My Third Job

Working as a promoter was great fun but the only slack was the travelling bit. Catching a bus from Shah Alam to KL is a pain in the ass. If I miss the 7:30am bus, there is no chance in hell I would make it to KLCC on time.

The buses are truly crappy and never on time. The driver can spend 35mins waiting for passengers and refuse to drive until it’s filled up. Same thing with going back. My shift finishes at 10:00 pm and I had to rush to the bus station to catch another crappy bus back to Shah Alam. On good days, I manage to reach Shah Alam by 11:30pm. On bad days (or should I say MOST days), I had to use the hole at one of the gate because it’s over curfew time.

The pay was good, and makes all the travelling sufferings worth-it but I could only do it during weekends. Weekdays go to classes lah.

When I was in my 4th semester, my timetable was very interesting. All of my classes are in the morning and finishes around 2-3pm. So, I had so much of free time, everyday!

I thought it would be a good idea for me to find a part time job in Shah Alam. And the most common (and obvious) part time job for students are at the fast-food restaurants. So, I went to McDonalds & KFC. They asked me to fill up a form and said they’ll be in touch with me if they need me.

The call never came so I had to expand my search. And then I saw an advertisement at Marrybrown. They were hiring and I went for an interview.

Image taken from here

At that point of time, I was trying to grow my hair so it was pretty long. The manager asked me if I am willing to cut my hair.

I said no.

She look straight to my face and said “Can you tie your hair and hide it under a cap?”

I said yes.

“You can start tomorrow”.

I thought she was pretty cool for letting me work despite my long hair. So, the very next day, I wore a Marrybrown uniform, tie my hair nicely and went to the restaurant. I was assigned to handle the counter.

I had no experience handling the cash register but pressing few buttons and count cash doesn’t seem to be that difficult. I knew I’d be able to master it after a couple of customers.

The only problem was, there were no customers. I stood there for four hours waiting . It was up to a point where I started praying for customers to walk into the door and buy something.

As I was about to finish my 5-hours shift of doing absolutely nothing, a lady walks in. I was in high spirits to serve and yelled “Welcome to Marrybrown!”. She gave me a very sharp stare and asked for the manager.

The manager came out and went to sit at a table with her. Their conversation was pretty tense. At first, I thought it was a personal matter but later on found out that the scary looking lady was the owner (or something of that level) for that branch.

It was pretty obvious that she owner is not happy with the sales.

As she was about to leave, she came to the counter.

Lady: What’s your name?
Me: Aziz
Lady: Tomorrow I want your hair short and please shave! You look so not hygienic!
Me: I’m sorry but the manager agreed I could keep my hair under the cap
Lady: I don’t care, your dirty face is chasing my customers away.

I figured there is no point to argue with her. So, I kept quiet.

The next day, on the way to my class, I left the uniform at the restaurant door.

~Cheers!