Sunday, February 26, 2012

2012-02-26 Surprise Brunch at Bizu Greenbelt 2

I'm turning 50 on March 5, but will be in the US from March 2 to June 2. Last year, I went home home to Ozamiz to celebrate my birthday with my Dad and Mom. This year, much as I wanted to go home again, I couldn't because of my trip. So I arranged a brunch at Bizu with my family here in Manila, my Kuya Pepo and Ate Terry and their brood, plus my nephew Paolo and his wife Candy (plus future gigil victim Bam-Bam) and Ditto. Both my Kuya Pepo and I are notorious pranksters. When he turned 50, he blocked any attempts at having people pull a fast one on him with a surprise party by planning an elaborate birthday celebration himself.
I chose Bizu because of its good brunch selection. Try their grilled sandwiches.


What Kuya did after I invited my family to brunch was to deviously culling all of my friends' lists: my childhood friends from Ozamiz, my law school and UP friends, and my Manila Jaycees group. He pulled all stops to close the main dining area of Bizu.
No, my name is not Jonel.


The day before the brunch, my UP Law classmate Jackie slipped and apologized for not making the brunch because her husband Kuya Tony had to be rushed to hospital. That evening, my good friend Angkong Gerard and I were texting each other, then I said, "Join me and my family for brunch tomorrow." Inexplicably, he didn't text back. Hmmm...


Sunday, Bizu at Greenbelt 2: my family was assembled, along with Tito Gerry and Tita Bing Bacarro! Hmmm...Kuya said that he bumped into them, about to have brunch at Italianni's so he just invited them over to join us. Yeah, right. They live all the way in Ayala Heights and it's likely they would schlepp themselves all the way to Makati just for Italianni's. Plus, there were no other guests in Bizu except us, with its garden dining area packed with families, and smokers. And there was a buffet setup, which Bizu never does for brunch. Something was cooking, and it wasn't just the tinapa, tapa and longganisa later served.
The Main Co-conspirators, my Kuya Pepo and Ate Terry


Then other friends and family arrived. So yeah, I was surprised, despite what my nieces kept on saying, that I'm not the type to be surprised.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

GLOBE FAIL, PART 2

Not a food post, but one that concerns a number of us.



I have an iPhone 4 that I purchased myself and I have been using it with my Globe subscription since October 2010. Around mid-2011, I noticed that the signal on my phone would drop, especially when I would enter the basement of a building or an elevator. To get reconnected, I’d had to turn my phone off and on. This became an annoyance and finally in December 2010, I took the bother of going to the Globe Business Center at the Shang Mall to have my problem fixed once and for all.

I was lucky to have been attended by Gladys Rojas. She even gave me her cell number so I could call her if I encountered any problems with my phone. She explained to me as someone who was herself an iPhone user, she had experienced the same problems that I described that day. A day or so after my visit to the Globe office, the signal on my phone improved.

Early this year, the signal went awry once again. Having had a pleasant experience at Globe’s Shang office, I went there again. This time around, I was attended by another CSR, who tried to bluff herself through my problem. It was obvious that she knew next to nothing about my problem, and I asked for a supervisor. Ms. Rojas assisted me and she changed my SIM, changed some settings on my phone and asked me for feedback. Again, she told me that my problem was unique to iPhone users. I asked why nothing was being done about this problem and she said that Globe was addressing it. For a time, the signal was good. Then it went kaput again. And again, I went to Globe’s Shang office. This time around, Raj Rendez attended to me. He gave me the same explanation: that iPhone users had been complaining about weak signals, dropped calls, unreceived text or that was shown as sent but did not reach the intended recipients. Again, he promised to keep me updated on the progress of my complaint. On January 26, 2012, he sent me a text telling me that he had endorsed my complaint to technical and that he would keep me posted on any progress. So far, I have not heard from him again. On February 2, I texted him for a progress report because my connection problem persisted. I did not receive a reply.

In the evening of February 3, 2012, I was in Trinoma and my signal went bonkers again, despite the fact that I did not enter any basement area or elevator. I turned my phone off and on. A little while later, I received a call from my sister, wondering why I had not texted or called back, or why my number had been unreachable since the evening of February 1, 2012, after my Mother had an accident. This really upset me. For two days, I was clueless as to what had happened to my Mother, because of Globe’s continuing failure to provide me the service that I contracted them for. I immediately called Mr. Rendez. His phone was ringing, but he was terminating the call at each of my attempts to call him. The same went for my attempts to phone Ms. Rojas. I even texted them, informing them that their failure to update me on my long-time complaint and the failure of Globe to provide me the service that I had paid for had caused me grief.

So what does a hapless consumer like me do? On the one hand, I want to terminate my contract immediately. But what option is then open to me? Proceed to Smart, where the service is not any better? Should I file a breach of contract suit against Globe, and be a foolish David to their smug Goliath?

Today, I’d had to turn my phone off and on twice.

And the saga continues.


EATERSHIP

If you like to eat well, live well, listen well and have the patience to go through my kilometric but hopefully entertaining blogs, then this is the page for you. I chose EATERSHIP because it sounds like "leadership," and because if you jumble it up, it could also read "hip eaters." Eat and read on!