Update as per requested by my wife, En Ping.

I apologise for the lack of updates. And like Daryl said, my first week of work has been filled with night shifts. By the time I reach home, it's past 12 and by the time I'm done showering and washing my uniform, it's about time to head to sleep in preparation for the next day's work.

I finally knocked off at 5 for once today. I was rostered for 12-5pm yesterday but due to a colleague's sudden MC, a manager extended my shift till 6, and a supervisor further extended my shift till 11. (My back and feet were agony by the time work was over and I had a pounding headache for a better part of the night during work.)

I got one good thing out of it though: salmon and mushroom baked rice.

Most delicious thing ever~ Dar was so jealous when he saw me eating at about 6 plus (his shift started at 5 and he wouldn't take a bite of the rice I offered and I found out much later that he was just recovering from an asthma attack ><). Today my shift started and ended on time =D So here I am blogging whatever I can churn out from my tired, tired mind. I shall now launch into a ranting tirade about work up till now. The first few days of work merely consisted of serving and refilling ice water, topping up the station and clearing/cleaning tables. It's really quite annoying when there're tons of plates on a table and a customer asks for a refill, doesn't hand the cup over to you and expects you to reach across the table and the many plates, to take the glass and refill it.

So unhygenic can??

Why would you want someone leaning over your food and dirtying it? (Ya, it's a restaurant, it's air-conditioned, but it doesn't mean we don't perspire.) I also can't quite stand it when I'm making my rounds, refilling the ice water, and a particular table doesn't want a refill. Then a manager comes into the station and asks me to refill 17A's ice water when two minutes ago, they didn't want it =.=

After those few days, I began taking orders from customers. There wasn't any coaching whatsoever. It was busy, and a senior colleague had given me a chunk of her ordering pad in case some urgent orders needed to be taken down. So I just... took the order from the guy. Ok la, taking orders is the easy part. Relatively. If the customer is nice and not some PMSing freak just wanting to bite your head off at the slightest mistake that you make (some people just don't notice the word 'trainee' below the name on the name tag.)

(Mummy just distracted me from blogging with mini mango and durian puffs <33) style="font-size:180%;">Auntie, this is a restaurant, not some kopitiam. You don't even order like that in a kopitiam la.

Her mannerisms made her seem ill-bred. She was ordering her food in a very loud voice (ok, maybe the restaurant was a little noisy but still, she was talking VERY loudly.) When her friend ordered her food, a Thai Green Curry Baked Rice from our current promotion, she, the plump woman, jabbed at Tom Yam Goong Baked Rice on the menu and was like, 'Why you dowan this one?' Perplexed, her friend finally said, "Uhm. I'll have this one instead." And when her friend ordered lime juice, she went "I want lime juice oso!"

Dunno how to order at a restaurant don't order la. Don't even step in.

I also don't like customers who want to order the moment they're seated. And they don't know the menu and they just want you to stand there like an idiot while they study the menu and are discussing with each other what they want to stuff themselves with.

Oei, you don't own the restaurant. You're not the only customer. But of course, they think they're so high and mighty to be dining at one of the top Swensens outlets and they're so caught up in their own little world that they conviniently forget that they're not in their own private restaurant with their personal crew of waiters, waitresses and chefs. And they take such a freaking long time to decide what they want to eat.

Gaah.

But of course, there're also very nice customers who really make your day. They don't act arrogant, they're friendly, they're nice, practically the customers you'd want to have all the time for the rest of your shift. But then again, if there weren't nasty customers, I wouldn't have much to blog about, aye? XD

Yeah, yesterday, I served like, the nicest family ever. I'm not biased just 'cause they wrote something good about me on the feedback form. They were all nice and smiley. Especially the mummy. They were also very nice when they wanted coffee-based items but the coffee machine had just broken down.

It's nice to have customers who are all smiles and they joke with you. They're a real breath of fresh air, a change from the snotty, arrogant customers who think they're so high-class.

Aaaaanyway, the work environment has been great so far. Nice colleagues and nice managers/supervisors. They know when to joke around to have fun, and when to get serious and down to business.

(I'm taking horrendously long to type this entry - I keep getting distracted XD)

(Actually, my brain cells just dried up.)

It's back to work again tomorrow. My original rostered shift of 12-5 has been, once again, extended to 11. Because it's a public holiday on Friday, we would be swarming with customers on Thursday night and they're currently short-handed.

Today when I'd just entered Swensens through the side door, ma'am Mui Peng was like, ‘小妹，今天可以 extend 到 11 点吗？’ =.= I told her I could extend at most until 8 or 9. Then she decided that I would go home as per rostered today, but have my shift extended till 11 tomorrow. Dar decided to be hero and extended his 5-11 shift to 12-11 as well. LoL.

I keep thinking of the money I'm gonna be making. I've clocked in quite a lot of hours already and if Ann is correct, a part-timer's full shift is about 5 hours. Anything more than that is considered OT. And it's like, 7 bucks per hour for OT. Mwaha.

Oh yeah, timetable for Year 2 Sem 1 is finally out. I'm in a different class from En Ping =( But nevermind, we can always go for lunch break after lectures or something. And of course, talk to each other on MSN during classes =D

I shall end this entry here and let my tired brain rest. More shit just happened in the family ><

Till my next post, adieu.