The Budget version that is… check it out, click on the pic

One of the best characters in South Park, imho..

Leopold “Butters” Stotch (voiced by Matt Stone) is a fictional character in the animated series South Park. His nickname is a play on the word butterscotch. Butters has a tuft of yellow hair, and wears a light blue jacket with green pants. His birthday is on September 11, and his character is loosely based on South Park director of animation Eric Stough.

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I told u ppl..wrong major…

You scored as Sociology. You should be a Sociology major! Anthropology 83% Sociology 83% Philosophy 75% Mathematics 75% English 67% Journalism 67% Psychology 67% Engineering 58% Linguistics 58% Theater 50% Dance 42% Chemistry 42% Biology 33% Art 33%

What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
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A few weeks back, i heard this from one of my venues’ manager: A msg that has come all the way down from the top, saying that ushers have to greet patrons with either “Sir” or “Mdm“, regardless of their age and bearing. This seems a very simple rule to follow, except when u examine it closely, u realise that to a certain extent it runs against what we have learnt from our parents in this Asian society.

I’m sure that most of us from young, we have been told by our parents to greet elders, either properly, say 姨丈 or 表叔; or as Uncle/Auntie. Definitely Uncle/Auntie in this case is a mark of respect, and to me, friendlier than Sir/Mdm. That is to say, if i am sure that the senior patron approaching me is more comfortable with mandarin or dialect, i would find it more natural to greet him as “Uncle” and proceed to converse with him in either Mandarin or Hokkien. To me, that is going beyond providing professional service. By doing this, i’m attempting to provide professional AND personalised service by attempting to engage the patron in the manner that is most comfortable for him.

The rule gets even harder to swallow when u talk about greeting kids. How many of us are actually comfortable with greeting a 5 yr old boy as SIR? Up the stakes abit, how many of us would actually get comfortable eventually with greeting a 5yr old boy as SIR? With many parents telling their kids to call me korkor or uncle, if i still call them Sir, it would be damn weird. Moving abit more towards the extremities, it could be said that u’re not listening to your patron when he calls u korkor and u call him Sir.

My take on dealing with kids, a simple Hi or Good Evening would be sufficient in most cases. If you have to deal with a child later, say for example helping him get his butt onto the booster seat, get his or her name and address her by that. The parents and the child would appreciate the fact that 1. you helped the child and 2. you made an attempt to personalise your service to the child. Of cos check with the parents that they dun mind you carrying the child up, and yea make sure you dun tekan the kid.

Saying all these, I realise that it’s important to know that being in an Asian society where traditional values still have some hold, it is impractical and to an extent, snobbish when we insist on greeting every patron in the same way. Although the whole purpose of this rule is to ensure a uniform and professional manner of greeting patrons, I’m worried that this may also end up alienating some patrons. The most impt thing of customer service is not how we greet them, but it should be how we provide our eventual service. I can remember my 1st event at SIS, ushering for the PCK Musical. I noticed this old lady on her own, sitting in the last row of the terrace block. I decided to talk to her, and found out that she only speaks Teochew, and her family didn’t have time to come with her to the show. So i just knelt next to her seat n listened to her talk to me about her family, and i tried to explain wat’s happening on stage in hokkien n broken teochew. End of show, she came to say bye..

“ah di..kam1 siah3 hor” “amah, buay2 hiao2 kin4..man2 gia1 hor..” [Trans: “thanks boy” and “no problem, granny..have a good evening”]