Had a bad experience at Long John Silver's City Hall, the one at Capitol next to Peninsula Plaza.

I was with MLB for an early dinner before our visit to the Night Safari on Saturday. The counter staff there were nonchalant and didn't give a rat's ass about customer service. I was standing in queue for 5 hours and 43 minutes and I was only the second one in line!

The other counter was empty but the staff over there would rather pretend to wipe her countertop for 5 hours and 35 minutes totally oblivious to the obvious fact that there are people in my queue waiting to be served.

Then when it was time for me to be served, the staff at my counter made me wait and I had to stand there like a fool for a few minutes before she decided that she finally felt inspired to serve someone else that day after the last one.

While waiting for my missing counter staff, the staff at the other counter also found new-found inspiration to earn her salary and called out to the guy behind me to be served.

I was thinking, "What in the flying funk?!"

How come the guy behind me gets to be served first? What, no one wants to serve me or something? I've got leprosy or something? Was my nose falling off my face?

I was served in the end. My counter staff had this stupid grumpy look on her face like as though she was mourning the death of someone close and from the way she was serving me, I got the impression she couldn't wait to get rid of me as if serving customers was something of an irritable notion in her book.

I was seething by then but for the sake of my little bird o' little bird o' mine, I decided to hold my breath in and be patient. I'm thinking for two now and I don't wanna implicate her for any stupid thing that I do.

In my private mind, I relished the thought of slapping my counter staff's face, at least.

The food came. She got our orders mixed up. I asked for tartar sauce for three times and I didn't get it too. To top it off, MLB's food seemed very little in portion and the calamari in her seafood combo looked un-fresh (us FnB people can tell the difference).

Where's an anger management therapist when I need one? They should seriously consider having an in-house therapist at this particular Long John Silver's branch for all traumatized customer like me.

I went back to my table and whined at MLB about the terrible experience I had at the counter. Un-freaking-belieavable crap that was.

As we were eating, suddenly we heard a ruckus and things banging and slamming from the direction of the counter. It seemed that one customer had finally got enough. This Ah Beng guy with tattoos and all was cursing at the the staff who served me earlier, threatening her and all.

I was like, "Hah! She deserved it, the $^$#!"

Went on for like 10-15 minutes. I was SOOO happy. It was great. However, from the look on her stupid face, we could see that she was still defiant and unapologetic. In her dark mind, she was still very confident that she was not wrong to be rude to paying customers.

The manager herded her into her office while she attempted to cool the Ah Beng down. They were talking for five minutes when I seeked permission from my little bird o' little bird o' mine to approach the two of them to back the Ah Beng up. I didn't think the manager was truly apologetic too.

With her blessings, I went over to join in the discussion. The Ah Beng (let's call him Jack) and I exchanged numbers and made a pact to formally complaint to whoever's in charge. The manager was trying to be smart. She gave the number of her Operations Manager for us to complain to. For an FnB guy like me, I am very aware that OMs are not very high in an FnB hierarchy and most likely to 'defend' the staff under his charge.

Jack informed me later that he had called the OM in question but I intend to go directly to their HQ. It would please me very much for the people at LJS City Hall to be reprimanded for they deserve what's coming at them. They were practically begging for it. How long more must customers suffer by their extremely poor customer service?

We have nothing against Long John Silver's, just the staff at the City Hall outlet. The following day, we even had lunch at their Millenia Walk outlet to erase the memories we had the day before. The quality of food there is what we expect from LJS and the customer service is acceptable. As long as they aren't rude, we can live with it.

PS: I couldn't get the contact details of their HQ, hence I've sent a letter out to The Straits Time Forum.