Since I am working during banking hours, the only time I have left for doing bank errands is during lunch. And so I decided to take take a late lunch – 1pm and use that to run to the nearest BPI bank which was in this case the Dona Soleda / Better Living branch.

I was expecting to at least be able to deposit a check. The first bank that I got into was the Family Savings bank, which oddly enough does not cater to “Commercial” BPI card holders. That bank was almost empty and there were no lines. They pointed me to go to a nearby BPI branch which I hurriedly gone to. To my disappointment, when I got the number, I found out that I still have to wait for 30+ persons.

I know banks can sometimes be busy at times, so I waited and observed why the bank is full of people at a supposedly dead hour. Lo and behold, when I looked at the teller, there was only ONE teller working, the other one was busy counting money, and the other one is still on lunch break at 1:20pm. Each of the 30+ customers will have to wait longer because there was just one teller. Being a manager my self, I looked to see what the bosses were doing, but to add insult to injury, some of them were on their desks happily spending their time talking on the phone – literally smiling – while customers whom their salaries depend upon are inconvenienced and waiting.

To make the long story short, I left that BPI Bank branch and looked for another branch which was nearby, and again – the same situation, 30+ people in line, at least this one has two tellers instead of one, but they see, to have forgotten what the banking business is all about. So the story ended with me heading back home to work without accomplishing anything.

Its a good thing that BPI has their internet banking facility where everything is convenient and fast. I doubt people will stay with them if they see BPI bank branches performing as dismal as these two branches. It even got me thinking of transferring to a competitor bank. I hope the higher ups at BPI gets to see how their branches are doing before they lose customers.

However for a few months now I’ve been working at home and I have been unaware of the oil price changes. We do go out during weekends and I distill feel the sting f gas prices, but at least now I don’t spend too much on it. News on oil price hikes do not affect me directly, at least I no longer tend to fret about it too much. I am well aware that they do affect all of us indirectly, as it is a major driving force of inflation.

If only oil companies would go for Cheaper alternatives like Coiled Tubing, or even better if they go for cheaper fuel alternatives!

Speaking of fuel alternatives, why are there no technological improvement in that field. We should be using perpetually running super efficient engines, or at least I have heard of a number of engines that can run on water, why has there been no news on this?

A least for now I no longer have to worry too much, hopefully science will come up with a new fuel that is cheaper which will benefit al of us.

Another option that we are looking at is to have an out of town swimming – since my baby loves swimming. Anyway we still have about a month to prepare so here is hoping that we make the most of it.

And honestly I was a bit surprised because there was no mention in the news that Steve’s condition was already that bad. Just a few days after the announcement of iPhone 4s, Apple Macintosh again took the world by storm with the news of its leader’s demise.

The peculiar thing is, when I read the news, somehow I felt sad, and the reaction was virtually the same through out my social networking range. Its like everyone paused for a bit to think about this man, some were probably taking care of their ach payments, feeding their kids, driving to work, eating lunch etc… But I am quite sure that most of us dropped what we were doing when we heard the news and spent a bit of time thinking about Steve Jobs, his life contributions and comparing it to our own puny contributions.

Everyone took the time to remember this great achiever’s life. And to me that is already a great honor in itself for all of Steve Jobs accomplishments.

Still what’s done is done and people will move on. The news and the interwebs will be talking about useless things again in just a few days. I just hope and pray that Steve’s family is coping well and that Apple will continue to produce great innovative and quality products.

And I also hope that I learn something from the life of this man that successfully changed the way the world thinks.

To resolve this, what I did was to make sure I get enough vitamin C and sleep. Hopefully I won’t need Howard medical carts for my recovery.

We found that they have the model that we are looking for so we went back the following day and purchased the laptop trusting the salesman that this is a good laptop with no defects. And so began our nightmare experience with Premium PC Depot and Asus 1215B!

When we got home the same day we purchased it, the touch pad was functioning intermittently, it will only work when my wife would put the netboook on standby. At first I thought that a driver update would fix it so I just let it be and went to work for the next day. But what we didn’t know was that this is a VERY COMMON PROBLEM with the particular model! So when I found out that it is still having problems after driver updates, I went back to the Premium PC Depot store in Gilmore for a replacement.

It’s just been 2 days since the purchase. Since it was new, and probably the store did not know of the issue, I was being nice to the technicians and was hoping they can quickly replace the laptop because I still have a lot to do. However they would not honor their 7 day replacement policy claiming they found an opening on the front sides of the laptop claiming it was physical damage. So what they did was they told me I had to wait for 7 days as they will send it to Asus. They told me that the laptop was not in good condition – I told them that it was not in good condition when I bought it!!!

I was really trying my best to keep my cool because I realized that these people don’t understand customer service, and Premium PC Depot Management do not check how their technicians deal with customers, they do not check the quality of the products they sell, they do not stand by the warranty and do not give a single damn about their customers. To think I was planning to upgrade the RAM and buy another laptop that same day from them if they had replaced it as the warranty said!

Sadly up to now, it’s been more than 7 days – we’ve paid the money but we don’t even have what we paid for! We are still being told to wait – and at a rather snobbish tone by their male technician. Maybe they feel that I’m just one customer that is being hassled out of their many others. What they do not understand is that every customer they let down is a big blow to their business.

Right now all I am thinking of is getting my money back and to never purchase anything from Premium PC Depot ever again. I am also writing this article to make sure that any one who wants to make computer purchases are saved from the same hassles as we have experienced. I’ve bought a number of PCs, laptops and gadgets in my life, but this has got to be the WORST experience of them all. Sadly there is no ZERO stars for the scoring that is the only reason they got a 0.5 …

Here is his email:

Hi!

My name is Martin Dumont and I represent PAKBB Agency. We are making an advertising campaign for Lacoste Company (it is a French company producing clothes, footwear, perfumery etc.) and we would like to place their banner at your site www.handyreviews.net. We are interested in banners of the following sizes: 160×600, 240×400, 300×250, 336×280, 468×60, 728×90. What can be your price for one banner (banner should appear at ALL pages of your site) of abovementioned sizes (please specify the place for the banner – top, bottom, left, right)? Please mention a normal link for banner, without javascript code and set prices in US dollars per month.

Best regards,
Martin Dumont.

Note: Next to the learning experience and eating beside mainstream artists – you will definitely love the FOOD!!!!