Klang Valley is a wonderful place, its offers both the fast pace of life with adequate modern facilities (i.e. malls, eateries, pubs etc.), excellent environment. Yet 3 things that recently made me blow my top in KL are as such. (I'm going to bored you death with this one)
The first involves the way coffee shops, eateries and stalls conduct their businesses here in Mont Kiara. The first sign of trouble is apparent when once you sit yourself down at the table, the 10 odd waiters that is lounging around the place hardly takes not of you much less clear off the table after the last patrons. Lunging out your finger and barking out for their attention leads to no avail as well with either them totally ignoring you or else state that they’ll be with you in a moment which usually ends up being half an hour later. It really perplexes me how they want to conduct business in such a manner, unlike hawkers in Melaka or Penang that instantly home into you and asks for your order and promptly serve you the correct item, here it takes 1 people to man the counter; one to get the cup, one to make the drink, another to arrange the drink on the server, another to tally the total and the last one delivers it! It would also help that they put up a better disposition while serving rather than scowling and making me lose my appetite, there's a server at Bestari Mamak here that has a perpetual scowl that would cause my 'Indo Mee' to puff up like soggy sponge on a plate. Such a sight I’ve always witnessed while in Kelana Square and often too the people are incompetent as I asked for a itemized pricing of each drinks as we were going Dutch, he looked dumbstruck as if that was the last question in “Who wants to be a millionaire” and his life depends on it. Fine if you can’t tell me how to make Peking duck but to not even know the prices of drinks in your establishment, get out of here! Other times, if you’re out in a group and giving multiple orders, be prepared to have none of the order served as your original intentions, complaining does nothing so you might as well tuck in least they take another half an hour to serve the wrong menu item again. Eating is an ordeal as well, often it is a waiting game where meals can take to half an hour to arrive even if the mamak looks empty. Paying too can be a game of begging them to take your cash as even with you waving wads of cash directly in the air, the people fail to comprehend your intentions, as if you’re making a circus act. I’d half a mind to just walk out and they would never be the wiser. They always seem as if they have a million other things to do (aka watching the Bollywood drama on Astro) other than to serve the customer.
As for the patrons here, well an encounter last Sunday at a coffee shop along Sri Hartamas really put me off to find there are ignorant, selfish and idiotic patrons that don’t have an ounce of courtesy or the least bit ashamed of their actions. In a crowded breakfast restaurant where the Chow Keow Teow is great, I patiently waited with the myriad of patrons that is on the look out for free seats available. I patiently stood a distance away from an old man who was almost done with his part, a little away so as not to crowd the guy and to be rude as to intrude on his meal. Yet as soon as he went away, I put my car keys and handphone on the table to book it as I went to get a chair for my other colleague and it happened. Some moron with a tie & shirt unceremoniously sat down on the chair which my colleague was near and kept on repeating that he was taking the table, not withstanding the fact that we were waiting 15 minutes there for it and we had our stuff there already. He looked blur and without a clue and we decided fuck it and let him had it though I wanted to give him a piece of my mind on what I thought his manners were like. My colleague didn’t want to argue though we were in the right, I should’ve just stood in front of him as he ate and put on a face so menacing that he'll burn under the hot morning sun. We got a seat a while later but had to share with others, gave him a finger or two to show my displeasure with the fool and for the rest of the meal kept on looking menacingly at him like he was some kind of mass murderer. He looked offended but he should be! There is no decency anymore among these people.
Lastly, is the perplexing situation of Mont Kiara traffic. When I first stepped foot into my office wee house in the morning, traffic and parking here was a breeze, yet recently it seems that Mont Kiara has experienced an explosion in car ownership. Jams are worse than ever with gridlocks at the major intersections in and out of the Plaza. Parking space is a premium and the drivers here are just indescribable. On many occasions I was amazed at the extend that drivers here compete for parking, I have witnessed driver overshooting a potential spot and quickly hit reverse and threaten to mow me down, other time they parked double or triple cars and clog up the lanes, parking a kancil to take up two normal size parking bays, loading goods right in the middle of the only exit out of the place, other times they move as if their grandfather owns the road and take up their own sweet time in their search for parking, cut through the wrong lane in the one-way street and near inches from hitting you. The worst I had was a week ago when I was trying to get my car out of the parking space near Sri Hartamas, the cars behind me ignored my signal and park behind my car, disallowing me to reverse, fine. The next idiot cut right through and parked behind me and I honked him to death and even almost lost my head as I was an inch away from ramming my boot into his side before he finally let up and reversed to allow me some space. Really I don’t know how these jokers actually pass their driving license, maybe through the duit kopi.
