I had a very different holiday this time. I was forced by my parents to go to work in the restaurants instead of staying home playing my favourite Dota and watching Dvds. I was reluctant to work at first because I had certain degree of pride in me that I could not bring myself down to be humble enough to serve people. But now, I have equipped myself with this valuable experience in these two restaurants which I promised my mum that I will definitely want to work in there again in next vacations. Let me share with you how I spent my days in these 2 restaurants working as an illegal underage waiter!
20th June,2009—
I entered the restaurant which is located in the heart of red light district in southern tip of Malaysia. That morning, I saw more than half of the restaurant packed with customers. It seemed to be a rush hour and a busy lunchtime. The tables were full of dishes and people sitting around joyously, eating the food while chatting away happily, and seemed oblivious to the noisy surroundings. The waitresses and waiters holding trays each full of sweet potato porridge and side dishes, rushing here and there to meet the customers’ satisfaction and requests. I saw my mum busily doing her networking with the customers around and wasting no time, she assigned one of the senior and experienced waiters to teach me how to serve. I saw my friend as he waved to me with a dirty palm. Then I realised that he was working in here too. I was delighted to see him and he taught me how to take orders and basic serving manners and clearing the tables for next customers.
After a hectic day of serving customers, I then realised the importance of teamwork and how hard it is to be a waiter. The importance of teamwork cannot be emphasized more. When the customers leave the tables and it is time for us to keep the dishes and clean the table, we must always do it in duos or even trios as the customers who are queueing outside needs to be satisfied. We must also lay out the table with chopsticks and wet towels, menus and appetizers before we can lead the customers to be seated .
During rest time, my friend and I sat down to rest but the others waiters and waitresses still continued their jobs and ignored their rest time. After the restaurant closed after midnight, my friend and I walked home together. I asked him,” How much is your pay per month?” and he answered ,” 1000++” I was so shocked. This was in Ringgit! It was about S$400++.Even though their pay is so meager, they still respect their job and try to make the most out of it by slogging their guts out until about 3 am per day. They do not have the mentality that we have that is” Pay less, Work less” .They have free accommodation and food served to them every 3 hour. What can they do with this amount of money? I really wonder…
21st June 2009 Sunday-Father’s Day.
I put on restaurant ‘s uniform early morning at 10am. I was told by my parents that I needed to go to the 2nd restaurant which is double the size of the first one to help up today. It consisted of 28 tables and it was a Sunday, also Father’s Day. We expected big crowds to turn up at the restaurant to celebrate Father’s day.
As it was only busy during lunchtime and dinnertime, thus we could sit down and slack from about 3 pm to 5.30 pm. Other than that, we had to make our leg muscles work and hold up trays with one hand while serving with the other. Not only that, but we also had to clean up the rubbish and dishes after every customer leave, making our hands dirty. However, this is part and parcel of the life of a waiter in our restaurant.
Also if customer does not want the towels and peanuts, we have to tell the cashier and she will then have to take note and not to charge the amount in the bill. If we do not and we pass the bill to the customer with the money for the peanuts and towels included in the bill, we will be admonished and the only thing that we can do is to humble ourselves down and apologise, which a person full of pride will never do, like me. However hard I forced myself not to do it, I still had to do it as I did not want to lose this customer. This was what I had to do on the second day that I was working as I met a drunkard. Wonder what happened to me…
Never judge a book by its cover is a phrase that I have learnt in this holiday. Those staff, be it the waiters or chefs, are mostly transmigrates, this means that they are people from other states of Malaysia, and Burmese. They leave their hometowns and families to come to JB to find a living. They are either below 20 or early 20s with very little education and simple background .However young they are or where they come from, they are able to speak perfect Mandarin and they are full of life experiences and are unselfish to share with me. From them, I can see that they respect their jobs so much that some slog their guts out and work to their fullest capacity. Their loyalty and diligence is really an asset to the restaurant and these are virtues that we have to instill in ourselves. Some even work 2 shifts in order to make their ends meet. With the meager salary, they spend little on their necessities and send the rest of their pay back to support their families. I take my hats off to them! Of course, there are some black sheeps too. Due to their ignorance, they spend their hard earned money in inappropriate ways.
These are what I have learnt through these two days of training. I thank my parents for this valuable opportunity for learning what life is out of the box and books. I treasure everyone I met in the restaurants, including the ‘frontline’ waiters and waitresses and the ‘backstage’ chefs and assistants chefs and most importantly, the customers. They add spices to my routine life. Thanks for making my Father’s Day so meaningful and educational.
Wah, Sean, great experience! Hope I can join yuo next time :)
ReplyDeleteSee you on Saturday.
Cheers,
Jonah
Sure,Jonah,do patronise our restaurants,I will surely serve you if I am there.
ReplyDeleteHi Sean,
ReplyDeleteYou definitely had an interesting experience, thanks for sharing! :)