Oasis Haven
an oasis.. a haven

This is nothing compared to NS.

By Anonymous
Had recovered from Tuesday's cold by yesterday morning after a night's sleep and panadol for cold. Felt perfectly fine during work, or even better. However, the journey home yesterday night probably triggered it again and woke up this morn near 9 feeling ill and fatigued all over again. Sms-ed William to MC myself today in order to recover for tomorrow's 130-people buffet, better to MC today than tomorrow. Spent the whole day playing dota until I felt sleepy and took a nap, although I'd be unable to sleep until a later time. 

I remember the reasons why I chose to work instead of to slack at home. It's cuz I'd just be gaming all day anyway if I don't.. and cuz this kinda work is really nothing compared to NS, although I don't think I'd be doing anything strenuous due to my condition. But if things do go the other way and I faint/go into a coma/even die, please sue the medical officers for not taking me seriously, especially when KK hospital and National Heart Centre have my records.

Smokers and alcohol drinkers.. I don't understand them. Why would you pay for something to destroy yourself? Are cigarettes and alcohol really enjoyable? Some people have their reasons such as to entertain people. Others simply can't quit cuz their resolve isn't strong enough. Most took it up out of curiosity or due to peer pressure. I myself will only smoke and/or drink if I know I'm about to die already, so if you see me doing either, you know what's going on. Don't worry, my resolve is strong enough. 
 


Now I know why it hurt so much.

By Anonymous
Listening to: The Veronicas, Untouched
Genre: Electro pop

My head hurts like a migraine now, probably cuz it was a long and hot day at work.. and cuz I'm emo-ing now. Either I write this post to express myself or I'll probably get so stressed that I'll move the dong fong to a position directly downstairs the kitchen window and jump down.

Prologue: 2 May 2008's post. I came up with this phrase earlier, "now I know why it hurt so much". From the moment I started learning how to drive I anticipated that I would either have nothing to drive until I get one myself or my dad would buy a second-hand/new low-end car. I least expected that he would choose this dong fong. Other people would say that I should be happy I have something to drive as long as it gets me from point A to B. I keep telling myself to accept it.. but the truth is I can never forgive my dad for the decision he made. It was selfish, stubborn and inconsiderate, like he has always been and still is.

Recently I have been having more issues with my heart. I've never written about my condition before cuz the last thing I want is sympathy or attention, but at this moment in time I don't really care. Last Fri at work I inhaled more smoke than usual as I was serving the smoking area often and had difficulty breathing after that. I excused myself from doing service by going to wash the glasses. It only got better near evening after the meal break but as I was walking back up I felt that my heartbeat was extremely fast. Then I counted my heartbeats per minute a few times and it was 90-100 beats per minute even after I sat down. And last night as soon as I lied down my lower chest felt strained. I sat up for a few minutes before it went away and headed to sleep.

I've brought forward my medical appointment with National Heart Centre to mid Nov, but I have to book the NS check-up in mid Oct and then poly's NAPFA is in Nov.. shall decide what to do again after this week's 5 consecutive days of work.

Prologue: 1 Aug 2008's post. I don't care what reasons my parents had when they chose to distance themselves from ALL relatives, cuz like I said, now I don't even know how many cousins I have, least to say who they or the rest are. Last time I was talking to Liang Yong (the dessert chef) about how we don't know how to appreciate things until they're gone, relating that statement to my situation with my family. In fact the conversations I have with them nowadays  only include whether them asking whether I've eaten and whether I'm working the next day. It has gotten to the extent whereby they don't ask me how was work cuz I can't be bothered telling them about it anyway and would just give a short reply.

Ironic, the same stress I'm going through now could cause my condition to deteriorate.
 


The first thing I say every morning.. "thanks".

By Anonymous
I realise I haven't posted for 6 days, probably cuz days have been ordinary.

If I'm at work, it's the same routine. If I'm at home, it's usually dota, browsing around or listening to music.

Some notable things though:
- Thurs noon, John was on MC and we were expecting 120 customers for the buffet. With all the other staff reluctant to be food runner, I went to do it instead. Fortunately the head chef of Laguna National was around to help me garnish and prepare condiments for the food, otherwise I'd have gotten (for lack of a better word) f-ed cuz there were a lot of alacard customers too.

- Wed night, me and John had brought down 72 cooler boxes and filled them up with 2 100+ and 2 aqua mineral water each. On Thurs night it was me (again) and Hadi who brought them up.

- Thurs night, I drove Hadi to Tanah Merah MRT, I had previously decided not to drive any colleague cuz I'd have to drive the others as well but since he was so nice when we were collecting cooler boxes..

- Wed night after work, JC came to pick me up and we drove to the airport to send Ada off to London. I talked to her aunt who used to be a cardiologist and after explaining my condition she recommended me to see a specialist as soon as possible. Then after we chatted a while more we headed down from Popeye's and she went in.
 


An expensive day.

By Anonymous
Reached City Hall MRT at 11.50am and Ada was already there. We walked around first while waiting for JC and she bought Danish bread. After JC arrived at 11.15 we decided to eat in Din Tai Fung. In addition to xiao long bao and some sort of prawn fish cake, each of us had a bowl of soup noodles.

We chatted about our times back in Summerhouse, Pan Pacific. Black jackets - June, April, Jude, Frankie, Janice, Rathi and Daevid. Room service - Michelle. Other regular staff - Asai, Nicholette, Adnan, Sarah, Zhu Hui, big Ahmad, small Ahmad, Cheryl, Mia, Fadilah, Chen Wei, Firdauz, Luke, Mun Hou, Teng Siang, Thanesh. Chefs - Wei Ming and Ronnie. The list goes on, just a recollection off my head.

After receiving glares from the waiting crowd and waiters (as we had finished the food but still sat around), we went to settle the bill which came up to $55+. I thought the food was ordinary so I don't think I'd go there to eat again.

Next we went to Chanele for dessert and each of us ordered an ice cream. Although they were $8 each they were indeed "high-quality" ice cream. We continued chatting about stuff like whether Ada will stay in SG after she graduates, what kinda guys she likes, why I'm still single, mine and JC's condition etc.

Afterwards we went to Marina Sq for Ada to do some shopping, she bought two tops and a skirt from Mango and Zarra respectively. It was a bit awkward for me and JC to follow her into the women's apparel shops, other than the fact that it seemed like she had two boyfriends or we were her bodyguards.

We went to meet up with her 'dai gor' who is also working in Pan Pac and after passing the bags over both of us went into Pan Pac for a walk. We saw Michelle at the bakery and Zhu Hui at poolside, then we went up to the 22nd executive floor as JC wanted to visit his ex-colleagues. The view there was good, we could see clear skies, the construction of the IR, the dam itself and the CBD buildings.
 


Once again I realise how judgemental and cruel this world can be.

By Anonymous
*written between 4.15 and 4.30 before meal was ready*

Everyone's in a bad mood today, probably cuz of the new part-timers. As they don't know much, all they do is clear plates, give menus, serve ice water and give cold towels. Any order taking and cutlery setting etc. are still left to the seniors.

Then again I hope it's not cuz of the mistakes which I have made, whether I realised them after or not. I have indeed been making more mistakes than usual - forgetting to set the cutlery after taking orders, forgetting garnishes for stall dishes etc.

In addition, some intentional actions such as not helping in stations when they can manage and having a neutral stern face instead of mild smiling face may have caused a negative impression.

Just like how Summerhouse became an unpleasant place to work in, this is becoming one too.

It might become a situation whereby seniors who are friendly with each other talk about staff whom they dislike as they did something wrong or did not do something.

Yesterday, I asked Bernard to let me work on days which I'm on off, now I don't wanna work instead.

After break time I talked to Bernard about my thoughts and he enlightened me with this statement "you may be my colleagues, but you may not be my friends". He also said that it's more important for one to focus on his own work, instead of taking what others say or do seriously.

Once again I realise how judgemental and cruel this world can be.
 


I walk alone this lonely road.

By Anonymous
Tues, 2 Sep 2008

Can't remember much about work two days ago as I didn't blog it, shall not bother to go and remember either. However at 4pm+ while the rest were having their break, Hadi asked me to do something crazy. He wanted me to pretend to be his manager and call up his friend A, in order to get friend B's number. So my script was this, Hadi had not went to work for 4 days, was uncontactable, I would just say I had my ways in getting friend A's number and through our casual conversations I learnt about friend A and B. 

The person who answered the call said that friend A was not around, so I gave him the restaurant's number as per Hadi's instructions. Friend A then called back at 7pm+ and said that she could not give me friend B's number. By the end of the night Hadi had received over 4 calls from the concerned friend A.

Wed, 3 Sep 2008

Short outing with she-who-shall-not-be-named. Ni zhi dao wo zhi dao jiu hao le, bu yao xie le. (Kinda tired from work.)

After getting home I spent the rest of the day playing dota, it was fun.

Thurs, 4 Sep 2008

There were two new staff (C and D), they had worked before but I was off on that day so I didn't see them. C was taught things to do as a bartender by Swee Kean like blending of fruit juices, dispensing beer and other bartender procedures while D was up the stairs guiding customers in. Heard that C's from Malaysia and D's from Mongolia.

I myself was stall runner (serve chicken rice, prawn mee, wanton noodle and laksa) and it was of course manageable, nothing special happened except that I kept forgetting garnishes like laksa leaves for laksa and "cong1" for wanton soup. When I was refilling the black soya sauce + chilli sauce + ginger (as I was free), Bernard told me to help out in the stations instead as there were still a few left. Indeed my thinking at that point in time was to slack a bit as the others could handle it.

Then one of the worst things which can happen happened, Michelle asked me to go downstairs to take stock with her and she said it would take 3 full big trolleys. The 1st trolley containing 20 boxes of aqua mineral water bottles (24 in a box) and 15 boxes of 100+ (24 in a box) was so heavy that I could barely push it, in addition the wheels made it slant to the left. When I did make it from the storeroom to the lift, I left the trolley there and went upstairs to ask John to help me. We unloaded the 100+ so that the lift wouldn't give the overloaded sound (as the weight would be centralised). Once upstairs Liang Yong was kind enough to help me carry it up the stupid step (where the doors separate restaurant and kitchen) upon seeing that I was semi-exhausted.

After unloading the 1st trolley Michelle arrived with the 2nd one containing 9 barrels of Carlsberg and the 100+ and she pushed the 1st one back downstairs while I did the unloading again. When I was done with the 2nd I went downstairs to pick up the 3rd and final one with her, which had miscellaneous items like bottles of tomato sauce, chilli sauce and fruit juices. 

I was exhausted at the end and hoped to recover quickly in order to survive the night. Before the break I talked to Violet (a cashier( about Peter C's complain last Sat as I felt guilty and explained that I was the one who "made" the 2nd wrong order, it's a long story. She seemed okay about it and then I explained to her about the education system in Singapore. 

Anyway during the much needed break, I was disappointed to see that the fries and fish cutlets we ate earlier during lunch (before I started work) had been changed to cabbage, another vege which I don't know the name of and normal fish. I only ate rice with curry to fill my stomach.

Back upstairs staff for Fuurin Japanese restaurant were walking in and I noticed a new girl (very chio). I asked John who she was and he said that she had worked there before on buffet nights (Wed and Thurs) and exaggerated that he wanted to marry her. Later on she came out of Fuurin to serve plain udon (made in Fuurin) to a customer seated in Lakes Cafe and she approached me and John without warning. I instinctly stepped backwards and bumped into John who was behind, she said that the customer wanted more chilli sauce before heading back into Fuurin. Me and John were laughing that I had bumped into him and he didn't avoid me, as we were too focused on her. Then again right now I have no idea how she looks like, it all happened within seconds. Throughout the night I stole far glances at her while being kept busy by the dinner crowd.

For the night, new staff C (dunno her name) was to be bartender and Haley (D) to be beverage runner. John and Hadi laughed at how Haley had given the smaller thinner straw for chin chow instead of the bigger more suitable one. Fact was that I told her what glasses to use for chin chow but forgot to tell her about the straw and thus she made the mistake, sorry Haley. We were all newbies once, hope she didn't take it too seriously, just like how Debbie and I laughed the same incident off.

Near 9pm Hadi and Pauline were missing most of the time and I had to do a lot for station C and A. I did leave station B to them as the family of one of the country club's top executive (if not top) Peter Kwee was having dinner and we could afford no mistakes. 

What a day full of mistakes, shall try to be more alert and awake tomorrow. (Hope that that girl will be working again, although highly unlikely.)
 


Rest, in preparation for more work.

By Anonymous
Yesterday night I slept at 3am+ as I was playing dota. Hadn't played for a while as for the past 2 weeks after I got home I either studied for exams or blogged. Dota isn't just a game, I've learnt some things from it too - such as to be more patient (as much as leavers, noobs or irritating people have pissed me off) and to accept things the way they are. Just like how I used to play neopets, battlefield, runescape, maple, aruarose and cabal, dota is just another way for me to de-stress and in a sense, escape from reality.

When I woke up thanks to the 20+ planes which could be heard flying past to the RSAF show, I pretty much spent the whole day dota-ing until JC called to say he'd be going to Comex at 7pm. I did reach there on time and as expected he was late by 20 mins, but he was taking a bus to Suntec after all and traffic jams were no surprise. It was crowded like no tomorrow and after finding his dad and girlfriend at 4th floor Samsung and 2nd floor respectively, we went up to look at cams. As he was deciding I went up to 6th floor to visit Creative, talked to Sharon and found out that the other guy whom I talked to was Raymond Tew. Their Gigaworks T40 had been sold out already and there was even a person who bought the Inspire/I-trigue display set. She also mentioned that the external soundcard X-Fi Go was selling well.

After walking around I went back to find them and JC was checking the camera contents. He bought a Samsung cam at $199 and a printer at $179. The cam itself was bundled with mini-tripod, extra battery, charger, extra memory card and usb adapter, deals which you can only find at IT show/PC show/Comex. Many booths were slashing prices to clear stock, eg. a Samsung cam went from 599 to 499.

After JC's dad collected the extended warranty we went to the 6th floor again as they wanted to look at WII games, dragging the printer through the crowd. They didn't buy anything so we went back downstairs to collect a free wireless headphone bundled with the printer. The headphone makes use of 4 AAA batteries.. which smart person came up with this design?

JC's dad left by bus and he and his girlfriend went upstairs to grab a bite. Fortunately majority of CityLink's crowd was going towards the MRT instead of Suntec as compared to earlier when I went and I reached the MRT quickly. Fortunately (again), the North-South line train didn't come else the East-West line I was taking would've been packed.

Reaching home, I talked with my maple mei about her work attachment the next day before dota-ing. Then I went to shower and headed to sleep, near 3am again.