BELLAMYBUDIMAN

Such a bold statement coming from someone who lives and works in Indonesia. But hear me out, I don’t put up titles without a reason. For the past few years, I am often asked why do we have 85% overseas clients and 15% local clients. So here are the reasons for that, based on my experience:

Free Pitches
First and foremost, I hate free pitches, and some Indonesian clients think that this is part of a good corporate governance (yeah, good corporate governance my ass). Here’s my explanation on why free pitches are a disgrace to humanity. In the creative industry, our resources are our key assets to make our business work, and that includes time, money, manpower, and above all else, creativity itself. So if we waste these for something that we probably won’t get, I would prefer that we work on something else, and use our precious creativity there. And yes, stealing designs to be given to cheaper designers is a definite sign that you’re a colossal douche, and I’m pretty sure that they reserved a spot for you to rot in hell.

Window Shopping
This is also a bad habit. Not that this only happen with Indonesian clients, but to overseas clients as well, except that it is on a lower frequency. So when we already contributed a few hours of our time to research and make a comprehensive quote for a project but got ditched with no reason, I hate that too. The least you can do is to say that you’re not comfortable with the price we asked, and then fine, maybe you’re not a suitable client for us. Fair enough, not everybody is everyone’s client.

The Inability to Know What One Wants
This is a killer move. Most of Indonesian clients seem to revolve around the idea of a trend (or perhaps ego and pride as some people like to call it). One has a blog, everyone wants a blog. One has a social media manager, everyone wants it, too. One has an E-commerce website, everyone wants to make one without realizing that they don’t even have a freaking store to begin with. But almost none seem to understand if they need one in the first place, or if that is just the result of being a follower. And the second they see these array of zeroes in the quote, they bail out and said “I didn’t realize that building an online shopping website is such a huge investment.” Well, if you’re looking for a proper one, yes it is. Sorry, but that is a fact.

The Inability of Appreciating Creative Work
This is the ultimate thing of all the things that we hate in this nation’s creative industry, people who cannot justify that building a website, for example, is worth more than 500,000 rupiahs. I can’t say many things about these people except that if they value design and creative work like shit, then that is exactly the same value I’d give to their business.

In the end, I don’t mean that all Indonesian clients are bad. As I stated before, we do have local clients as well, and those we’ve worked with are not bad clients. They appreciate our work, they value the need of design in general, and most of all, they listen. They listen and they are willing to take our advice as design professionals instead of telling us that they-paid-so-they-get-to-order-us-things.

But there’s the other side of the coin as well. Some designers are also to blame because they value themselves so low, that inconsiderate clients think they own these people’s lives. So why don’t these designers value themselves higher? Why don’t they value their industry better to begin with? To this date, I simply don’t know how to answer this properly, or how to figure out how their minds work. I hope someone would really enlighten me on this one.

Again, those are my observations based on my experience. So depending on different circumstances, my writings here cannot be accounted for a factual reference to your particular cases. They are just my two cents.

Yero came back to Jakarta last night with the Siemens SL400A that I ordered, because the telephone is not available here. And unfortunately, his luggage was pried open, and a thief (that is supposedly working in Soekarno-Hatta, and did his crime before the luggage arrived on the baggage claim conveyor belt) took parts of my phone along with him. By parts of the phone, I mean only the battery pack, the handset’s back cover, and the belt clip. And that left us wondering why he did not take the whole box with him.

So here’s the deal, oh dear thief. I can already accept that this country is a shit hole with a shitty government and mostly shitty people, and the airport you worked in is also an even more fucked-up shit hole with the fact that it is probably worst than the worst shit hole in this country. And while I cannot accept that a fucked-up dickhead like you ever existed in any community, it would probably better if you take the entire box along with you, instead of leaving us with a useless telephone set.

But in any case, since you chose to moonlight as a thief, I hope the karma lands upon you. I hope you die and your soul rot in deepest hell hole.

Due to their extensively SLOW One Night Service package delivery, and their impossible-to-be-contacted Customer Support, yesterday I decided to send an email to JNE with my complaint. Here’s my email:

Saya menunggu paket penting yang dikirim kilat kemarin dari Bandung (resi 1445663550001), tapi sampai detik ini belum sampai, dan ini sudah hampir habis jam kantor. Ini apanya yang kilat? Servisnya sangat mengecewakan dan merugikan. Telepon JNE pusat juga semuanya sibuk DARI PAGI. Sebenarnya ada ngga sih yang kerja di sana? Masa hotline sibuk dari pagi?

Best regards,

Bellamy B. Budiman

Today, they replied me with this (sent from their email adm.cssuport3@jne.co.id):

Dear Ibu Bellamy,

Sebelumnya mohon maaf email Ibu baru kami respon dan terimakasih atas email serta kepercayaan Ibu terhadap perusahaan kami JNE. Kami informasikan bahwa kiriman Ibu telah diterima pada tanggal 27-08-2010 jam. 18:59 penerima: SUTIKNO.

Best Regards,
Dina Parlina
CS Officer
Customer Service Department

For being a numbskull and assuming that I am female, I replied them with this:

FYI, ini dengan BAPAK Bellamy, bukan ibu. Tentunya Ibu Dina tidak mau kalau saya panggil Bapak Dina?

Best regards,

Bellamy B. Budiman

So, Dina Parlina from JNE, if you can’t decide one’s gender, it is best that you use “Bapak/Ibu” or simply just the name instead. But, of course, that would be too much for you to understand, wouldn’t it?

I’ve done a bit of research, too. I found two credible hits for “Dina Parlina”. Apparently, those results are always related to customer complaints, as described here and here. So, it’s either Dina Parlina is a real person and presumably a man, or it’s just a cover name for their Customer Support.

Okays, Qory, ours Miss Indonesia, we understands whats you are talkings. When we downs you can makes we ups. Okay, thanks you.

(Oh my God, I feel like I lost a bunch of my IQs just to write things in Qorylish)

Today, Telkom Speedy called to the office and said:

Telemarketer: Sore, ini dari Telkom Speedy.
Me: Mau nawarin internet ya?
Telemarketer (excited, for some reason): Betul, Bapak! Kami mau menawa…
Me: (hangs up)

And the conversation is done.

For the record, this is probably the hundredth time they offered Speedy to us. The least they can do is to keep a database of those who want and those who doesn’t want their stupid service. But they wouldn’t be called Telkom if they did, would they?