MY P EXPERIENCE

Working as a part-time promoter for a brand in Parkson, tHe Spring, I am constricted to the strict rules of Parkson. From the first day I started working, I was reminded by my colleague to memorise ‘ The P Experience’. The P Experience; P stands for Parkson; was a guideline for staffs and promoters to provide warm and quality services to customers. The guideline starts from ‘ready for service’ to ‘customer approach’ all the way to ‘last impression’. I was giving a ‘pop quiz’ about ‘The P Experience’ by the Parkson Floor Supervisor about it. I just played along to the rhythm of the whole scenario.

Well, since ‘The P Experience’ is for Parkson customers, let me tell about ‘My P Experience’ with is one of an example of daily to daily situation for Parkson staffs and promoters. If following to ‘The P Experience’ guideline, I am supposed to greet every customer that went into my Brand’s corner. And I am supposed to ask what I can do for them and etc. But in Sarawak, we can’t do that, especially to Chinese customers. If I start greeting, they will give me a cold stare, or a weird stare. Some would just ignore. Some would actually got freak out and run away. Not every customer has a need when they walk into Parkson. I think the best way to sell a product is to let the product sell itself. Let them walk around the Brand corner and when they look at the promotions and products, it will build a desire to buy in them. And the best way for promoters to provide good P experience is to just stand, look and response only when customers ask.

Handphones. I thought handphones only have to be hidden from school authorities only. But in Parkson, it has to be hidden from Parkson authorities and CCTVs. Parkson has the rule of ‘No Handphones in Selling Ground’. I get it. You don’t want your promoters neglecting their jobs because of handphones. But your promoters need handphones to call their supervisors or receive calls from supervisors that is important to give your customer a very good P experience. You don’t want your customer to tell them ‘I don’t know’. Certainly, Parkson supervisor will not know details about the products because they are not Brand supervisors. If I am the big man in Parkson, I will rule out that handphones will be confiscated when they are seen using it in public. Handphones will be aloud if the user use it in hidden, and for work purpose only. Books and any reading materials are also not allowed inside. Don’t ask why.

Spot Checks. Yes, Parkson have spot checks too. And the think they confiscated in spot checks are stationeries and price tags. They confiscate stationeries that are not ‘declared’. Declare here means to stick a stupid sticker to say that this stationery so and so is Parkson’s and not stolen. My counter’s calculator was taken. I will take a very long time to calculate the figures for customers now. So much for ‘The P Experience’ for the customers. We promoters joke that if you accidently left your branded underwear inside the drawer, they will take it for declaration too. Price tags? I don’t know why they want to take away price tags. It’s theirs anyway. The reason, they said is, quoted, “counters cannot have too many price tags”. All my price tags were taken. So, my brand’s promotion cannot be done because we have to stick a new price tag on the old one every time customer buys according to the promotion. So, it’s harder for us to sell now. Thus, I have to go request for new stacks for stickers. Guess who will pay for those new orders? Parkson. They are wasting their own money actually, by confiscating their own price tags from counters.

Well, I can’t say working there is not all together bad. There are times when you have nothing to do at all there. If you can withstand boredom, working at Parkson is no problem for you. It’s just that those rules are annoying. My paycheck is from my Brand’s company and not by Parkson but I have to follow Parkson’s rules. Its really like ‘di mana bumi dipijak, di sana langit dijunjung’. It means at where you are, you have to abide the law of that place. If there are no customers, you can talk to your colleagues, or make yourself busy with stock checking. And you will be morbidly obsess with lunchtime, dinnertime, and go home time.

New Working Environment

Rather than spending the time ‘storing fat’ at home, I decided to work to prevent me from being lazy.

As a result, my first job was at a café. Bombastic Café. I got in when I asked my friend if there is any vacancy there. I started working the week after my STPM. When I started, I got the impression that my boss is not a friendly person towards workers (till now, he still is not). Since it opens only at night, I was to reach the café at 5.30pm. Then, my boss will arrive in his Proton along with his girlfriend, a kitchen staff and his mother. When the shops opens, my daily normal chores would be arranging the tables outside, carrying the chairs, mop the floor, wipe the table, prepare dining appliances, and filling the sauces in 30 minutes. The first thing my boss would do is making his kopi-peng. After that, he would play a CD and then sit outside and started lighting a cigarette, while we all are preparing the restaurant. My boss have a china-man mentality (pay little work a lot) and he is lazy. The only thing he lacks off is his care for the welfare of his workers and customers. To illustrated, when there is a lot of customers, and there is only 2 waiters serving, he won’t even give a helping hand. When we all were wiping sweat beads, he is smoking his cigarette while talking to his friends. Sometimes, he would hide behind the tree outside. There was this one case when a cockroach was found in the baked rice of a customer, my waiter friends was told to replace the food, and the customer was still charged. If I’m the boss, I would give her a free meal. His girlfriend I ‘respect’ the most, because she can use her relationship with the boss to get promotion and even change the menu! The restaurant is very dirty (literally) and there is always cases of rats running on the wall to the storeroom. If you are lucky, you get to see the boss chasing the rats out. And do you know, we workers are served for dinner with yesterday’s rice, chicken fat, and almost spoilt vegetables? Do you know when you ordered a chicken chop, a portion of your chicken will be cut off for later orders of chicken chop with rice? There was this case when I accidentally ‘poured’ the whole portion of Fish & Chips on a customer’s table. I brought it back to the kitchen and replace a new one for the customer. Guess what comes out for the next customer who ordered Fish & Chips; the fish that I ‘poured’; the difference is just that it’s cut to half. Do you know that when tips are left on the table, we waiters do not keep the tips? Our boss keeps them, in a piggy bank, beside the counter. Do you know if there is no customer, you get to see the boss flirting with his girlfriend? So ‘professional’. And I wonder why they would put on green eyes on After Three’s good business.

I’m glad I quit after working there for 5 months. Like the two longest people who ever worked there, we are all very happy without Bombastic. Gone were the days where I feel sorry for the customers. Gone were the days I feel the boss is insensitive. But, I do learn a lot. Like, how a restaurant business runs, how economy affects everyone, how to treat people better, customer relations, and finally I learned that there are many kinds of bosses out there. I think I have learned enough there.

After I quit as a waiter, I got a job as promoter for FILA in Parkson, at a local shopping complex. Actually, I like this job more when compared to my previous one. The upsides are that its in walking distance from my house in Kenyalang, the pay is higher, my FILA supervisor is not there but she is flexible and helpful, and I get to work independently in minimum supervision. The downsides are the strict Parkson rules, the customers, the lots of time spend there, ‘newbie’ condition I am in now, boredom, and the repeated songs that Parkson put on and on again. I’m grateful its not Christmas or Chinese New Year. It’s a brand new place to acquire brand new experiences and meeting new people.

I am looking forward for the new cinema of tHe Spring to open ^^ .