The weekend before the start of my internship felt neutral. Didn't exactly anticipate much. It felt like the holidays after O levels all over again. Uniforms, daily briefings, difficult customers and product knowledge. Nothing else I could anticipate. The walk around the grocery store on Sunday excited me a little, since I knew that one day - I would be familiar with the hundreds of products they sold.

To jolt my heart to make it race a little before the start of my new job, I decided to go for a hair cut, and stayed up late planning my next art piece that I aimed to accomplish before October (which was soon approaching). All these took priority over the competition script I was supposed to send over a long time back. I wonder why, but I just heeded my gut.

First day at work and no one expected me. None of my sups were there either. I mean, I didn't expect a grand welcome or extremely excited faces - at that instant when I wasn't known to be the new employee, I realised that I might not receive my paycheck on time the next month, and would probably be expected to mature much faster on my own around the work stations much quicker since they didn't prepare any materials to prep me up for the job.

And as I started to foretell how my hours for the days would come to pass, the floor manager for the day randomly threw me to run food for the breakfast menu, and gave me 5 minutes to memorize ingredients and differences in the food and drinks listed.

Drinks were pretty easy. They served mainly coffee for breakfast, and a variety of flavored tea. The variations in the coffee were just milk, foam, chocolate, ice cream or additional syrup or a different sort of milk. Tea was slightly harder. I still have trouble trying to differentiate them with my nose. Earl Grey. The English Breakfast. Chamomile. Green Mango. Forest Berries. The scent of the tea was pretty mild the first 20 seconds when tea leaves were first soaked in hot water. And that was usually the trouble - especially when I was serving two different teas and was expected to tell them apart on the spot with my nose so I could plop them in front of the right person.

Food was much more fun. But dealing with the Chefs weren't. They were pretty much a grumpy lot in the kitchen once they start to get really tied up with orders. One error in the order when keyed in at the POS system would almost immediately garner an instantaneous yell from the kitchen. I don't know if I should congratulate the store for installing such an efficient IT system, or feel bad for my colleague for his clumsy fingers. All the same, my ears began to stay alert for the ring of the bell when dishes were ready to be served. I would almost enthusiastically sprint to the kitchen to grab food. Firstly; to not hear more yells from the Chef. Secondly; to ease the workload of my already busy colleagues. Thirdly; to make myself look busy. And lastly; to make myself feel useful. The plates were often scalding hot though, and my poor fingers suffered much for an hour until my colleague told me to prep the plates up with tissue so it wouldn't feel THAT hot. Whatever the temperature though, the delighted faces of the customers when they were served their breakfast piping hot were priceless.

Taking orders was pretty much simple - for breakfast. There was only so much one person would order from the menu because of the large portions that the food came in. So I was pretty confident without a notepad and a pen, and I relied entirely on memory. Halfway through the day I started to fumble on my orders and started scribbling half the orders instead to ease the load on my brain. And my pen failed on me several times, which made me feel utterly paranoid. Especially during lunch when the menu was more crammed with food items and dishes were far more complicated and had lengthier names.

Jones the Grocer provided great service I guess. And much of it came from the pro-activeness of the employees themselves. Especially since they weren't told much about how much more they were supposed to do for each customer. I'm not saying that I provided great service - but I just thought my colleagues were often exceptionally nice to the customers around. Whether or not they were genuinely being nice I do not bother, I just see the effort put in and feel an absolute necessity to put in just the same amount of effort too, and more.

My first 8 hours at work passed real quick. And I loved the moments when it was really packed. The constant need to keep approaching new people kept me excited. Up-selling drinks was my favorite hobby for the day. And the customers usually bought the trick. It was also the first job that actually allowed me to receive tips. Initially I would happily dump it all into the tip jar for employees at the cashier. I'd feel real proud of that. I caught glimpses of my colleagues smiling at me when I did it too and smiled back, thinking that I did something good. But afterward I got to know that no one actually dropped their tips into the jar unless the customers dropped it in themselves, and tips were usually kept for themselves if the customers left it behind on the table. I felt dumb after that. And my colleagues were grateful for some time and regretted that they even told me about it.

Dogs were welcomed by the store. They had water trays prepared for any animal that dropped by for breakfast with their owners.

And that summed up my first day. Left out the rest that weren't exciting. But I wrote them elsewhere. I had a day off the next day, right after my first day at work. And I was expected to undergo proper training with my sup on Wednesday - so I'm kinda looking forward. I want to do better. Do great. Be the best there is. Not too ambitious I hope. But nonetheless exciting enough.

Jones jones, how much I'll love you in the months to come.

Hope floflo will cope fine in her new office! And may things turn out better in the days to come. As they alwayyyys say; you'll always see rainbows after the rain. May zhuangzhuang not be entangled in messy office politics too. And may she keep pace with the speed of her colleagues in the office to prepare materials in time for the big events approaching!
May all else be fine when byong hee's there. (:

Off to sleep. And to a great Wednesday to everyone.

Cheers!
Sent via BlackBerry from SingTel!