It’s eight in the morning and I couldn’t fall back to sleep, which is weird because it is my off day and, as most of you would know, I would do more than anything to just sleep in. But today’s different because something’s been bugging me and I just cannot let my mind rest until I have a conclusion. It was bugging me so bad that I had to do something about it.
So I picked up my iPod, turned to ok go’s ‘Here It Goes Again’, and started dancing (prancing) in the living room like a maniac while everybody else is sleeping. And it was mighty fun. Haha.
So anyway, I have been working for slightly more than a week now and I’ve been asking myself this, “If I quit my job, does that make me a quitter?” Now before I delve into this, I’m just gonna briefly elaborate on my life (life?) at work.
Let’s start with the characters I’m dealing with.
There are 6 full-timers in total, including me. There’s Supervisor A, Supervisor B, Senior Staff A, Senior Staff B, Junior Staff A and then there’s me (Junior Staff B, if you like).
Supervisor A’s the charmer, the one that everybody likes (and by everybody I mean the staff and the customers). He does all the managing and the supervising and the admin stuff supervisors do. And I don’t like him. It is evident he treats the female staff better and he gives double standards to his customers. He is especially polite to customers that are a) gorgeous, b) looks important, c) Caucasian. He gets sarcastic with me and never jokes around with me like he does with the other staff. To sum it all, he is a fake.
Supervisor B’s the resident bitch. Or that was what everybody else says. I didn’t get to meet her on the first day and everybody was telling me about how I am supposed to “be prepared” when dealing with her and to “adapt” to her needs and be wary of her. I was kind of scared to meet this person until I actually did. She turned out to be one nasty fun person to be with. Yeah well she’s sarcastic, bitchy, can’t be bothered with disagreeable customers but she’s funny. Her jobscope leans more towards the sales aspect of the job. If you see a wrongly stickered price tag, you can quote her saying, “It’s okay. Extra money goes in the cash register and then it goes into your bank account.” She also taught me a lot of things and I’m afraid she might think of me as her protégé, which makes it harder for me to come up with a decision. She taught me how to categorise the front display. “First two rows compilations, followed by pop/rock, then indie/alternative. Oh and sluts together.”
Senior Staff A and B are fun to be around, though A is more chinkeefied but that’s okay. He is in-charge of Asian pop anyway. A very resourceful person too and indispensable, because half the time customers are asking for chinkee music and the rest know nuts about it. Senior Staff B is gorgeous, nice, sweet, funny and LAME! Which makes work much much more tolerable. She, Supervisor B and me will do crazy things like dance to George Michael’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-go” and do stupid things to humour ourselves.
Junior Staff A is.. hmm.. Have you guys watched Phil of the Future on Disney Channel? Do you know one of the characters, Debby, Pim’s archenemy? That excruciatingly nice, sickeningly sweet, Miss Know-it-all Goody-two-shoes? That’s her! She’s nice and all, patient even, but sometimes you just. wanna. drive. a. nail. through. her. head.
And then there is the part-timer and the intern. The part-timer is cool, has been working for a couple of months, and Indonesian. She’s funny and I can divulge all sorts of information to her without worrying of what she’ll think. The full-timers don’t really fancy her, because she can be an airhead sometimes. Supervisor B has officially labelled her a ‘goblok’, which is stupid in Bahasa. But I’m cool with her. Officially my gossip partner.
Have you ever gone to a store, and then noticed that there are Indonesian/Filipino maids working in that store and then you wondered, “Aren’t maids not allowed to work in a store?” Tsk tsk you ignorant, assuming, disdainful Singaporeans. The intern in my workplace is from the Philippines and yeah well, her life here ain’t better than the maids. She works everyday except Mondays and doesn’t even get paid. Only a couple of hundred bucks as allowances and she has a contract of 6 months. She’s so gonna miss Christmas at home this year. The intern is also fun to be around and a very nice person to talk to, which we sometimes get carried away doing.
Sometimes I feel I’m closer to the part-timer and the intern than the full-timers. As of now, only the two of them know of my thoughts of quitting.
Now let me tell you about the job per se.
Working there can be fun, especially since I can click with most of my colleagues. We can get high and do crazy things and still maintain a decorum in front of customers, which is almost always hard to do and I end up laughing out of sight of people. See the thing about being in retail is that, you have to keep maintaining a calm cool persona, even when you feel like circumcising the previous customer, because, well, you know the drill. “Great service begins with me!” But then again I never had to deal with difficult customers, because I’ll just pass them over to the supervisors and the senior staff.
So you think being in retail is safe? Think again. There are job hazards being in this industry.
Job Hazard 1: The Cash Register
Dangers: Unwary cashiers might suffer mild groin pain to severe impotency from the sudden expulsion of the money drawer. Be warned.
Job Hazard 2: The Repeat Mode
Dangers: Retail associates will suffer a very bad earworm that will last the whole night sometimes even up till the next morning, when which the whole cycle will repeat once you go back to work.
Job Hazard 3: The Price Scanner
Dangers: If cashiers were to lean against the wall behind (to rest or whatever), the price scanner will blind you with its laser beam. I swear this was schemingly done to make sure we stay on our feet for 11 hours straight.
Job Hazard 4: The Shrinkwrap Plastic Sealer
Dangers: Retail associates looking to shrinkwrap CDs will inhale toxic fumes emitted by the burning of the plastic during sealing. Side-effects include getting high, sudden asthma and even possibly lung cancer.
Anyway, what bugs me most right now is that the hours I’m working is really really long. I was told, before I got the job, that it’ll be 11am to 9pm daily but that is not the case ladies and gentlement. Because the store closes at 9:30pm and sometimes even later on weekends. And after the store closes, we still have to count money and settle all the sales, which can take up to an hour. So technically I work about 11 hours daily. 11 hours straight without sitting down at all, unless you’re eating lunch. I’m fresh out of the army so standing up for a couple of hours is fine. But I’m really really irritated about the fact that they only give me HALF-bloody-freakin’-HOUR to go out and buy food and no, I can’t even eat peacefully at the establishment of my choice. I have to take out, bring back to the store, and freaking eat at the back room like a freakin’ bag lady!
Now what puzzles me is that, why is it that I am the only one that feels exploited? What happened to the Employment Act and my rights as an employee? Of course I can’t bring up the subject. It’s either I am given the rights (or maybe not) and be outcasted, or I get fired. Either way, it sucks.
The long hours are just unbearable to me right now. I was looking forward to freedom after army. Was anticipating to redeem my life back. Go swimming again, read a good book in bed, spend hours just lazing around, have dinner with friends, catch up on TV shows, catch up with friends. I promised so many of my friends that I’ll be more free after army to hang out but no, I had to go and get myself a job. Working here is like being back to regimentation. Wake up. Go to work. Reach home exhausted. Sleep. Wake up. Go to work. On my off days I’ll just be catching up on sleep and be too tired to go out.
Everything happened so fast that I still haven’t clear the bags and bags of stuff I brought home from camp. I feel so jaded. I just need more time for myself. I just need to quit, right? But does that make me a quitter? I have heard stories of people juggling school and work and family matters and they push on and everybody respects this kind of people. I myself have scoffed at people who quit their jobs after a few days, thinking they don’t have the willpower and thought if I can get through army, I can go through anything. But for the past two days, nothing was on my mind more than that q word.
I posed the question to a couple of people and Suf’s reply made me smile. She said, “No. It juz means ur job suck.” Thanks babe.
On a different note, I hadn’t had so much fun in a long time as on Sofi’s birthday. It was the only thing that made me smile, just thinking about it at work. I’m glad I have beautiful friends.
