George Yang, Author at Goody Feed

During Circuit Breaker period, the wiring in everyone’s brain has been altered as well: we’ve all become much more short tempered. Earlier my boss told me to bring him a cup of coffee, and when I didn’t respond, he threatened to fire me until he realised he was at home and so was I. And of course it’s not just hearsay lah; According to CNA, more people are also dialing in to suicide and mental health hotlines. The Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH) also observed an increase in helpline calls by 50 per cent in February and March 2020 compared to the average calls from April 2019 to Jan 2020. And it’s understandable because cabin fever is taking a toll on our mental health. So when temper flares, people do things like this: While it’s easy to dismiss the GrabFood rider as the villain here, there’s more to it. Playmade Staff Had Allegedly Being Rude Before GrabFood Rider Lost His Cool As you probably know, yesterday, there was a surge of online orders at night after it was announced that bubble tea shops would be closed from today. People bought two last cups of bubble tea and put them in a small space, hoping that the two cups would have some fun then reproduce and give birth to more tiny bubble teas. But that surge also caused a bottleneck; here, take a look at the queues that are not unexpected: Image: Facebook (Singapore Atrium Sale) Image: Facebook (Singapore Atrium Sale) Image: Facebook (Singapore Atrium Sale) It wasn’t something that you’ve not expected, but it seems like food delivery personnel were affected by this sudden crowd. And back to the GrabFood rider who wanted to pick a fight with a PlayMade staff; it turns out that there’s more to it than meets the eye. While the GrabFood rider is now arrested for public nuisance, the staff hasn’t been a saint, too. Even before this, people have been speculating on Playmade Facebook Page on what could have conspired before the incident, claiming that the staff in that particular outlet have often been rude even before this. And just so you know, it’s the same outlet that was fined $1,000 for breaching safe-distancing rules earlier this month. Now, they’ve come out to clarify. It Will Be “A F***ing Long” Wait In a Facebook post by Playmade, they finally explained what happened. Apparently, the sudden surge in orders (150 delivery orders in an hour—and that doesn’t include the orders from the long queue) has led to a bottleneck. The GrabFood rider “repeatedly demanded” to know how long he’d have to wait, and “under pressure and out of frustration”, the staff said that it would be “a f***ing long” wait. Image: Giphy That, of course, sparked the argument. Here’s PlayMade’s full statement: Not sure why they’re doing it the Instagram style, but here’s what’s written in different images: Following the announcement of stricter circuit breaker measures yesterday requiring all bubble tea shops to be shut, our outlet at Waterway Point in Punggol Central saw a huge surge in demand both at the store and through our e-commerce platform with Grab. Our team worked tirelessly to serve customers who queued up at our outlet as well as placed orders online. At one point at around 8pm, our staff pressed the pause button on the Grab device to stop further online orders from coming in. Unknown to us, there were already more than a hundred orders in the system waiting to be matched with Grab drivers, as well as orders that would continue to be matched in the one or two minutes after the system was paused. During this hectic period, while long queues were building up at our store, a Grab driver expressed his impatience at one of our staff and repeatedly demanded to know how long he would have to wait. Under pressure and out of frustration, our staff responded that if he had to give an estimate, it would be “a f****** long” wait. The driver reacted angrily and asked our staff for an apology. Our staff and other colleagues apologised to him and several of them and other customers tried to defuse the situation. The video of the visibly upset Grab driver confronting and threatening our staff had gone viral on social media. Contrary to social media chatter, Playmade was not the party that reported the incident to the police. We have counseled our staff and he is in deep remorse over his uncouth choice of adjective. We and our staff sincerely apologise to the Grab driver, our customers and other Grab drivers who were inconvenienced by yesterday’s incident. Playmade remains very appreciative of all Grab drivers who are among the frontline heroes in our fight against Covid-19, putting their health at risk to deliver food and beverages to households all over Singapore during this challenging time. Post circuit-breaker period, Playmade will continue to operate omnichannel customer touchpoints and delivery as we want to be able to offer timely service to our customers whenever they need it, wherever they may be. And even after the apology, some people have related their not-that-ideal experience in the outlet before the circuit breaker period: Well, at least we won’t be seeing any of these for the next few weeks. If you die-die want to drink bubble tea, you can read this article on how to make your own bubble tea at home. And while you’re at it, watch this video about bubble tea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?vqC2XNVwSMTM (Check out our YouTube channel for more informative and entertaining videos!)

George Yang

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