“Cheryl, the people on 36, they don’t speak english. only Spanish. Have fun!” Chewie walked off with a glint of cheekiness in his eyes, while i turned to that particular table and groan.

It’s not the first time they have chucked people into my section who can’t speak a hint of anything i know. i had people groups of people who spoke only german, spanish, french, even italian. Granted, i studied german before. these people not only speak fluent german, they speak it at the speed of bullet trains, making it terribly hard to work out some words as well. i can only constantly remind them, “Mein Deutsche nicht so gut.”

“chewie, you just love to add an element of difficulty in my job, don’t you?”

“ahahaha”

i walked slowly over, contemplating how to introduce the menu and face any questions they might have. pointing things out pictorially is a good option, but there’s not many pictures to point out if they choose something that’s not on the steaks menu.

“do you… er… talk espanol???”

“nopes. sorry” slight awkward smile there as i put down my own menu and sat myself down with them. this is going to be a long one.

“it’s ok it’s ok! i can speak english, i will just order for everyone!” the gentleman to my right smiled as i face them again with a quizzical look, since half of them were chattering away in spanish, as if angered by something.

“oh… wow thanks ^_^”

That eased my path just a little.

This family of people however, have plenty of health concerns, or perhaps just a dietary preferences. by the time i was through with ordering for them, a good hour has passed, complete with a whole docket full of bright pink “see server!”, and handwritten instructions on what to have on each meal: no fried anything in this salad, steak must be rare beyond understanding, vegies must be boiled, no potatoes, sauces on the side….

I didn’t know if i had done well, and i was worried they had be upset. i might have seemed bored at certain junctures, but then again they were in huge argumentative sounding discussions about the food they want, and trying to keep up with a language i can’t understand beyond “si!!! si!!!” made me start daydreaming of Pablo (some comedian Jake introduced to me), and then i started playing the little train tune that pablo hums in his stand up comedy…. complete with the silly sounding “si!”

obviously, the day dreaming got worse. Pablo always talk about how the mexicanos in a restaurant might hump girls from the back complete with those crazy hummings… so i started thinking, along with the graphical image of them doing it (the humping i mean), what if my customers hum that shet song???

*ahem*

Checking on them with their food, they LOVED it. and i was settled for the night and proceeded on with the other tables.

At the end of the night, i had a couple of surprises. The spaniards wants to come back the next afternoon for lunch, because they LOVED the food and the service. however, a table that i DID NOT serve at all, like seriously far removed from being attended by me at all, actually gave me a compliment in the comments card. “Cheryl is an utterly wonderful waitress! we love her!!”

awwww

but where the hell did that come from? i didn’t even looked at them at all *confused*

oh wells. whatever.

now, if only i can just write my essays base on just my personal experience alone, i think i will ace my communications courses. dammit.

technorati tags: waitressing, intercultural, communication, languages, work, personal, blog, service

sorry for the lack of updates. there isn’t much to report anyways, other than the usual job bitchings, and the fact that i am still working on a huge pile of essays. i have decided that sundays should be time to enjoy, aside from churchings, and therefore tried to get out as much as possible on sundays.

which of course got me stranded last sunday at the mall since the bus services stopped.

and the weather had started turning cold.

At any rate, work today proves to be a break from the pile of work. to be honest, i was going to call in sick so i could finish my essay. it was getting down on me, and i wanted to just throw things at the monitor. to make things worse, my net entirely died today. nothing could resucsitate it till now, for some odd reason. because we actually hit our cap, the net was terribly unstable the whole day, and just…

poof.

but finally, i decided to call it quits. mysteriously, the fact that my net died made me terribly agitated. i couldn’t concentrate on my essay, clicking on the stupid repair network button every few seconds to ensure it’s not trying to live, and it wasn’t me who was suppressing it’s activity.

so i walked out and walk off right to work.

Aly was working tonight, one of the rare chances i see her now at work since our timetables clash. lizzy, who mysteriously disappeared over the busy weekend nights, finally reappeared with another… mysterious story. to be honest, her stories in such a climate, isn’t very far fetch. but a combination of all these far fetch stories is finally getting to me. i am tired of it, seriously. when ever she does not turn up for work, even if it’s an off chance, she has a GREAT excuse that is, more often than not, believable here, but not easily proven.

a few months ago, she claimed she couldn’t turned up for work coz her boyfriend abused her, and she got into trouble with him because of their working hours.

then it was coz she hit her head with the shower head and passed out.

then it was because she lost her wallet and phone the night before in a bar, and had no clue where or how to get to work.

now she claims that she got her drinks heavily spiked while out at a bar, and was knocked out for 2 days, re appeared in a place she didn’t know where, didn’t really see anyone, didn’t know what happened, nothing. on the one hand, i was worried. does she knew any possibilities from that night? police? anything?

on the other hand though, this is like the 4th or 5th time where she had mysterious long periods of disappearance and reappearance with a sob story.

with her disappearance, there’s always a strain on the existing staff. admittedly, i should be more worried than bitching about her. considering the amount of “plausible” excuses though, i am suddenly… immuned to it. i didn’t feel anything, other than ask her the usual “omg, wth” reaction was all i could muster. the weekend past was not only long, tiring, tedious, but filled with the usual jerks that comes with every service industry, except they are the ones you serve, not you abuse.

so when i walked out of the restaurant tonight, i had absoutlutely no feelings towards her “predicament” she had “endured” because i just don’t know anymore. i have been reading about spiked drinks in australia. they are common, and people are trying to fight them. but, like the usual skeptics, how am i to know someone is not using those “stories” as an attention seeking method? 

then again, i don’t really have to care. i ain’t the management you know.

with all those thoughts in my mind, i didn’t have the time to worry about my assignment till work ended. i must say, that was a good break. now,

back to work. 

technorati tags: work, lies, waitressing, excuses, mia

well, been rushing for my assignment the last few days. i have handed up a good piece of work, according to my tutor. i still view it as bs. mainly because half the things i chucked in were full of stuff i had theorised before but never put on paper because *gasp* i didn’t realised people actually study into those topics.

or perhaps i did, and just pretended i didn’t.

what ever.

funnily, how the papers i felt were utter bullshit always turned out to be the best papers i have ever produced, and those that i felt were the best written ones were utterly choked down the sewage by the lecturers. seriously people, what’s wrong with this?!?! 

anyways, i have slowly calculated something. because i am mainly cooking for myself, the cost of actually cooking for myself + everything else is actually more than if i buy those 5 bux lunch everyday and just eat that.

yer i am serious.

since now i have barely any time to cook or eat, i generally only eat 1 meal a day. even after proportioning the stuff out, i have enough to suffice about 14 days. in that same time, i can get meals between 3-5 bux (slovvy found something 3 bux in dickson) and actually save more than if i cook for myself since all these spices do add up and so on. i can do a trial run for a couple of weeks to show the differences, but i think it’s just sad lol.

hate cooking for myself.

if that’s the case, i might just start asking slovvy to help me buy lunch to school, so i don’t have to up and go to dickson or civic or anywhere else to find reasonably priced lunchbox. the only drawback behind this is if i am late or something, and since most of my classes run back to back, by the time i can actually eat my meals, they are probably best saved for scraps really. all slobbery and shit. oh wells, tough shit. i need $ more than i need food. besides, food back home is always better.

unless… just mysteriously thinking… what if i do those instant mee gorengs for this entire year? 45cts a pack (or less) oooooooooooooo 

still got some bits to go on my essay then i need to switch to group work mode to start on some basic research for group work. i hate group work, always had. but now, there’s a class where i dont know anyone, and i am grouped with some strange people. one insist he doesn’t have internet, but mysteriously “goes to school” for net at 11pm, at night. the other, while we were supposed to do group work in class, she sits in her corner and digs into her fingernails.

both seems pissed at me for the inactivity in the group. excuse me, but i think i am the only one with the internet, and the ability to realise that group work equates LET’S SIT IN OUR GROUPS AND NOT ON OUR OWN. kkthxbye. so while i did sit with the remaining 3 in our little group corner, the other 2 fucked off into their own world. one pissed with me even more when we discussed about the group work.

what a tool.

i might post up a final version of my internet media bs essay when i am done, just so everyone can have a wonderful view of what utter bullshit i wrote. no, i am not undermining the intelligence of my tutors and lecturers. i just REALLY can’t see where’s the good in those papers. the first one’s been marked, and no longer relevant, but this upcoming one, due tomorrow afternoon (no i didn’t do last minute research, she wants me to rearrange it abit for some posting exercise) is some what…..

i will say this again: i still think it was some bullshit that i threw together. i always do that when i am hardpressed for time, and research. in this situation though, where i am studying now, they demand a draft every few weeks. this particular course even dragged out the report/essay into 3 parts, so this is part 1. they are reviewed and then corrected and then you just put all the corrected portions together as a final essay.

in my opinion, with such a WIDE scope to research from, with a topic that is likely to interest people like me, it’s really hard to maintain the 500 word limit, in the sense that we are likely to go way beyond the word limit, and abit. with the time frame though, it’s impossible to produce quality work WITHIN that word limit to COVER all the pillars of discusssions that we may want to inject within the report.

thus i feel this entire essay i produced was bullshit, albeit skimming the surface of my interest.

ah. self explanations. you will see, you will see.

oh, btw, i have shit all grammar knowledge. so ignore any grammatical errors on the report. :D 

technorati tags: homework, school, random, blog, assignments, papers, groupwork, woes, communications, essays