Strategy Rocks…not the module, but the PEOPLE.

Obviously. Coz strategy gave me one of those classic moments whereby im at a total loss and dunno wad to do. (Please refer to my previous entry.)

But besides that, my project group rocks. Its one of my best experience in SMU, coming to the last 2 semesters. Everyone contributed fairly and none is a free-loader, best of all, we really click. LIKE TOTALLY. Usually project groups come and go, once a project ended, the “friendship” and “closeness” also kinda mark the end. But hopefully, my strategy grpmates will stay. I think if Prof wants to look for the group that work together best and have the BEST SYNERGY, it must be our group.

Should i email him and say we even went to Blk 85 @ Bedok to eat dinner/supper & talk cock for 3 hours?! Sat on the hard round stool until my butt hurts like mad. But the food’s great and the company was even better. We gossiped about sooo many ppl in SMU(oops), army talks(surprisingly) and RELATIONSHIPS.

Haha. Oh, and not forgetting Malcolm’s passion for cooking, especially french cuisine. Hence our next meetup is at his house coz he gonna whip up an exclusive 3-course meal for us! Im so looking forward to it. 11th June.

I think one month of summer term really brought us closer because we had to meet 6 days a week(excluding class time) to do the best trial and error for Globus game and finish our project on strategic firm(which happened to be MDS, coz Prof insisted it. I cant stand him calling me “COWARD” coz i didnt wanna do on my own company) but luckily, we did well for the overall ppt. 95/100 kkk.

Seriously, whatever grade i get for strat, it doesnt matter coz i know i did my best and at least, i make more frens.

LOVE MY FOREVER21 GREEN SHIFT DRESS. So fitting. And not expensive.  =)

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***Please do not send in anymore resumes/applications for the job position in the previous entry because its filled up already. Thanks much. ***

What a dayyyyy.

I need to pen this down to remind myself how blur and careless i was.

I MISSED MY EXAM TIME TODAY. YES, i did it again. Its almost exactly like what happened in Year 1 Semester 1 in SMU when i missed one whole week of school. But this time round, its exam. GREAT.

My paper is supposed to be at 12pm. I dunno why but my memory kept telling me its 2-4pm. So, the whole morning i was idling at home, relaxing and i did nothing else besides idling. Damn, my prof called me at 12.20pm and asked me if im well. I thought it was just a random call, so i replied, “Yeah prof. Im on my way to school for exam. ” He said, ” The paper started at 12pm, Georgiana. Get here as fast as you could but be safe ok? I’ll give you extra time.” I totally panicked at that time, damn screwed up. I ran out of my house and JM called a cab for me. I was like soo nervous and kept crying, totally cant calm down thinking shit, im gonna screw my grades again. But my prof is such a kind man. He called me and asked me to take my time to get to school and just be safe, he dont want anything to happen to me on the way. And he said he will give me extra time.

I reached school at 1.10pm. The paper is supposed to end at 2pm. Prof was waiting outside the room for me and being sooo nice, he gave me a hug and said its alright, everyone make mistakes. Yeah, but not as dumb as mine. He didnt want the whole class to look at me when i go in so he got another separate classroom where i had the luxury to be alone to do my paper. I didnt want the extra time so i promise him i will finish the paper by 2pm. At first i think its gonna be so hard but somehow, the paper was quite smooth. I finished at 1.45pm. Only 30 mins! Lucky me, Prof even said im faster than other students who started at 12pm. Hopefully i didnt make too many mistakes. Haha. Yeah, its like so classic geo. I went out after submitting my paper and my grp of project mates were waiting for me outside. So sweet of them, they were waiting for me to have lunch together coz they thought wad happened to me, why did i not turn up for exam. Hah. Stupid Eunice have to say my eyes are swollen and ask me if i cried AND I REALLY CRY AGAIN. Full of tears, i know.

I hate my stubborn memory which always choose to remember the wrong things, especially at the most crucial moment.

But the day ended with a sweet note. I managed to catch the sneak preview of SEX AND THE CITY!!(I booked the ticket while i was idling at home before exam.) ITS A FANTABULOUS SHOW all girls should watch. Love Carrie Bradshaw for her timeless fashion sense and how she always pursuit love, love Samantha’s sexual humor and wit, the show is just great! Though its a 2.5 hours show, totally dont feel like it. I enjoyed every segment of the movie, JM did too. At first i was kinda skeptical to drag him to watch with him, but in the end he like it too. He even say wanna watch Season 1-6. Hah, that was like soo long ago.

Watching Sex and The City never fail to remind me how much i love to play dress up. Women forever have the privilege to dress well and look pretty wherever we go. I think dressing up is like playing mix and match game everyday but never get sick of it because its all about creativity and once you paint the perfect picture, you are ready to hit the streets! I would die to have a closet like Carrie’s or at least have that empty white spacious closet that BIG gave to Carrie. GOSH. WHY DIDNT THEY SHOW THE CLOSET FULL OF LABELS?! I think it would be soo complete. Its always empty, start and the end. So wasted.

Guess what JM said to me after the movie? “Dear, i will give you a closet.”

Haha. Yup, i will certainly wait for tt day to come.

In search of…

Latest issue of I-S Magazine!

Does anyone have a copy? Please let me know where i can get it. MDS was featured as one of the new shopping destinations in Singapore but i dont have a chance to catch a copy of it!   Pls, pls, pls. Thank-uu in advance!

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Appeal to kind souls out there…Please donate to ch8 hotline if you havent. The stories of earthquake were really heart-wrenching and painful. Especially the brave and noble mother who tried to save her 2 months old baby and sacrificed her life, the only thing left was the last message she type on her hp snugged in the baby’s clothes. Her last words of “i love you” really sent my tears flowing down like tapwater. Its damn sad. My dad called so many times already. If you havent, please do your part. We are really damn fortunate to be in Singapore.

Do your part, help the victims.
$6 hotline: 1900 112 5121
$18 hotline: 1900 112 5122
$50 hotline: 1900 112 5123

Donation hotline opens on 21/05 at 12 midnight and will end on 1st June.

Kinship.

I went to The Line @ Shang with my family, my auntie and her son as well as my beloved grandparents. This is the first time my dad gave my grandparents a treat @ The Line. During dinner, everyone helped my grandpa with his food, walked him to the toilet and be so attentive to his every need. Cos we know he needs us badly. I feel so blissful just having this opportunity to scoop soup for my grandpa and helped him get his favorite chicken satay. Seeing him eat so happily really makes me quite sad. I know im supposed to be happy, especially seeing him so happy and cheery despite his condition. But very often, its only when something bad happens, then you will realize how much you should cherish that person. Somehow, you will become extra caring and attentive because you want to make sure his last days are lived worthwhile and meaningful.

Doctor says he’s advance stage. I dunno when he will leave us, when i first heard the news from my dad 3 weeks ago, i was having dinner with JM at his house coffee shop and i immediately teared. Its almost like the end of the world. Our family used to be so close together, living at east coast. I was so young then, but i remembered clearly i will have dinner with my huge family everyday and watch tv at night together. Though i dont have a big room like now and i had to squeeze with my bros in 1 room, i was quite contented. Years passed. I shifted from Pasir Ris to Rivervale to Changi. I really gotta acknowledge that my grandparents look old now. Right now, i just hope God gives him more time with us.

I love this poster so much. Its like totally MDS. Though i kinda paid a hefty price for graphics design, i think its all worth it. Look at the polka dots. Its sooo pretty. This poster is permanently placed outside Loft at Haji Lane. Just in case anyone cant find MDS. Look out for this poster. And the boutique has another poster with the 5% off every Tuesday on it. Drop by on Tues to enjoy 5% off all apparels. The inspiration for this promotion came from Gelare, which had this 50% off waffles on every Tues, all thanks to them. Many customers have asked how often do Loft have updates. Well, its every 1st Sat & 3rd Sat of the month, which means we will update at least 30-40 designs every fortnightly. The preview catalog will be up at the start of every month, including the website designs. Of course, the catalog doesnt reveal all the designs we have cos i will select randomly to put them in.

Hah. This is becoming like mds blog. Ahh, soon…i will launch www.mds-blog.com. Still planning in progress.

Huge misunderstanding.

Its really maddening to see negative comments about mds. Im not mad at the person who made the comment, but at myself. I could have prevented it or made it better. Im a perfectionist, especially so when it comes to my business. Its like my precious baby. I watch it grow and prosper, i make every decision carefully and i put in so much hard work to make it work. Not to mention all the late nights i sacrifice for mds when im a strict follower of hanging onto my skin rejuvenation period from 10-2am everyday. I used to sleep at 12am. Now i sleep at 4am. All because of mds. My close frens know how important is my cells rejuvenation time man.

But because of one stupid mistake by someone, i have to take the blame for it. And people even misunderstood that im pushing blame to other people. Apparently, its not. I detest mistakes, mistakes which dont make any sense and its totally not an intelligent mistake either. Argh. Its very frustrating. Someone complained about mds in lesdames.

Her comment:

I am quite pissed with this certain online website, which is quite popular, they sent me a wrong piece when i purchased from them, and when i emailed, they sms me back ‘pushing’ the blame to their staff for packing wrongly (i feel instead of pushing the blame, you should accept it gracefully) and asking me to send it back via reg post.

So i did on Sat, and sms them very quickly that i have sent out and asking them to refund me the postage, even wishing them a nice weekend etc, and all they replied was Thanks XXX.
Maybe i am too sensitive but i feel the least you can do is promise to inform me when they rcvd the item and do the refund accordingly.

AND what pissed me off is that just about 30 mins ago, they sms me, ASKING ME HAVE I SEND OUT THE PARCEL which i feel is a total INSULT as if they are DOUBTING me for not sending out when they have not received it today and PLUS i already SMS them on Sat and the person even acknowledges.

Right now, even after i replied that i already inform them on Sat that i mailed, they did not reply anything!

I feel that CS is very important even though you are popular right now, but word of mouth of bad service can even prove to be lethal to the business.

My reply (100% TRUE):

Hello girls,

I didnt log in to Lesdames for quite some time and i realized that sivorskiz seems to be talking about my company, mdscollections. Well, i think there’s some misunderstanding somewhere. Any negative feedback regarding mds i will definitely try and find out exactly what happened. Its really true that i have staff worked under me and my other partner and all parcels are handled by my staff and emails by my partner. We arent trying to push the blame in anyway because its true that my staff packed the wrong item and sent them out. This is not the first time we encountered this problem of sending wrong items to customers hence we are shifting to a new office in Lavender and hiring new staff who really can read english properly.

With regards to “Thanks XXX” i apologized on the behalf of my bf who gave a short reply, he should have explained and elaborated more but do understand that he received more than 30 sms from customers daily. And later on, the part about asking you whether you have mailed the item back is a mere confirmation we need to get from our customers. Its not to direct at anyone specifically coz we do the same to our other customers as we need to gauge when the return parcel will arrive so that we can inform our backend staff.

The 2nd time you bought something from us, at the point of dispatching our parcels, my staff did discovered a defect in your item during checking and informed my bf accordingly so he can let you know that its defected hence we cant sell it to you. This is our policy, we dont take sell defected items and we absorb all the costs hence we also hope that customers can appreciate our efforts at the same time.

Of course, i agree with you that word of mouth is lethal to my business, in fact all businesses, which is why i always emphasize on good customer service and consistency in our operations. Popularity just because we started long ago or large customer base arent the reasons why i can allow my company to loosen our standards, especially towards our customers.

Hope you understand babe.

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Saying that our staff made the mistake is our way of explaining things to our customer, not to push blame and not willingly to accept the mistake gracefully. Like i said, its just stupid to send the wrong item out when its our own business, but when you delegate to someone else who dont own the business, its a different story. Mistakes are bound to happen as much as i hate them and i cant stop or predict when these mistakes will occur.  JM & I can only rectify it to the best we can.

From June onwards, its gonna be mistake-free. I cant wait man.

MDS Job Recruitment

Position: Operations Coordinator

Job Description

- Long-term part time basis

- Hourly rate + incentives

- 5 days week(including Sundays), 6 hours a day (flexible)

- Preferably undergrads doing private degrees, diploma students looking for long term part time job, fresh diploma grads

- Female working environment

- Workplace in East

- No experience required

Interested parties, please send in your resume or details to business@mdscollections.com. We will get in touch with you shortly.

Random & more random.

I remembered i went Cartel for dinner with Eunice & Jiaming 2 weeks back. It was quite a horrendous experience, at least i thought. The franchise at PS really sucks. I really hate to social discriminate and i have nothing against these foreign workers but OMG, its really a misfit of brand image to get those China workers as waiters at a AMERICAN-BASED RESTAURANT?! Not only the service cannot make it, but they cant even communicate in simple English at all. How can a restaurant operate efficiently with workers who cant speak proper english?! I had to repeat so many times until i gave up, switched to conversing in Chinese. But the China ppl still spoke to me back in English i cant understand! I was like wth. Cant you just speak Chinese? I can totally understand.

All along, i thought employees play a big part in the brand image of a company, especially even so for a service restaurant whose cuisine is American cuisine. Means western food in english. And they get china workers in? What the hell is Cartel thinking? Cutting costs? Not only i had this problem, all the other singaporeans at other tables had the same problem of communication too. because they cant even take our orders correctly, and they cant understand our requests. I saw one of the china workers holding onto a jug of plain water everywhere he go just to pour water and nothing else okay. He paced up and down to pour water and had this really “lost” expression on his face. How to add value to the company…….sighs. I think this really deters a lot of customers from gg to Cartel. Im definitely one of them.

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These few days, its back to my ISWAK time. “It started with a kiss 2″

I totally love the drama! Taiwanese version of the Jap comic books. Love it. Even though i still prefer Part 1 where i thought the cute actor, Zheng Yuan Chang had more room to showcase his acting skills, Part 2 isnt too bad either. Still love the show because of him and Xiang Qin’s stupidity. Its funny to watch how stupid she is in the show.

Besides watching tv till wee hours at night, im also very occupied with my summer term. Im taking Strategy now which is one of my core modules i have to finish before graduation. Strategy is challenging and interesting because it teaches me alot on my business but at the same, the workload sucks. Imagine a case study that averages 15-20 pages every lesson on Mon, Wed and Fri. Wah Lao. Means every other day i gotta read one case study. That excludes this online simulator game that contributes 20% of my grade and the homework assignment every lesson plus a term project and final exam. For the game, we have to pretend we are some camera company selling cameras and create a profit-making industry along with other camera companies. Like prof mentioned, “the purpose of business is not to win your competitors, but to grow”. I TOTALLY HEART THIS QUOTE. I was like nodding my head profusely when he said this. I even wrote it down on my notebook. This is my ultimate goal.

Myy B’day

Simple, sweet and quiet celebration. Unlike last year’s crazy partying, drinking and singing all night with numerous friends. Well, its completely different this year. Is it due to my age or what? I find myself getting less energetic. And these few weeks of tedious preparation for the shop opening, plus website launches and most stressful of all, my stupid overrated school-SMU is driving me insane. Left me no time to plan my birthday party and send out invitations. How sad.

5th may: went out with my poly friends excluding Juliet who’s currently in Arizona with her lovey dovey hubby. Im super envious okay. 2 years of private life with no interruption from naggy family members and fun traveling life. Best of all, EARLY MARRIAGE. Im all behind early marriage. Under the right circumstances, of course. Anyways, Jill and Sharon dropped by Loft and i was there to entertain them. Took some photos in the store and went off for dinner at Bugis’s Ministry of Food. All thanks to mq who intro this food outlet to me, im almost there everyday for dinner. HAHA. I think the waiters can recognize me already lah. Love the food there, especially shishamo(OMG**) and yukuniku bento! *Thumbs up! After dinner, we proceed to Starbucks and chit-chat till 11+ before we headed home.

I gotta rush home because of my dearest bf. He sent me a sms and said, “Old rule. No phone call. Only message. You have 30 mins to reach home to blow your cake, receive your small present and card plus listen to my beautiful birthday singing.” Haha, so i rushed home in a cab. He bought my favorite cakes from Canelle and sang b’day songs in various languages to me. Haha but i dont understand the indian and malay part. Finally he gave me this little gift he bought from Camper, MY PINK POLKA DOTS PEN!!!! I simply adore it! Im a sucker for polka dots man. My “main” present will come on Saturday! Yay! I love it.

On 6th May itself, we had to drop by Loft even though i didnt want to.:( Some editor from I-S magazine want to do a writeup on MDS @ Loft. So we gotta entertain them. After that we went to watch Harold & Kumar, its freaking funny!!! Racist and corny jokes. Love it. Its been ages since we get to date, watch a movie and have at least half a day all by ourselves. So i really cherish those few hours together. I think JM understands this completely. After the movie, we went to HK cafe at Cineleisure for dinner and chatted till 12+ before we headed home. Hah.

Besides being a sucker for polka dots, im also a sucker for BAGS. Yes, BAGS. And maybe, shoes too. I walked into Burberry and fell in love with this tote bag. OMG. Told JM and my mommy about it and they are gonna get it for me this sat! )) Yay, thats the big present im talking about! Cant wait to lay my hands on that pretty bag!

Loft Opening-3rd May

Yup, it was chaotic. But for a good reason. For once, i love crowds. Haha, the more the merrier.

1pm was the time that the shop was supposed to be opened. But there was a slight hiccups because the racks that were mounted onto the wall couldnt withstand 80 pieces of clothings and hence, it gave way. To my horror, when i went up the stairs, i saw all the clothes on the floor and two huge holes on the wall. I was like…SHIT. Only 30 mins to opening and this had to happen. Luckily there were so many guys around, JM, Colin, Congming and Gabriel who hurriedly help to fix things. Customers kept walking up but we told them to come back in a while. Besides this tiny hiccups, everything else was fine. Oh, besides this, i think the hot weather kinda affected the overall shopping experience too. We did install new air-conditioners but the freaking god damn hot weather is killing the new air-con.

The crowd started coming in…;p

Oh I also had a free but really powerful salesman who helped me introduce my apparels to ladies and totally mesmerized by his “pretty face and charm”. Its JM’s very good buddy, Gabriele Scarvos from that Channel U competition. Hah. Girls were ogling at him when he stepped in.

See how hardworking Gabriele was. Haha it was so coincidental, one of our customers is actually his good friend!

He took some photos to help us do some advertising on our shop.

Posing with our pretty poster outside.

Really appreciate everyone who made the effort to drop by and support our store. Thanks a million. Sorry that we only allowed 3 pieces per try for each customer because we had to control the queue. Even with 3 pieces, it was already quite packed because the shop can only hold one fitting room at the moment. But anyways, we spent alot of time on it and finally its officially open for customers to shop at ease and comfortably. Colin even bought 100 Jco dough nuts and free soft drinks on that day. Damn generous of him.

Alicia & me. She’s a nice person, in fact we are very alike. Our thoughts and tastes on fashion are sooo similar. Its scary.

The friendly and cute staff @ Loft: Chui Ying & Esther

All i can say is, Haji Lane is really my new hangout place. HAHA. Im there like almost everyday. When my friends wanna drop by i have to be there to entertain them. When some journalist want to do feature on MDS, i also have to be there to tell stories about my business and apparels. Its like my 3rd home besides SMU. But im not sick of Haji Lane, still loving it a lot because of the unique aura that fills up the whole lane.

The racks were pretty sparse by the time i took this picture. Many designs were snapped up by then.

Tingli came to support me! Cheerios! And she brought me a champagne, yay!

The 2 gays of the day.

One of the random crowded moments.

When i can finally catch my breath, i started to photo whore…

LOVE THE DRAWINGS….:)

TIRED. More photos…coming soon.