Jobbing is Horrid
I have, as of today, been working for 7 days. 7 days, and I hate the job already. It’s horrible; only the locals could stand it. The hours are long, the conditions bad, and the pay horrible. So far I’ve told a total of 15 people about my pay rate, and only one said “Wow”. The other 14 said something along the lines of “What a cheapskate your boss is”.
And he is a cheapskate. He doesn’t even let the workers get employee discounts, for crying out loud. I pay the same prices as anyone else.
I’m terribly tired now, as in suffering from sleep deprivation. I work for 9 hours a day; I have to wake at 7 just so I can get a decent breakfast before walking to work; and for some strange reason, while everyone else can sleep at 4 and wake at 12 without any side effects, I apparently need about 9 hours of sleep a day. And then there’s the simple fact that I only get sleepy around 10:30 or so. And then on Sunday, I went to work straight from church and music class, so I was something like a zombie after 6 hours on the job.
I do mean walking dead tired. I was just strolling aimlessly around the place, mumbling disjointed bits of phrases to myself, and pretty much trying to avoid swooning on the spot. Actually that came later; a co-worker got rid of me and sent me off to somewhere I couldn’t do any harm. She did so (yes, she. All the cashiers in the mart are female, so I’ve got loads of females all around me. All of them being locals, spotty, and Malay-only-speaking) because I accidentally put a bottle of oyster sauce on a sack of rice.
For those who don’t know, oyster sauce is very thick, dark, and smelly, and comes in cylindrical bottles. A sack of rice is very smooth. Now, any idiot could’ve seen that putting a cylindrical object, on its side, on a smooth concave surface means that it’s going to roll off sooner or later. So the oyster sauce did that. And it fell. It fell about one metre, straight down, and hit the tiled ground, which is by no means soft.
So the glass bottle broke, and the oyster sauce burst out in liberal quantities, and it stained my shoes and probably my long pants as well. Thank God I was wearing black ones that day. Anyway, the customer was not at all happy, nor was my supervisor and co-worker. So that’s how I got packed off to perform my zombie act.
I asked for tomorrow off. My supervisor agreed almost immediately. I think that seeing me destroy one day’s salary worth of sauce helped. Oh, yeah, and all my other mistakes and bloopers. I’ve made plenty of them this past week…like upsetting a trolley full of stuff while wheeling it down a 45-degree incline—thank God there were no eggs in it…or sticking a large rice bag on a large, pointed nail and ripping open a 5-inch tear, causing the bag to empty post-haste…or picking up a plastic packet of eggs and somehow ripping it open, causing cracked eggs all around. Of course everybody says that people make mistakes the first few days, but I think I just made history by making them all. After all, there are other new workers around, in my position too, and I don’t see them ambling around with half-closed eyes and a blank, mindless look, muttering “tired…sleep…must…bed…so…sleepy…want…bed…”, or breaking bottles, or anything.
I hear there’s a job opening somewhere near Thong Hinge. (That’s the effect of Autocorrect.) Maybe I’ll try it out; I hear it involves sitting at a computer from 9 to 5 and lots of paperwork. Sounds right up my alley; and the pay’s pretty good. On the other hand, taking that job will mean no more chance encounters. Absolutely no chance of somehow running into an old classmate in a office environment, unless you both happen to be there trying to get the same job, in which case friendly conversation is definitely unlikely to occur.
But of course I’m making some friends, and there are a few perks. I just can’t think of any for the moment, but I’m sure this melancholy mood will soon pass. I think. In fact my posts don’t seem at all melancholy. There’s too much happiness and optimism in them. I’m not sure this is quite proper…
And he is a cheapskate. He doesn’t even let the workers get employee discounts, for crying out loud. I pay the same prices as anyone else.
I’m terribly tired now, as in suffering from sleep deprivation. I work for 9 hours a day; I have to wake at 7 just so I can get a decent breakfast before walking to work; and for some strange reason, while everyone else can sleep at 4 and wake at 12 without any side effects, I apparently need about 9 hours of sleep a day. And then there’s the simple fact that I only get sleepy around 10:30 or so. And then on Sunday, I went to work straight from church and music class, so I was something like a zombie after 6 hours on the job.
I do mean walking dead tired. I was just strolling aimlessly around the place, mumbling disjointed bits of phrases to myself, and pretty much trying to avoid swooning on the spot. Actually that came later; a co-worker got rid of me and sent me off to somewhere I couldn’t do any harm. She did so (yes, she. All the cashiers in the mart are female, so I’ve got loads of females all around me. All of them being locals, spotty, and Malay-only-speaking) because I accidentally put a bottle of oyster sauce on a sack of rice.
For those who don’t know, oyster sauce is very thick, dark, and smelly, and comes in cylindrical bottles. A sack of rice is very smooth. Now, any idiot could’ve seen that putting a cylindrical object, on its side, on a smooth concave surface means that it’s going to roll off sooner or later. So the oyster sauce did that. And it fell. It fell about one metre, straight down, and hit the tiled ground, which is by no means soft.
So the glass bottle broke, and the oyster sauce burst out in liberal quantities, and it stained my shoes and probably my long pants as well. Thank God I was wearing black ones that day. Anyway, the customer was not at all happy, nor was my supervisor and co-worker. So that’s how I got packed off to perform my zombie act.
I asked for tomorrow off. My supervisor agreed almost immediately. I think that seeing me destroy one day’s salary worth of sauce helped. Oh, yeah, and all my other mistakes and bloopers. I’ve made plenty of them this past week…like upsetting a trolley full of stuff while wheeling it down a 45-degree incline—thank God there were no eggs in it…or sticking a large rice bag on a large, pointed nail and ripping open a 5-inch tear, causing the bag to empty post-haste…or picking up a plastic packet of eggs and somehow ripping it open, causing cracked eggs all around. Of course everybody says that people make mistakes the first few days, but I think I just made history by making them all. After all, there are other new workers around, in my position too, and I don’t see them ambling around with half-closed eyes and a blank, mindless look, muttering “tired…sleep…must…bed…so…sleepy…want…bed…”, or breaking bottles, or anything.
I hear there’s a job opening somewhere near Thong Hinge. (That’s the effect of Autocorrect.) Maybe I’ll try it out; I hear it involves sitting at a computer from 9 to 5 and lots of paperwork. Sounds right up my alley; and the pay’s pretty good. On the other hand, taking that job will mean no more chance encounters. Absolutely no chance of somehow running into an old classmate in a office environment, unless you both happen to be there trying to get the same job, in which case friendly conversation is definitely unlikely to occur.
But of course I’m making some friends, and there are a few perks. I just can’t think of any for the moment, but I’m sure this melancholy mood will soon pass. I think. In fact my posts don’t seem at all melancholy. There’s too much happiness and optimism in them. I’m not sure this is quite proper…
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