Awful Experience at Colibri, Portola Springs

aquabliss

Well-known member
My family visited Colibri Saturday afternoon, and while walking through the Plan 1, my 2 year old son vomited up all the grilled cheese sliders he just ate from the food truck at Acadia.  Yup, right there all over the new tile flooring in Plan 1.  They actually had an agent stationed in the plan answering buyers questions, she was an older asian lady who looked rather annoyed that my son had vomited, and not the least bit concerned about his health or safety (my wife and I were freaking out a bit because he's never thrown up before and didn't show any signs of being sick earlier in the day). 

She begrudgingly drug her feet to the sales office and asked some other people to bring a roll of paper towels.  We felt terrible about it and were apologizing to her quite profusely but all she did was turn up her nose at us.  I understand she was probably frustrated and annoyed that my son had vomited in the model where she has to work the rest of the day, but she didn't have one ounce of caring or concern in her.  She never said "don't worry about it we will clean it", or even asked if he was OK or if we needed anything.  She was so smug and obnoxious - I think she did say something about removing him from the model home and taking him to the port-a-potty outside. 

It was an awful experience for me and left a really bad taste in our mouths (literally and figuratively) regarding the builder and their staff.  Even worse, when we finally got cleaned up (or as clean as we could with the paper towels they brought) and I was carrying my son out through the sales office, the lady working there who knew what had happened, had the audacity to badger us to sign in before we walked out.  She asked us to do so on our way in, but I was holding my son and my wife was holding our daughter, so we told her we didn't have any free hands.  I wanted to say some choice words to her but I bit my tongue and just walked out without saying anything. 

Another interesting tidbit to this story was since he vomited quite a lot (about 3 times sequentially), I was standing in the model home holding a lot of "it" between him and my arms waiting for the paper towels to show up - if I moved or put my son down it would have splattered.  During this 3-5 minutes, there were a number of people coming into the home to look around.  My wife would be sure to tell them (as they entered the kitchen) that our toddler had just thrown up, we were waiting for it to be cleaned and to please (for their sake) wait a few minutes before walking through that area.  There must have been 5-10 FCB's who completely ignored her, saw the puke on the ground and literally walked right over it.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  They just walked right through it like it was nothing, continued chatting in Mandarin about the outside patio, yard, etc.  It was really strange and I was shocked at the lack of candor. 
 
aquabliss said:
My family visited Colibri Saturday afternoon, and while walking through the Plan 1, my 2 year old son vomited up all the grilled cheese sliders he just ate from the food truck at Acadia.  Yup, right there all over the new tile flooring in Plan 1.  They actually had an agent stationed in the plan answering buyers questions, she was an older asian lady who looked rather annoyed that my son had vomited, and not the least bit concerned about his health or safety (my wife and I were freaking out a bit because he's never thrown up before and didn't show any signs of being sick earlier in the day). 

She begrudgingly drug her feet to the sales office and asked some other people to bring a roll of paper towels.  We felt terrible about it and were apologizing to her quite profusely but all she did was turn up her nose at us.  I understand she was probably frustrated and annoyed that my son had vomited in the model where she has to work the rest of the day, but she didn't have one ounce of caring or concern in her.  She never said "don't worry about it we will clean it", or even asked if he was OK or if we needed anything.  She was so smug and obnoxious - I think she did say something about removing him from the model home and taking him to the port-a-potty outside. 

It was an awful experience for me and left a really bad taste in our mouths (literally and figuratively) regarding the builder and their staff.  Even worse, when we finally got cleaned up (or as clean as we could with the paper towels they brought) and I was carrying my son out through the sales office, the lady working there who knew what had happened, had the audacity to badger us to sign in before we walked out.  She asked us to do so on our way in, but I was holding my son and my wife was holding our daughter, so we told her we didn't have any free hands.  I wanted to say some choice words to her but I bit my tongue and just walked out without saying anything. 

Another interesting tidbit to this story was since he vomited quite a lot (about 3 times sequentially), I was standing in the model home holding a lot of "it" between him and my arms waiting for the paper towels to show up - if I moved or put my son down it would have splattered.  During this 3-5 minutes, there were a number of people coming into the home to look around.  My wife would be sure to tell them (as they entered the kitchen) that our toddler had just thrown up, we were waiting for it to be cleaned and to please (for their sake) wait a few minutes before walking through that area.  There must have been 5-10 FCB's who completely ignored her, saw the puke on the ground and literally walked right over it.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  They just walked right through it like it was nothing, continued chatting in Mandarin about the outside patio, yard, etc.  It was really strange and I was shocked at the lack of candor.

Sorry to hear that about your son.
 
Aqua- I hope your little kid is feeling better and I'm so sorry to hear how the sales lady treated you there.  Seems like people are so heartless and only care about making money .. ugh!!

As for the 5-10 FCBs that ignored your wife and the mess on the floor... Get use to it.. That's Irvine for you.  My neighbors on both sides are FCBs and are the most rude and inconsiderate people on this planet.  I really thought buying in Irvine would mean raising my family in an affluent area but instead it's just like living in the ROC with some nasty ass people who stir fry in the back of the house, never say hi unless they want to buy your home, hack a loogie while smoking and spit on your driveway, have a gazillion people living under one roof and hang clothes from their window.
 
I hate piling on FCB from mainland but basically it's all money no class.  TBF, they live in a country of 1.2 billion people and human plight is a common occurrence.  I can always tell a Taiwanese/HK person from a FOB mainlander by the way they dress and walk....they love their name brands but have no idea about matching or style.  A bunch of mismatched Versace and LV.
 
sorry to hear that.  Maybe that particular sales person was a royal b*tch and you just had the misfortune of encountering her at a bad time. 

On the plus side, you managed to get vomit on a bunch of jerks and their workplace, so there's some good to be found in that, don't you think?
 
Irvinecommuter said:
I hate piling on FCB from mainland but basically it's all money no class.  TBF, they live in a country of 1.2 billion people and human plight is a common occurrence.  I can always tell a Taiwanese/HK person from a FOB mainlander by the way they dress and walk....they love their name brands but have no idea about matching or style.  A bunch of mismatched Versace and LV.

I couldn't agree with you more.

You can put lipstick on a pig but at the end of the day it's still a pig!!! Money can't buy you class thats for sure.
 
Sorry to hear about your son - it was probably a combination of the really greasy food and the high temperatures and humidity outside, and the stuffiness and elevated temperatures inside the house (goes to show, maybe their AC isn't working so well). I hope he recovered from the bodily stress once you got home.

In a zoo-like environment these openings were this past weekend, it doesn't surprise me in the least that everyone (including the staff) showed such lack of concern. Though the mainlander mentality probably didn't help, overcrowding leads people to put up barriers and result in the kind of behavior you saw.
 
SamsonSimson said:
Sorry to hear about your son - it was probably a combination of the really greasy food and the high temperatures and humidity outside, and the stuffiness and elevated temperatures inside the house (goes to show, maybe their AC isn't working so well). I hope he recovered from the bodily stress once you got home.

In a zoo-like environment these openings were this past weekend, it doesn't surprise me in the least that everyone (including the staff) showed such lack of concern. Though the mainlander mentality probably didn't help, overcrowding leads people to put up barriers and result in the kind of behavior you saw.

Also, it could be the taste of the "Ryland Homes" imprint cookie. Taste like #%**{#?
 
H        O        M        E        R said:
Aqua- I hope your little kid is feeling better and I'm so sorry to hear how the sales lady treated you there.  Seems like people are so heartless and only care about making money .. ugh!!
Thanks Homer, he's feeling much better now but that day was pretty bad.  He didn't even scream or whine or complain, he's a really good kid. 

H        O        M        E        R said:
As for the 5-10 FCBs that ignored your wife and the mess on the floor... Get use to it.. That's Irvine for you.
We're beginning to realize this and it gets more frustrating every time we go to look at model homes in Irvine.  I think we're headed to Lake Forest / Foothill Ranch / or Mission Viejo within a year.

Irvinecommuter said:
I can always tell a Taiwanese/HK person from a FOB mainlander by the way they dress and walk
I agree with you here, I've been to HK many times for work - and HK residence can't stand mainlanders for the most part.  I can also tell within 10 seconds of meeting someone if they are from HK vs. Mainland.
 
I hope your little guy feels better now. I have two so I know that feeling when those things happen unexpectedly at the worst moment possible. I've noticed some older people haven't been around kids in a while (or ever) and lack the skills to deal with it. They get caught off guard easily. One time when my son was also 2, he had the sniffles. He's a very, very loving boy. We are an affectionate family. He ran up to a sales person and hugged her leg, leaving a big snot streak on her nice pants. Man, if looks could kill. Even though I apologized so much, she looked at me like I'm just trash. There is nothing you can do, these things happen. Don't feel bad. You apologized and that's all you can do (well, besides pick up the dry cleaning bill). If they can't accept it, that's too bad.

P.S. Wow, I had no idea there is such sentiment about mainlanders. (I'm non-Asian, have no clue about any of it.) Is everyone here on TI Taiwanese? I guess so.
 
you guys saw the video of the little girl getting run over several times by the trucks and people just watching and continuing walking by right?  i dont have much if any experience with mainland chinese people (except on my dog walks) and they seem like heartless people.  no offense to any asians on the the board here but that is what it looks like to an outsider.  You guys can bang on santa ana all you want but the hispanics (or most other non-chinese countries for that matter) there would not just keep on walking by if they saw some little kid get run over and over and over.
 
eyephone said:
Also, it could be the taste of the "Ryland Homes" imprint cookie. Taste like #%**{#?

Out of curiosity, what is their reputation as a builder? For that matter, how is everyone else coming onto the market now? On the admittedly low level of research I've done on various builders, it seems to be a regional thing - some regions for the same company may be higher regarded because an honest, hardworking foreman or manager keeps everyone else that way, whereas other regions may not have been so fortunate with managerial staffing that things and customer service start to slip. Like anything, I've heard that good builders construct bad product from time to time, and bad builders can make a decent product every once in a while. I've been told that which category you fall into is luck and probability.
 
Thanks SoCal... Funny story about your son's runny nose getting on the sales agent leg.  I'm not really irate with anyone over the whole incident, and I understand how when old people haven't been around children in many years they can forget how much patience it takes (my parents included).  However when you're in the service industry, you'd think you would try to be accommodating in all circumstances.  I worked in college as a Wedding Videographer and I encountered many rude, drunk, vomiting individuals throughout those few years but I was always helpful and accommodating regardless - Didn't want to give my company a bad name. 

I would definitely pay her dry cleaning if it landed on her, but she was a good 5-10 feet away and nothing came to close to her.  Also luckily for everyone it was all on the tile so easy cleanup (no carpets)...
 
aquabliss said:
Thanks SoCal... Funny story about your son's runny nose getting on the sales agent leg.  I'm not really irate with anyone over the whole incident, and I understand how when old people haven't been around children in many years they can forget how much patience it takes (my parents included).  However when you're in the service industry, you'd think you would try to be accommodating in all circumstances.  I worked in college as a Wedding Videographer and I encountered many rude, drunk, vomiting individuals throughout those few years but I was always helpful and accommodating regardless - Didn't want to give my company a bad name. 

I would definitely pay her dry cleaning if it landed on her, but she was a good 5-10 feet away and nothing came to close to her.  Also luckily for everyone it was all on the tile so easy cleanup (no carpets)...

Load him up with grilled cheese then take him car shopping. Aim for the upholstery. They'll never get the smell out - you get a discount. Win! Seriously, though - whiny kids are good negotiation tools. Negotiations end when the kid says it does, period. That gets people to their bottom like rather quickly, I find!

The lady my kid made a mess on started pushing him away. That made him upset 'cause he wanted a hug. Then he started crying and generated extra snot from crying. Honest to God - if it was me and any of your kids were to slime me with a hug, I'd let them keep clinging while I start wiping. But there are definitely folks who care way more about their precious clothes than a child's feelings.  :'( Sorry you had to encounter an aloof person with a cold heart.
 
qwerty said:
you guys saw the video of the little girl getting run over several times by the trucks and people just watching and continuing walking by right?  i dont have much if any experience with mainland chinese people (except on my dog walks) and they seem like heartless people.  no offense to any asians on the the board here but that is what it looks like to an outsider.  You guys can bang on santa ana all you want but the hispanics (or most other non-chinese countries for that matter) there would not just keep on walking by if they saw some little kid get run over and over and over.

It's really the result of having a lot of people...most of whom are poor.  People dying and human condition are just a part of life in mainland China.  Profit and personal success are the main driving force.  The government does not care unless or until it makes them look bad.  Just look at all the food scandals they had over the past few years. 

China is the ultimate capitalist society...Ayn Rand would be proud.
 
bones said:
aquabliss said:
H        O        M        E        R said:
As for the 5-10 FCBs that ignored your wife and the mess on the floor... Get use to it.. That's Irvine for you.
We're beginning to realize this and it gets more frustrating every time we go to look at model homes in Irvine.  I think we're headed to Lake Forest / Foothill Ranch / or Mission Viejo within a year.

I'm not trying to stick up for Irvine, but in the few years that I've been here, I've had very little interaction with any FCBs.  The only time I see them is when I go to Asian grocery stores (1x a month) or when I eat out at Asian places (few times a month).  All my kid's playgroups/extracurriculars are diverse - lots of Caucasians, americanized asians, european, indian, etc.  Some of my neighbors are FCBS but we never really interact.  Just "hi" here and there.  I feel like the model home crowds are not really indicative of everyday life in Irvine.

p.s. sorry to hear about your son :(  hope he is better now.

FCBs are in Irvine and their effects will be felt...however, they tend to stick together.  They don't really integrate and their kids are still stuck in the old "study only" mode.  I think the biggest effect would be on the neighborhood itself.  No more block parties or block garage sales.    Thus, I think their real impact on Irvine society as a whole is minimized. 
 
Lets start a new "I hate mainland Chinese FCB" thread. There's been a handful of Chinese FCBs moving into my neighborhood recently. For some reason, they all drive Mercedes SUVs. They're not friendly. I once tried to talk to one of them. He didn't speak English much and he just kept walking.
 
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