My Team of aircon Installation Workers

http://www.billyaircon.com.sg

In this air conditioning service business, it is not possible for me to just work alone. I need workers to work hand in hand with me. My team of installation workers are very skilful and experienced and they are always ready to attend to your needs as and when required. They are excellent in the installation of air conditioners as I had taught them thoroughly. Sometimes when the customers’ air conditioners were not installed properly by some other companies which caused problems like not blowing cold air, so we had to dismantle them and then re-installed them. After rectifying the problems, they were very pleased with my workers’ service and they would then let us do their  aircon servicing under our aircon service contract for a year and so on.

 

My customers are mostly recommended by my old customers and friends and there are also some who came to know of my aircon service company through my advertisements.

 

In Singapore, installation of air conditioners and air conditioning service is island wide and very competitive. In order to have continuous good business I would strive to offer excellent service to customers. As for aircon installation of air conditioners we would use good and durable materials that would provide the air conditioners with a longer life span.

 

With my team of experienced and knowledgeable workers I always get good feedback from my customers.

My Office Staff

I have employed 2 elderly staff doing administration, customer service and some accounts. They have both past the retirement age but I still employ them because of their past experiences. The first staff, Margaret has been working for me for more than three years, while the other one, Lilian just joined last July. Margaret is working on a part time basis while Lilian is on full time. Margaret’s job duties are filing and reminders to customers regarding the appointed time for the aircon servicing and repair of air conditioners. As for Lilian, she has to prepare daily invoices for customers, make payments to creditors, fixing appointments with customers for servicing of airconditioners and also some other duties as directed by me.

 

Margaret had been out of working life for nineteen years because she had to look after her two sons when they were young and of school going age as she believed that she had to be by their side during their growing up years. Now that her sons are grown up and have their own families, she decided to join the workforce. Before joining my company she had been working part time all the while. Lilian on the other hand had been working in a manufacturing company for many years before she came to join me.

 

When I am free I will join them in the conversations that they are on and we always joke with each other. Although I am their boss, I never treat them like they are my workers but respect them very much. I will always ask for their advice regarding looking after children and also some nice recipes and I will ask my wife to cook for me. Both my staff can work along happily and Lilian will always guide Margaret along in the job duties.

 

It really is a blessing to have such staff and I feel like they are my mothers.

Air Conditioner Servicing

In the trade of air conditioning servicing is inevitable. The usual problems which occurred in most air conditioners are leaking water, not cold or installation not properly fixed at right angles. Aircon servicing includes washing cover, filter and tray. The fin needs to be vacuumed and vacuum drainage is essential. The blower and louvres also need to be cleaned. The overall checking condition must be done which includes checking temperature and checking pressure too. Servicing of the fan coil is also part of the job. However, if the air conditioner is very dirty,aircon chemical washing is recommended and even replacing the spare parts when the need arises. There are aircon servicing contracts where the job is done either quarterly or bi-monthly.

 

Regular aircon service done once at every three months is highly recommended because problems will be detected early and so major problems will be prevented. When air conditioners are well maintained, they will definitely have a longer life span.

http://www.billyaircon.com.sg

My Customers

Air Conditioning service

vice is a service line, so meeting up with customers is inevitable. My customers come from all walks of life. I am bound to encounter with customers with all sorts of different attitude. The non- fussy ones were not only friendly but also appreciated what I had done for them. They even offered me and my workers snacks and drinks when we had completed our tasks. Indeed I am so touched by such customers that I even offered to do some extra jobs for them at no extra costs. There was one customer who was very easy going. He was doubtful about the choice of brand of air conditioners and seek for my advice. I then recommended “Mitsubishi Electric” and he just accepted it willingly without further inquiries. He never made things difficult for me. Throughout the whole installation process, everything went on smoothly. Payment too was made promptly.

 

Meanwhile, the other kind of customers whom I met were disgusting. They were demanding and very fussy and would not accept our advice. They were not only difficult to deal with but also delayed payment. These types of customers in particular took up so much of my time with unnecessary work and non-ending questions. That certainly would affect my next customer’s appointment which was due on the same day. There were also customers who would cancel their appointments after they had fixed them. Some even forgot about it and were not at home when we reached their house. As such, these would mess up my other customers’ appointments.

 

I believe that service line in other trades will also encounter the same problems. Well, we have to endure all these because after all, this is our ‘bowl of rice’ and customers are always right.

My Childhood Days

My hometown is in Malacca and my childhood memories there were most unforgettable. The place that I lived is the kampong style, whereby we planted fruits and even growing our own vegetables. The good thing about living in kampong is that there is not much traffic, so it is pollution free and the morning air is very fresh.

 

During my childhood days, I usually hanged around with neighbours around my age. We had a lot of things in common, so every day was a happy day for us with no arguments and worries. Life was just happy-go-lucky for me. There were also times where I was very mischievous and I encountered many incidents. There was an incident where I had a fall and injured myself with a sprained ankle. I was climbing up a tree to pluck some mangoes and before I had plucked I just missed a step on the tree and fell onto the ground. For the next two weeks I was in clutches with a limp and so I had to obediently stay at home. During that time I missed my playing times with my neighbours. I could just watched them playing and running around by the window.

 

At the age of seventeen I went to Singapore and that was the first time I left my family. I was the only son and my mother would not bear to part with me. However after much persuasions from me she reluctantly allowed me to go ahead. In order to pursue my career I had to make such a decision. While I was in Singapore I went to stay with my aunt, my mother’s sister for about six months. After that I rented a room because at that time I worked till very late and I did not want to impose on my aunt too much.

 

Now I have my own flat and I find that things look brighter for me now and I am still moving forward for an even brighter future to achieve my goal.

The 3 Important Festivals celebrated by Chinese Taoists

‘QingMing’, Dragon Boat Festival and Hungry Ghosts Festival are the 3 important festivals celebrated by Taoists in Singapore.

 

‘QingMing’ is a festival which Chinese Taoists pray to their deceased ancestors once a year during the third month of the Lunar calendar. During this time all the tombstones in the cemetery will be swept clean before praying and offering of food to their ancestors.  For those that are cremated, their descendants will go to the temples to offer their prayers and offerings. Offerings does not only include food but also paper clothes, paper shoes and even paper jewellery. At the end of the prayer these paper offerings will be burnt so that their deceased ancestors would receive them in the nether world.

 

The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the Lunar calendar month. On this day, dumplings made of glutinous rice with meat, wrapped with bamboo leaves are then boiled for a few hours, are offered to the deceased ancestors. To add to this festival, you can see dragon boats racing with one another on the sea. The paddlers are seated in neat rows and happily paddling their oars and moving fast forward. This is so exciting when you happen to be strolling along the beach catching the live show.

 

The Hungry Ghosts Festival falls on the seventh month of the Lunar calendar month. During this whole month the dead are released and wander around. As usual, offerings are being prepared, but most importantly, prayers must be outside the house. The reason is that all Taoists’ houses have their talisman stuck above their doors for safety purpose. As such, the ghosts are afraid to enter on seeing the talisman.  This particular festival is quite different from the rest of the festivals. Around every corner of the void deck of every high-rising flats, you will surely see a table with candles lit up and food for offering. This is actually meant for the ghosts to eat. These offerings will be displayed until the last day of the seventh month. Everything will be cleared before midnight as the next day will be new day in the eight month. Operas performing on the streets is a form of entertainment for the deceased to enjoy. Dinner too is held for those participating members who donated. On the stage, biddings for various items add to this limelight. During the dinner, people will bid for the items and the top bidder will get to have the item. Payment has to be made immediately or next year before the next celebration.

 

These three festivals have been going on for many decades even until today.

Celebrating Christmas

Christmas is celebrated by all races worldwide, even in Singapore too. For some snowing countries, it is real fun skiing in the snow. During that time when I was overseas in Korea, I remembered during the skiing, I carelessly tripped and got some slight injuries. Fortunately, it was not that serious, so I managed to move on further. Upon seeing what happened, my wife quickly held on to my daughter with extra care in order to prevent another accident.

 

In Singapore, Christmas at Orchard Road, a popular tourist shopping area is the most captivating area thronged by thousands of people. The whole stretch of Orchard Road is beautifully decorated with colourful lightings and cartoon characters and it really looks like a fairyland. Everyone was busy taking photographs with their mobile phones or cameras. My wife, I and my daughter were also among the crowd busily taking photographs. My daughter was so happy and excited when she saw the cartoon characters. Besides this, there was also carolling at some shopping malls. I really felt the Christmas spirit after listening to those Christmas carols.

 

On Christmas day, I visited my Eurasian friend and we were served roast turkey, a traditional dish for them. We also had champagne, shepherd’s pie, and some other delicious food. We enjoyed ourselves very much at his house enjoying the nice food and listening to Christmas songs performed by his church friends.

 

For me, whether it is Christmas or Chinese New Year, I am always eager to celebrate.

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year, a very important festival falls on the first day and ends on the fifteenth day of the Lunar calendar month. This grand festival is celebrated by all Chinese in Singapore and also all overseas Chinese. Some Chinese from overseas choose to return to their native homes to celebrate with their families as they think that this is a very important time of the year and as such, they treasure this festive season very much.

 

However, for some, they remain staying abroad due to certain unforeseen circumstances. As Singapore has a population of 70 to 80 percentage of Chinese, almost in every corner of Singapore you will find many Chinese celebrating by shopping for clothes, festive ornaments, and food.

 

Chinese New Year 2015 is just around the corner and I will be pretty busy with household chores like spring cleaning the house and my office as well. My office will be closed for 10 days for this festive occasion so my workers from Malaysia will return home to celebrate with their families.  I, my wife and daughter will also return to Malacca for the celebrations with my parents and siblings. Every year at this time I feel so happy to be home to meet my parents, relatives, neighbours and friends. Truly, I can feel the festive spirit of it.

 

On the eve of Chinese New Year, it is a must for every Chinese family to have their reunion dinner at home with lots of delicious food. Talking about food, eating leeks is a good omen because for Chinese, leek symbolises there is money to be counted and I being having a business, do really believe in this. In actual fact, leek is one of my favourite dish and others include suckling pig, roast duck and pomfret.

 

However, some prefer to have their reunion dinner at restaurants but I personally do not like it because we are only given two hours to finish the food because there will be a second group of diners waiting for their turn. In this way we have to rush through our food which I think is not good for our digestion.  After dinner, around 9 pm I will get together with my neighbours and old friends for a drink and chat with them.

 

On the first day of Chinese New Year I will go and visit my relatives and some old friends. During the visit I will give red packets to the children and the elderly.

 

As Chinese New Year falls only once a year, I treasure it very much as I only get to return to my native hometown to be with my family members and also to meet my old friends.

 

To be blessed with good health and prosperity is my wish for the Chinese New Year.

My Free Time

Everyone has our own free time. For me, if I have the free time I would love to do a lot of things. Spending time with my wife and daughter is never neglected. My wife seldom cooks, so most of the time I will bring them out to eat. I practically eat anything that tastes nice and I can even travel a long distance to have my favourite fish curry at Bukit Timah. I do not like fast food but because of my daughter who likes French fries I sometimes will bring her there.

 

Going for karaoke is also my interest when I am free. Usually I will go with my group of friends who also love singing. I remembered there was one time when I was singing a popular Taiwanese singer, Jay Chou’s song, every one of my friend commented that my voice sound like him. Going for movies is another entertainment which I hardly miss during my spare time. 

 

‘Sentosa’ is one of the most popular attractions in Singapore. Tourists from all over the world will definitely not miss it. Children and teenagers are so excited and fascinated over ‘Universal World’. Not long ago, I brought my wife and daughter there. She was so excited and enjoyed all the various rides with so much fun, so much so that she refused to leave.

My Daughter

My only daughter, Jacqueline, born in the year 2013 is coming to 2 years old. Her zodiac sign is the Snake which symbolises intelligence and hardworking.  As both my wife and I are busy in our careers, we leave her in the care of a child care centre near my wife’s working area. Our reason of leaving her there is that she can learn to be independent and also to interact with other children around her age. Both my mother and my mother in law love her very much and they will come to Singapore to spend some time with her whenever they have the time.

 

As we all know, a child’s development is very important so full attention is required at all times. She is beginning talk in full sentence now and is rather talkative. As my family focused more in Mandarin and dialects, so since I am bi-lingual I also teach her to speak English. In this way she will be bi-lingual which will benefit her when she goes to school in future. She is a very lovely and cheerful girl with big round eyes. Her sweet smile makes everyone in my family happy.

 

For her education, I hope that she will go to university or even further.

 

Well, it’s all left to be seen.

How I started my Business ?

I have been doing aircon servicing for almost two decades.  I started as a sub-contractor with only one part time worker. During that time, I only have a motor cycle to commute from house to house. It was no easy job for me especially on rainy days when I would get drenched even with my rain coat on. On top of that, I together with my worker , had to carry the tools in a bag slung onto our body. This went on for two years and after that I rented a van for convenience.  Business then was catching up with more servicing jobs coming in.

 

Eventually, I managed to buy my own van and rented a room in my friend’s office. However, my servicing jobs continued to grow even better and I was able to buy an office. Fortunately all this time, things just worked out smoothly and I was able to expand my business by not only doing residential servicing but also commercial servicing.

 

To date, I have six vans and twelve workers doing the servicing jobs. In this way, I could now concentrate on the customer service side and even give some of them opinions about air conditioner installation. I also have four ladies in my office doing accounts, administration and purchasing jobs.

 

Most importantly, I hope to see my business keep on expanding and my workers and office staff working for me as long as they could.

My Wife

My wife, Fanny is a very caring lady. Her hometown is in Perak, West Malaysia. She is now a permanent resident of Singapore. She is the mother of a two year old girl, who is under the care of a child care centre.

 

Here, in Singapore, she owns a hair salon located in the central area. Business is pretty good and especially even better during the weekends. She has two workers and she will always patiently guide her workers in the cutting, blowing and styling of her customers’ hair.

 

As we are staying in Singapore due to our work commitments, she misses her parents very much. Though she is very busy with her business, she will try ways and means to bring our daughter to Perak to visit both her paternal and maternal grandmothers at least twice a year.  On certain days when she is not working, she will bring her daughter to children’s theme parks or shopping malls and will buy her toys. My daughter is only two years old and my wife is already planning where to send her for her pre-education. She also plans to send her for ballet class and piano lessons when she is three years old.

 

My wife is a very social and friendly woman. She has a group of friends who are from her hometown and she will occasionally organise a gathering with them in our house. She will cook her favourite Hakka dish, “abacus beads” which are made of yam and tapioca flour and shaped into abacus beads. Then after boiling them she will fry them with dried prawns, dried cuttlefish, minced pork, bean curd strips and mushrooms.  This is my favourite dish and I always yearn for it but she seldom cooks them as they require a long time to prepare and cook.  All her friends also like this dish and they are so happy when they know that she is preparing this dish as this is their hometown food.

 

I feel very blessed and happy to have married her as she is so humble, polite and caring.

Is it necessary to have filter in the air conditioner ?

It is necessary to have filter in the air conditioner for several reasons. Charged with static electricity, the enzyme filter is able to trap allergens such as moulds and bacteria and decompose them using enzymes retained in the filter. Filters featuring artificial blue enzymes is added to counter allergens. This will remove harmful microbes, such as bacteria, virus, dust mites, pollen, etc powerfully. The enzymes, in addition will destroy any germs caught in the filter, preventing them from working their way further inside the air conditioners. However, being artificial enzymes, they prevent allergies while remaining gentle on the human body.

 

The other filter, nano platinum filter has a huge capture area. It incorporates nanometre-sized platinum ceramic particles that work to kill bacteria and deodorize the circulating air. The anti-bacterial air filter helps to prevent the growth of bacteria and mould because it has anti-bacterial treatment.

 

With all these well maintained filters and cleanliness, air conditioners will have a longer life span.

 

 

My Hobbies

Everyone has his or her hobbies. For me, they are sports, shopping, music and even going around for nice and delicious food. Since young, I loved to participate in all kinds of sports such as badminton, swimming, snooker and soccer.  Talking about soccer, I never miss my favourite world cup which is telecast once every four years. My favourite teams are from Korea, Japan and Argentina.

 

I am also an active member of our Residents’ Committee Club in my living area in Macpherson. Being a member I am involved in a lot of volunteering work such as organising day tours to some places of interest for the residents residing in Macpherson and also to old aged homes during some weekends. We would bring food and daily necessities to them. Over there we would organise games and even sing to them in order to bring them enjoyment and happiness.  Watching them enjoying themselves so much and listening to their laughter made me so happy and fulfilling that I forgot how tired I was at the end of the day.

 

Listening to pop songs and sometimes going for Karaoke sessions are also my interest.  To hunt for nice and delicious food I will go all the way for them no matter how far they are.  Shopping is part and parcel of my everyday routine. For office needs like computer stuff and stationery, I will travel to the designated shops to purchase.  As for my personal home stuffs for daily use, I will go to the nearest shopping mall for them. I prefer to purchase good quality stuff even though a bit expensive because they are more durable.  As for my wife, she goes for branded bags and outfits. Even for my daughter, I, too will get her nice and good quality clothes.

 

I also take into consideration that I must not always spend lavishly because after all they are my hard earned money.