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 ^^ .
