The story of how Hoe Kee Service sucks and my Contractor is a Dickface

Today was a supremely awesomely frustrating day. 

After being hauled out of bed to make lunch like some kitchen knave, I was dragged to meet our fucking dickface of a contractor. Forced to make some talk and smile like two fake cows chewing cuds in a pasture, I had to endure an hour of staring at some crazy ass BORING tiles. I now know why every apartment renovated in the same period look the same. Because every contractor bring them to the same shop to stare at the same boring tiles. Contractor and I stared evilly at each other, after he suggested some tiles which I don't like. You see other than considering tile color, I am also limited by the fact that I am not getting rid of those shit ass ugly tiles in my kitchen. Because I am poor, and hacking and replacing tiles even in a small kitchen is suicidally expensive.

To catch you up, the reason why I am dead poor now is because we bought a super expensive resale flat in one of the most expensive places in Singapore, and now bloody S$8 went and made a imperial edict that HDB should just oversupply flats, no more Build-to-order, possibly sharply devaluating flats, and destroying all our CPFs. It's all B1's fault for being one of the 60.1% idiots who voted for S$8 and gang, and then best of all, he voted S$8 in (because he lives in his constituency. I could laugh but it will sound bitter).

So the kitchen bathroom tiles have to have blue overtures or be blue-friendly so as not to blind myself walking from the kitchen to the bathroom. As it is, I imagine my house looking super contrasting and UGLY. The Contractor (lets shorten it to Cunt, which shows the amount of contempt I have for him, and we haven't even started work on the house) kept moaning that we should choose this tile because it looks modern, that tile because it looks modern. HELLO, has he forgotten about those retro shit ass ugly tiles crawling up my kitchen? The last time I checked, retro doesn't go well with modern. I was struggling to go with classic... in the end after he was so annoyed he wandered off to smoke, we finished choosing the last tile.

Guess what? After he finished smoking, he came back in to find us, and he showed us some of the tiles he chose for the other house he was renovating. Lo and behold, it was the same tiles he tried to pawn off on us as being modern. *&^$#

He then escorted us down the road to his RECOMMENDED hardware shop, introduced us to this lady, and sat down and did his own stuff *keke*. The problem is... that shop is crazy expensive. You could tell, because the shop was empty on a Saturday afternoon. And everyone who wandered into the shop walked quickly out within two minutes. It was very depressing being trapped there out of politeness, staring at a toilet bowl we couldn't afford, and I didn't like the hobs they had there. When Cunt rushed off for his next appointment, I tried to get out of the shop but stupid B1 wouldn't let me, he wanted me to finish choosing all the stuff that I wouldn't want to buy from that shop just so that he could have the quotation (so that he could compare prices in the next store he said). I later got into a tantrum because I was tired and angry and frustrated at choosing stuff I couldn't afford. I hate shopping, and I especially hate shopping at places that do not have the things I want to buy. 

So I was incensed. I felt like I had spent hours in the place, but stupid B1 said we only spent like at most one hour. Frankly he was naive enough to be happy by the so-called 20% discount the lady was offering (I am an extremely cynical person by contrast when it comes to $). We got into an argument (while the lady was typing up the quotation in excel) and I stormed out of the shop, heading into the nearest hardware shop because I did not want to waste another second of my precious weekend in a dead end. 

Angry words later, we ended up at Jalan Besar, where we went into several shops. All busy with shoppers (we were discouraged by the waiting and left some of them) and cheaper than the one recommended by the Cunt by 20% even after she gave us 20% discount (It's like shopping at John Little or Robinsons, they mark up the shit by 300%, then during a sale, declare 50% sale, while still overcharging you at 150%, my Accounts teacher told us. She used to do their accounting). This made me even more angry at the Cunt. I told B1 bitterly that he is overcharging us and he is still getting a cut at the shop. And they charge GST to boot, while the Jalan Besar shops all included GST in their quotation.

One of the shops we wandered into was Hoe Kee "Superstore". The service sucked. Seriously. We wanted to get this guy to help us, but he offed us to this disinterested looking ATB. When we asked to take down the item (for the quotation), she just wrote on any old paper and passed it to me. I was like, huh? I told her in Mandarin, that I would like to get other stuff, and could she please help us write? She said that she did not have any more paper, when I could see that guy writing down on an order pad for another family). In the end she passed me a pen and told me to write myself. I asked her if it was because she was a Tecno employee (she was helping us on the Tecno product, and wearing a Tecno shirt). Then I could understand why she couldn't help us. But she said she was a Hoe Kee employee. So what was her fucking problem?! 

I walked back to the guy and asked him to help us when he was done with the family he was helping. He said sure, but muttered he was busy. He said he would get someone else to help us but he didn't bother. Another ATB was arranging the items in the shop and ignored us. On top of that I was further infuriated when I saw the first ATB walk past me later carrying an order pad helping another family write down their order. I just put down the pen and walked out of the shop.Hoe Kee Superstore's service sucks. I am not basing this on one employee. But all three employees.

On the other hand, Royal Fanco's Mr Henry provided pretty expert advice and excellent service. He, as well as Mr Martin from Adamas and Mr Ng from Poh Seng Hardware were very expert in their fields, explaining about the toilet collars and the size we would need, based on the age of our flat and the area it was located. Cunt didn't tell us to get any, and the lady from the recommended shop didn't even mention toilet collars. I came home and googled the shops, thus realizing that Poh Seng and Royal Fanco were well-received by others.

By contrast, there was a super friendly Chinese Mainlander Auntie in another hardware store, she was very pro in her recommendation for the item we wanted to buy.

Updated
More about that Cunt. He told us to choose the counter top colors using samples he got from some company. I chose two colors, giving him the model numbers as he requested. I chose a wheatish yellow to match my floor tile in the master bedroom and a white one for the kitchen. Since I was busy working, I couldn't make it home in time when they put the counter tops for the bathroom and the kitchen. B1 who took leave to watch the entire process, was sufficiently alarmed by the color in the bathroom that he called me.

"Did you choose orange?"

"Sure, if I go blind one day."

B1 drove over to my work to show me the color. F*ck it. That Cunt gave me the wrong color. I called him immediately and he said that I chose that color. No f*cking way. Too bad for him, I took photo of the color I chose and the company he showed me the samples from. We argued and I demanded he replace it with the right color. He refused to.

So the next day I took leave and drove to the company that he showed me the samples from. The company was shocked and said they did not take any order for my address. I called Cunt, and told him I was outside the company, and repeated what they said. He was tongue-tied that I would drive into the ulu flatted factory area just to prove the color was wrong, and only said he would give me the number of his supplier.

I usually don't bother with vendors or bad restaurants, but his awful service really broke the camel's back and I threatened to take them both to CASE. In the end I got the cost of the ugly countertop written off, but I have to live with the ugly color for life/ until I redo my reno.