Since my last post, I have yet to mention anything about my work here.
As such, I shall post a pictureless blog entry about my work today!
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WORK FLOW
I honestly like the flow of work here. If I could speak German really fluently, working here for six months will totally be a breeze. Even the menu is not that difficult. Just that the guests tend to order from the ala carte menu without referring to the menu, making me feel so lost. Everyday the restaurant serves a different set menu. Otherwise, most of the guests will order from the Grill list. Its that simple.
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Setting up is easy too. Only when it rains does it get crazy, but fun. haha. The moment we see the sky turn dark, we start bringing in all the cutleries and menus from the tables and the cushions from the lounge area. In fact, I LOVE IT WHEN IT RAINS. Got more work which requires no conversation to do. hee hee.
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COLLEAGUES
By using the word 'colleagues' here, I do not mean simply the service staff. It includes the chefs, cleaners and etc.
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The first two days were really horrible to me, because I do not speak their language and I do not know them at all. AND, I was feeling totally ridiculous being the only ASIAN girl there (so out of place). No one was talking to me, everyone looked really fierce and especially pissed when I am not able to understand guests and thus require their help.
On the second day I even had to sit with the cleaners because the service staff table was full. I really felt utterly miserable then.
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However, I soon came to realise that the reason why they all carry such a stern face around me was because most of them had no idea how to communicate with me! When I started to attempt to converse with them in my atrociously broken German, they then opened up and tried to talk and joke around with me (though most of the times we conversed purely in hand signals and making random guesses).
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Even the cleaners (who are generally Indians and Pakistanis) started to open up when I attempted to converse with them. As a matter of fact, I can converse better with the cleaners than the other staffs, because they speak better English than most of the others. hahaha. Like today, I sat with the cleaners for lunch, again because the staff table was full. Instead of feeling sad and miserable for myself, I attempted to create a conversation with them as I heard them speaking in a familiar language! No, not English. Hindi!! Not that I understand Hindi but the guys in school used to converse in Hindi too!
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To be honest, I felt quite comfortable just sitting with them and listening to them speak in Hindi.
It reminded me of how Fat Ninja, Parim, Raghav, Danny and Kavan were always blabbering in Hindi when we were in school.
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One of the cleaners was so funny too, Out of pure friendliness, I asked him what time does he end his work, then he gave me this cheeky face and asked me:
"Why?"
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Hahahaha. Totally tickled me to think that he thought I wanted to ask him out.
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WORK TIMING
Another nice thing about working here is, if there are very few customers left, only those who are in charge of those occupied tables will have to stay because the billing will be to their name. And since I, being the newest and lousiest in german, naturally will not have any tables opened under my name.
Therefore, I GET TO END WORK EARLY!!
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I have been allowed to end work at around 10pm, to a quarter pass 10pm these 2 days. And mind you, my schedule states that I have to work till 1130pm. So happy!
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TIPS
One more very nice thing. Everyone with open tables obviously will get tips. In Switzerland, nearly ALL guests tips. And yes, I obviously again, will not be able to receive any tips.
But... there are a couple of my colleagues (who knows that I do not get tips but have helped them in their station) who will share with me a tiny fraction of their tip money!
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All in all, work is going about fine I guess.
If you are curious enough to want to see how the restaurant looks like, here's the website:
http://www.albisguetli.ch
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For me now, other than looking forward to my off days and Fat Ninja's off days, I am just looking forward to...
PAYDAY!!
5:43 AM
