smoking more than doubles your risk of stroke.

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

may 25, 2009.

after farming, hospitality, and F&B industry, it’s funny i’m getting into hair and grooming industry now.

today, with nothing much better to do after work, i cut my own hair. haircut is damn expensive here it costs as much as buying an electric hair clipper. and so, i just bought one and did it myself. nothing fancy but a clean shave a la semi-kalbo, #2 to be precise. my roster for this week is morning shifts all days of the week save for friday, which is may dayoff. for friday, i’ll get myself to albany in northshore early in the morning to see a prospect IT job. it’s for an entry-level graduate position, and this would be my very first interview by an actualy EMPLOYER, so you couldn’t just imagine how i’m looking forward for it.

early at work while setting up the tables and chairs for opening the deli, my phone, which is neatly tucked in between my pants (trouser uniforms deliberately don’t have pockets) and waist, vibrates. normally i wait for the vibrate to stop as i know it’s just a message, but then it continued on signaling me it was a call. i rushed my way at the very end of the noodle bar, and hid in a corner where i answered the call. it was from a headhunter in wellington, and calling about a position, senior cobol programmer, which i applied for last week from seek. telling me he found a lot of things he needed in my CV (MicroFocus Cobol and AIX), i was more than pleased only to be told that he was still uncertain as the position is a senior role, and he has other applicants with like 20 or so years of experience. he told me that he will just keep my record, and maybe some other things will come up. ending the call, i was still happy that at least, despite the continuous recession, slow market, and indirect presence of discrimination, i’m still getting something.

and having said that, it occured to me that this is something i extremely hate. no offense meant, and with all due respect to other professionals who has been in the IT industry for ages, my stand is that how long you’ve been in service is absolutely not a reliable indicator of how good you are, well, at least in the office. people may have been working for 20 years but knows not even the most basic DOS command, and all he makes sure is that his seat remains comfy warm and his office desk messy. yes, i know these people exist, and i’m saying this merely to express how disappointing it is sometimes, and also to remind how narrow and stupid agents can be.

there is nothing more to say.

magical soup bowls.

may 22, 2009.

i’m getting used to working in the deli that i almost enjoy it. well, not that i immensely enjoy it. to say that would have meant having pleasure in cleaning up tables and stacking plates and noodle bowls, which i don’t imply to be a demeaning job, but i just have to be truthful that it’s not funny cleaning up after other people’s mess. it is also a fact that this job won’t bring me elsewhere. september comes, my visa will expire, and then i will have to leave this land of frodo. and so i said i enjoy the job because it proves to be a good source of money. working as a wait staff for 3 full weeks now, and as salary goes weekly down here, my bank of new zealand account is once again in healthy condition (with more than enough money for a ticket back home in any case!)

today, being friday, and tomorrow, my shift is at night. it’s not as depressing i suppose as i just live nearby and going home later in the morning will be quick, but after several days of dayshifts, i know it will be hard again for me. besides, i don’t feel quite well these days as i catch a cold or something. temperature dropped drastically it was 7C last night, and will continue to get lower as winter comes. as it’s weekend, work will be super busy later and tomorrow.

another thing that disappoints me working in the casino, apart from the bowls, is that i can not gamble anymore. well, i’m not a regular gambler, and i guess the most i lost in a single day in skycity’s casino is $15 (in fact, i’ve gambled only once hehe), but the fantasy of winning and taking home millions of dollars is forever lost while i’m with the company. we are not even allowed to touch any of the machines, so the most interaction i have with them are a few glimpses, and getting closer to them while putting empty bottles and wine glasses, which usually are marked by lipstick, in shelves.

my last post ended with things i do to quicken the time, and to lessen the boredom at work. one of the easiest and entertaining (as well) thing to do is to people-watch. i share a common feeling with my sister, which is a deep unexplicable sadness towards people eating. it’s hard to share the idea, but have you ever thought that the sight of people eating is so sorrowful? it shows how every single individual, no matter how rich or poor, or whatever his stance in the society is, would end up with a grumbling stomach. once in a while. for survival.

and so one day at work, i focused on diner’s mouth. each and every mouth opening wide to allow a spoonful or forked piece of meat. there’s an Ah-shaped (whatta adjective! say, “Ah”, so you would better visualize what i’m saying mi amigo) mouth, chewing jaws, and occasional mumbles. people of all nations and colors, seating comfortably, opening their mouths in unison, eating, devouring, entangling noodles, and chewing stringy meat. some sucking soup. some sucking drinking straws. some having trouble with chopsticks. some having trouble with a thread of beef stuck in between his molars. a premolar, and a molar. it’s strange looking at mouth after mouth and how they consume things in each and their own earnest way to their belly’s desire.

all of a sudden, it’s so annoying that i swear there must have been magic. everyone eating simultaneously finish like they have been commanded leaving behind disordered chairs. half-full soup bowls. stained plates. dirty napkins. used toothpicks, plastic cups and straws. and then it was time for work.

jeremy is now staying in a flat in the city, and disconnected.

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

may 15, 2009.

it has been a few days since last posting, i apologize for delay, but i’m sure none of you minded.

for more than 4 months of being addressless, i am now staying in a flat at hobson st., auckland city 1010. waiting for the shuttlebus for 40 eye-groggy minutes at 4am every f&cking end of work day is horrendous that i moved in the city as soon as possible. searching at trademe the first and cheapest rent in the city centre, without checking much and ignoring all the fussiness, and so, missing out internet connection. i got my own room now, which i could say is rougly the same size as my room back home or even smaller. it’s a small, gray, neat, sub 10 squaremeters enclosure with a no-lock sliding door. almost windowless, apart from a small framed opening, where i hang my towel anyway for the purpose of both drying the thing, and keeping the light out.

the bed is not the most comfortable bed there is, as despite being quite new, it’s hard. there are 2 thin pillows that come by, one is black and the other is white. and as it’s getting colder and colder, the duvet proved to be more than useful for not having any kind of heating except from hot water at the tap, which we even have to pay for as a seperate service. i’m paying $100 a week, plus the power and water heating which comes monthly. i share this 3-bedroom flat with 2 argentinians, who with just about more than a million possible names in the world, happen to share the namesake Nico. they are on working holiday, and will be moving out by mid-june, so my stay here is really not for too long, or if i could find other people to replace them, and renew the contract.

today is my restday from work, a day break after 4 consecutive dayshifts of hard labor starting last monday. i will have to work again tomorrow morning, and my roster for next week is work on monday, wednesday, thursday, friday, and saturday. 2 of which are nightshifts again. my first 2 weeks at work were all nightshift from 7.30 in the evening til 4 in the morning, and during those time i literally lived in the dark. i finish work and walk a 3-minute distance to the flat at a sunless hour. sleeping all day until around 6ish in the evening to get ready for work, when at that time, the sun has just finished its performance. so at the beginning of this week seeing the light again was both exhilirating and uneasy. bright lights seem to chase in a championship race that ends in the middle of my iris. i could almost see the light rays on the reflection it made in passing cars, roofs, and billboards, it was painful. it’s really funny how a person takes things for granted. i am used to the daylight, so i lived my life contemptously knowing it will be there every single day i wake up and open my eyes. but things are different, and you only fully realize them just when they get you.

the work as a waitstaff is getting better and worse. they rotate the assignments around that i had 3 shifts of food serving, and the rest is just working at the tables and the enormous filthy plates and soup bowls. maybe i’ll know the cashier job in a few weeks, or probably floater (no, this is not a job that involves levitation as it sounds) whose responsible for ordering food back in the kitchen. working during the daytime is a lot better for me, as first, i’m not really ready and prepared to become a vampire. i feel sick working graveyard shifts, and i just spend the rest of my day in bed, which with the current condition i am in right now, is not a very wise thing to do. second, it is less busy during the day, and that means less work, less garbage, less messy plates and disgusting bowls, but more boring idle time. and so in order to kill time, and i know people who work in graveyard time knows about this, the number one rule is to never look at the clock. oddly for a casino, skycity’s casino proudly presents the current time of the day to its patrons. in the area of my work, i have a glance of an analogue wall clock (i never wear a watch these days), and at the main gaming area are 2 digital time display boastfully in red led. do not, in any case despite the strong urge, look at the time. well, you could, of course, to check for your break, but do not look too often. the theory here, which is an inverse relationship, is that the more you look at the time, the slower it goes. this is plausibly true, trust me.

therefore, in a desperate but effective way to kill time, i’ve naturally developed an extra-sensitive sense of observation in my working environment. first, the deli tables are divided into 2 main sections: the noodle bar section, where they eat noodles; and the deli bar section, where they eat deli (aka crossbreed food of fastfood and restaurant). normally, one table waitstaff works on each side, 2 staff each during busy hours. the seats and tables are ingeniously color-coded to green for the deli section, and red for the noodle bar. counting the chairs, there are 77 red-colored seats, which can be summarized as follows:

- 5 x tables seats for 2 person, giving 10 seats
- 8 x tables seats for 4 person, giving 32 seats
- 2 single-sided long bar with 8 high chairs, giving 16 seats
- a double-sided long bar with a total of 18 high chairs on both sides
- a lonely table seating a person.

the stats on the green side (deli), which totals to 70 chairs, is below:

- 9 x tables seats for 4 person, giving 36 seats
- a single-sided long bar with 7 high chair seats
- another single-sided long bar with 9 high chair seats
- a double-sided long bar with a total of 18 high chairs on both sides

from time to time, i keep on checking if any of the chairs went missing, or has been disturbed by some stupid customers who rearranged the tables and seats to fit them, and then leave the premises without putting them back as before.

it is not for certain if the recession or the excessive sight of crappy noodles is driving jeremy mad.

the tray etiquette

Monday, May 4th, 2009

hello there my dear friend, and so i’m here once again to tell something about my ongoing quest for life, adventure, and whatnot.

starting with the latest, which is of course my new and exciting job. i survived 3 nights of my new work, which is as a wait staff/hand help in skycity’s casino. i have to admit it has been quite a struggle. the work is tiring, plus doing in at an hour when i’m used to do nothing but sleep, it was a nightmare. i don’t have work for tonight, monday, and my roster for this week is from tuesday through saturday, giving me 5 succeeding nights of labor.

what else it is most relevant to do on labor day (a misnomer) than work? so last may 1 was a 2nd working night for me. it was friday, and this day and saturday are the most busiest days in casino. what i actually do at work is very simple, yet systematic. i just have to clean up the tables in a foodcourt style section of deli bar. for more than 4 years of my career, the only table i need to work with are database tables. now, it was both entertaining and devastating to be working with real life tables. it is devastating because physical tables could be pretty messy. do not get me wrong, i don’t easily feel uncomfortable with grossy things. in fact, i have a very strong stomach, so mighty that i could take the most disgusting, nasty, sticky-greeniest(w/ a hint of yellow)-thicky-phlegm topic while dining, and just laugh it out. but the case at hand is different..

for my first 2 nights at work, i was stationed at the deli noodle bar, and just a quick glance at the dining area, you will know what i mean. my oh my these people eat so greedily, and hastily perhaps to get back to the game, that their food is scattered everywhere in the tray, on the table, and on the floor. small pieces of bones, which i bet freshly spit from their mouths, are lying on the trays. sometimes, it even has a bedding of napkin, which is a bit decent, but just as nasty as well. the bones are accompanied by rivulets of soup with traces of chili and stale noodles. used chopsticks are disarrayed, toothpicks with the small tiniest chunk of meat clinging on, plethora of crumpled napkin. i have to deal with all of these things, plus more. it is not bad, i’m not complaining. it would be a complete madness if i expect to be a supervisor on day 1, with nothing much to do but walk and boss around…and so, that is basically what it is for my first ever job in food and beverage industry.

my training night at the french resto was far from casino work. merlot and pinor noir are nonsense jargons. there is no complicated machine as the wine opener, but french resto hasn’t called yet. plus, i’m not sure if my body can handle working full double shifts in a day…so i’m resting that case. this morning, i got a call from greenpeace, which i applied weeks ago. it’s too bad i got the casino job first because, well, it is more money working for greenpeace. second, there is no greeny phlegm in the greenpeace despite the color adjective in its name. and third, there is no greeny phlegm in the greenpeace despite the color adjective in its name. hehe. i will just have to talk to random people about our environment, and how we could, in our own small ways, have a share in making our planet a better habitat. in other words, it is becoming an advocate of environment. sounds good eh?

working with the tables and trays, i now realize how hard it must be for cleaners and staff at foodcourts, and fastfoods back home. it is not the most clean profession in the world, and with the swine flu getting at large, please be considerate by not spitting on the tray, nor deliberately spread and spill your soup in the tray in a desperate attempt to make a miniature swimming pool. have the right table conduct, and behave mature enough. the plate is spacious enough to put your small bones and any unwanted food.

cleanliness is next to godliness.