89 and 9 days shy from him 90th birthday. I'm writing this as a message to my grandpa to let him know that I miss him like hell and I wish he could come back so I can say my last goodbye as I was still nicely tucked in bed when he took his last breath.




Khong Wai Mun, my grandfather got to live a long life but he his life was mostly filled with suffering and hardship. He was born into a poor family in China and his father sent him here to work. He worked day and night hoping that one day, he could be successful but that day never came and instead he got bullied by other co-workers. They always asked him to go fetch water from a near-by well for dinner and by the time he got back, there were no more food left for him and while everybody else got to sleep in the squatters, they gave him a bench to call his own bed. Despite that, he never hated those people instead he worked harder each day to prove that he is somebody but yet they still treated him like dirt but that didn't stop him from perfecting his skills as a carpenter and as a person. This was one of the many stories he use to tell me when I was younger but I'll just take it as nothing.


He then got a job to work as a carpenter for KTM and met his future father in-law and together with my granma, they raised 5 very very fine children one of which my mother who inherited his honesty, kindness and integrity and just like her father, she taught me that but I have to say that I didn't use to listen. Then 4 years ago, he had a stroke in my own house. the image of him losing feeling to his left arm still runs crystal clear in my head and from that day onwards, that man's life got worse as the days went by. He was frequently in and out of the hospital and as well as life and death but each time, he survived. He was a fighter in life.. he never gave up hope but just last week, he started starving himself. He didn't want to eat, he didn't want to talk and god i felt awful for just going to see him a few times in a month. But still, every time i went to visit him, he tells me to be hardworking, and to be strong. He also thought me that my family comes first in front of everything else in the world but I have only managed to fulfill half of what he taught me. I failed in being a good grandson to him as I didn't do anything that I can tell him to be proud of but I do thank him because I have learnt that my family always comes before anything.


At his funeral, I didn't shed a single tear in front of him. I don't know how to explain it but everytime tears starts collecting on my eyes, its like he is right beside me telling me to suck it up and there is no reason to be sad because he is now happy and I cannot cry because I have to console my aunts and my mom as they have lost the one person that all matters. The sight of them crying for him to come back tore my heart into pieces but I still had to refrain from showing that I'm weak to let everybody know that they must be strong but I'm actually burning inside but I also felt that it was what my grandpa wanted me to show his son and daughters. He wanted them to be strong and no matter how hard I wanted to do it, I could not shed a tear.


I went up to do a eulogy for him and at that time, I felt him the most. Its like he was speaking through me, telling my family members know that its ok that he has passed and at least now he is a free man no longer constricted to the wheelchair and he is no longer in pain. The one thing that I know is that he will never be just a memory to me. I am what he thought me to be and I promise him that I will try my best to fulfill what he wants, a united, strong, loving family. I am now finally able to let my tears flow and I really do wish he comes back to visit me soon so I can say goodbye and take care to him myself and to let him know that I will miss him.

Legendary Quality Experience (Front Office)

I'm back!!! It's been too long since I've touched this blog and I think its time to update it a bit. I'm still undergoing my industrial training in Mandarin Oriental KL and so far, it has been an up and down ride for me. There are so many people I want to thank for teaching me about my job as well as to being a better person and there were PROS AND CONS of being a hotel staff. WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS ISSUES THAT MIGHT BE SENSITIVE TO SOME.
Like I said, it may contain sensitive issues.

Lets start with the Pros first, as said in my previous post, I had been trianing in the Front Office department for a month and I'd never thought I would say this, but I had fun there. It was not at all boring as I've thought it to be in the past and the job was definetely not as relaxing either. The FO department is like the front line of a hotel and a guest's first impression will be beared on the front office staffs' shoulders and to see their thankful little faces just makes a hotelier's day. Sadly, I wasn't part of that...haha... I was in the Club remember?!?! but we had our share of work to do as well. We had different tasks there everyday. Staffs there will be assigned to take care of the lounge area, the buffet area, reception area, and the room checker. I had been with every single one of the staff and gathered some of their most interesting advice. Quotes:


Wilson: You work hard for wat? must work smart. You only work as much as they pay you.
Catherine: Haihz.. I'm gonna quit this job, shave my hair and be a monk.
Addy: You must always anti-cipet what a guest want and need and don't tell anyone i made a drink for you.
Rachel: Haha..see I know Russians give tips thats why I sent you.
Nixon: I won't eat in the cafe cos it sucks!!
Claudine: I chose the Club so I don't have to do overnight shift.
Zatun: Ah boy, kerja kat sini senang tak bleh kata, susah pun tak bleh kata tapi buat saje lar you!!
Sean: [In canton] You big boy edi. Cannot simply listen to what people say ok.
Nita: You panjat saja lar kat atas counter tu tukar coffee beans.

Addy's favourite place in the club

hahah...yea thanks for the advice and help ppl..heheh but like I said, I've learnt a lot the hard way because there is NO easy way and sometimes, I wish I can take back the comment "I don't want to have a desk bound job!!". But all in all, I don't think I regret making this decision and having a guest like this man, Mr. Calles is why so. Mr. Calles is one of the nicests guest I've met. To me, he is still my guest and I'm still his hotel staff but to the other permenant staff, he is like a friend already. He's a long stay guest and from the stories I've heard, he treats everyone with respect and courtesy. Theres no staff-guest relationship and this is good because it helps the hotel earn money and it motivates you to do your job better and to try to establish a friendly relationship with guest giving them the feeling of home. Btw, that line many hotel uses, "Come stay at the hotelnamehere, its like A HOME AWAY FROM HOME" is bullshit!! especially resorts because if I want to have the feeling of home, I won't be getting away from home dumbass. Anyways....

Bottled piss that costs RM50+ each.

People actually swim there!!

This is for feng shui.

After my time in the Club, I went downstairs, to the concierge and I just re-enforce the statement that the MO Concierge is really a superduperknoweverydamnthinginmalaysia info booth. By the time I got there, they were as busy as bees so they didn't have a lot of time to teach me so all I could do was observe. It was hard trying to catch everything they are doing but after the second day, I could do those petty things like give directions, make reservations, arrange limos for the guests to leave, paste stamps (YES!! now I know how it works!!), say "Good morning, how may I assist you??" with a smile on my face while thinking shit!! he WANTS something and because 1 of my hotel's rule is to never point out but to escort guests to their destination in the hotel, I had to escort them to the damn toilet mostly but I DID get tips for just sending a guest to the business centre to use the internet. BANG!! RM10 in my pocket for walking some1 to some place in less than 10 mins. I've took Honey and Stitch for walks that lasted longer than an hour and all I got was shit. Literally. I also got another RM10 from this Russian couple who i had to escort to their room and introducing some facilities and shit. But this leads me to the next thing.


For people who think "Dennis, your job is so cool *cough* Laura *cough*", NO ITS NOT COOL!! Now for the other side of the hotel life that I have been through. In the MO Club, it's a self service kind of thing so we have buffets set up and sorts but SOME people are jsut too damn lazy. Now, if you're gona say "Dennis, you're mean", then shut up! I love serving people but to ask for a cup of coffee when you're sitting right next to the damn coffee machine just sucks. I know its a place for you to relax but can't you just get up and get your coffee yourself?? will it take forever?? no!! and speaking of that, we have this particularly fussy guest.Just like Mr. Calles, we have a public enemy too. He is like the fussiest guest in KL and many other hotels in KL have refused to take him in except ours. We shall just call him Mr. B (for privacy reasons) nono wait. It's DR. B~~ Now, in every hotel, there will be systems to check on guests profiles, accounts and various other information about a guest and in his "remarks" page, every single collumn writen is about a complaint and if printed out, it will be 5 pages long and thats just the old complaints because...........we didnt have anymore space for him to add complaints...hahahhaa.... anyways, about Dr. B, he has many many requests that we MUST follow or risk another complaint. Here are SOME of his requests:

Give you a RM29,000 coffee machine to press also lazy wan make coffee urself.

1. The music must be turned off everytime he walks in.
2. Every morning, there must be a table that he wants set for him with his special breakfast.
3. If he wants something even if we don't serve it anymore, we must get it for him.
4. He chooses people to be nice to and people to be hated and I, am proud to say I'm on his hated list. Well at least I think I am.

Thats just a few. Anyways, this guy is like fussier than many of your in-laws but so far, I've only heard stories and read complaints but this time, I was quite lucky to see him in action. He came like an hour after we cleared afternoon tea and he demanded for scones but we didnt have anymore scones left so what happened next scarred me for life and I swear, I'm never going to eat in another 5 star hotel anymore!! and the one advice that I can give you that Wilson gave me is if you want to complain, always, ALWAYS complain after your meal. Why?? I'm sure you know why and I'm not writing what we did to get him those scones and no we did NOT spit in it. If you really want to know what we gave him and how we got it, you can e-mail me and I'll tell you.

Oh we have your scones right here Dr. B

Now, the bad side of working in the concierge. Like I said, guests come asking for every single thing they want to know that they cannot figure out themselves even if the tallest building in Malaysia is sitting right next to your room. Most of our "customers" come for directions which is perfectly fine because you're a foreigner and you don't know the place. Fine I give you that. You want to know which is the cheapest and fastest way to your destination, I can understand that too but how stupid must you be, to ask me those 2 questions when you want to get to the Petronas Twin towers?? and like every other hotel, our rooms' number is associated with the view and that guest was from a room that has a view of the two bloody giant corn looking dicks that were standing errect from the ground!! Honestly, I don't hate these people because I can now tell people who thinks foreigners are the smartest or best in everyway. There was also this guest who wanted to play some stupid ass game and he asked my colleague to go fetch it for him. But thats not the cherry on top of the cake. The most frustrating guests are guests who ask for stupid things WITH bad English. I can't say my English is the best but please, if you can't speak proper English, don't act like you're so dam big!! like this arab dude trying to ask me to confirm his flight. Heres how it went

Arab Dude: Blaine Dicket.
Dennis: I'm sorry sir could you repeat that??
AD: BLAINE DICKET!!
D: blaine....oh PLANE TICKET!!
AD: Yes...
pause.............
AD: well??
D: I'm sorry sir. What would you want me to do with the plane tickets??
AD: [pause] [mumbles something to wife]
D: would you like me to reconfirm your flight??
AD: AHH!! yes yes!! pleeez confeirm my blane dicket.
D: Alright Mr. AD, you could go back to your room first and I'll call you when I have reconfirmed it.
AD: [walks off]

That guy wanted to know how to get to the twin towers wor...how???

All that and not even a thank you?!?! sheesh so after I reconfirmed his flight, I called him back and his wife picked up and thank god his wife speaks English!!!!! These are the most frustrating type of people I have ever tried to communicate with in my life!! But there are people who are super nice. I love recieving calls and requests from people who speaks good English and who are polite. The most annoying guests however, surprisingly are NOT foreigners but our own countrymen. Especially the chinese. I myself am a chinese but god do I hate these people. When they ask you for something, and just because they have money, they think you're like a cloth soaked in water and they'll you out of the basin and squeeze every last drop of water out of you. If they pay RM2000 a night, oh they'll make sure they get their RM2000's worth of service which actaully is NOT that big a sum compared to others.

Okok.. I shall leave the complaints out or it will be 5 pages long like Dr. B's!!! hahaha... but although I complain, I was happy doing what I did and I'm glad I did it and all those dumb shits are just a part of everyday life so no point frussing over that. Saying it once is enough and I'm not complaining to get a pat on the back and a thank you, you're great which I also learnt is not going to happen but to let other people in the same field as I am to read and hopefully teach me something new be it if your behind the counter or on the other side. And for people who thinks my job is easy, think of this. You're not special because when you buy the ice cream, you only get to watch it get scooped. Only special people get to scoop the ice cream. Thats why they made self service ice cream machines.. because they want you tards to feel special too. And if I have offended any of you, maybe because you WERE the person I served or maybe you have been a similar dumb fuck, I'm not sorry!! You should be mature enough to think that I practice freedom of speech and if you don't like it, don't use the internet. And also enjoy some of the pics.

Buka Puasa time!! food stolen by house guitarist Isaac.

The apples are for feng shui also

Cody and her kiosk

Pralines......yum~~~

That's why I come to work everyday.

Addy, Me, Wilson and Andrea

Us plus Janet

Argh...you know who is who lar har..

Caught red handed

Training Day came and this was what happened.

My notes started as this

What safety awards did my hotel win again?!?!

Ganas~~~

role playing for the check in process

Examiner Sean

every hotel's most favourite spying program

and at the end of the day, my notes became this

I will try to update again at the end of this month ok for the FnB training.

Dut.......Dut.....

To all my college buddies, you know who you are oh and for the exceptional two from IACT, I need to see you guys again!!!!! It'll be great if we could all arrange a day to go out and MAKAN!!! i sooooooooooooooooooooo miss you all man.....except for lisa and andrea whom I still have to see everyday.....hahahha...msg me to arrange somethign lar....i hope we all get the same day off

First Week Madness

AHHH~~~~ finally i can sit down and relax. Today, will be the last day of the first week of my industrial training in Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur and believe me, you really DO need to be a super human to work in a hotel. This week was and still is a stressful but fun week. I got to experience waking up at 7 in the morning all over again, I got to take the LRT to the hotel everyday i work, I have to stand for 8 hours, and of course, I got to work!!

I got into the same hotel as Andrea and Lisa and some girl named Wan Sze from Stanford College. On the first day, we all had to sign our contracts and went through the details before we started work.

These are the people who hired us!! Mr. William, a nice organized looking man and Mrs. Penny Kok who I've never met. Shhhhh...I'm supposed to know who they are..


This is where I'll be placed over a period of 3 months.

So we're off to start trainig at the Front Office. Our boss there, Ms. Susan Abdullah whos a nice but strict woman runs the front office and the person in charge then was Ms. Yatie and Ms. Cindy Kong and I tell you, those are the most professional and organized bunch of people I've ever met in my life. Respect!

After a briefing, we were taken to various places in the hotel and was placed in different areas just for the day. Lisa and I were both placed in the Mandarin Oriental Club (MOC) Lounge. It is similar to the executive lounges in other hotels and this particular Club has won various awards and I am proud to work there. The MOC serves foods and drinks and louges for guests to relax with the views of the PETRONAS Twin Towers, The KLCC Park, the city line and also the swimming pool view. Our boss there for that day is Mr. Sean who is being promoted to Duty Manager of the Reception. The lounge is a quite place to be and is quite peaceful at that time so we just folded napkins and hunged around until 5. Thats our first day of work.

Schedule for the week.

On Tuesday, I started off with concierge which is like the dept. that handles transportation of all sorts, luggage handling, and info and directions. I would like to call that place the superduperknoweverydamnthinginmalaysia info booth manned by Mr. Subra and Mr. Khairul, the funny dude and the boss himself Mr. Kent Lee who was busy that day so I didnt get to learn a whole lot but I certainly learned that its not easy to be in the concierge. We have guests with funny requests like asking for six packets of hot barley drinks, shoe laces, asking for directions to KLCC. Hello?!?! we're right NEXT to KLCC!! I also worked in all departments and the nicest time I had was when I was in the MOC and the business centre (kiosk) where I met the nicest person to me in MO. Her name is Cody. Weird name but a nice person.

I have chosen to work at the MOC and the concierge to finish off my Front Office training before I move on to FnB next month so till then I'll be in the clun and concierge.

1 day to go

Ahhhh....holidays...too bad its ending soon and in about 24 hours, I'm going to be off to my industrial training. We were given 5 main hotel choices to go and would be selected to go for their interviews. This was what I chose.

This was my line of choices and guess which 1 got picked?? And its supposed to be the first choice that gets you the job but nooo... So I went to ask and the lady told me that 20% of students in the system will have their hotel's randomly chosen and I got the last choice!!

Yea...I got Mandarin Oriental the best hotel in KL and have won 4 safety awards just this year. Man will i suffer. I can just imagine holding the peeler wrongly and peeling potatoes the wrong way and that I might hurt myself but who knows? ahhahaha so I went for the interview and according to Andrea, Lisa and Yu Ying, the interview will only take like 5 minutes so I was EXPECTING 5 minutes and I had a 45 minute interview with a lady named Miss Elizabeth who turned out to be a very nice person but still scary. About 5 weeks after that, I got a call saying that I got accepted and only 4 out of the lot got chosen. Look at the picture for results.

So for the next 3 months, I'm gonna be spending my days here which I don't really mind but the thought of working in a place with such high expectations excites but at the same time makes my ball turtle.





Oh and I can just imagine myself being 1 of these dudes...