Lore of Anskarion: Day Job at travel agency

10th January 2007

Warning: Flaming

2 days ago i had my first part time job, working for a certain Eureca travels (name changed for flaming purposes) company. This marks the end of my all-play-no-productivity period to the productive-play stage. Of course, no reproductive-play at this age.

The Job was from 8-3 and 6-9 at harbourfront cruise center, and the pay was real good, at 8 per hour. Quite an enjoyable experience, even though the company seriously sucks..haha

Much of the time spent was just stoning around, either because we had nothing to do, were waiting for something to do, were not given stuff to do, or were given stuff to do that were really pointless. I reached the cruise center a few minutes pass 8, which is very very punctual for my standards.. Surprisingly, i was one of the earliest ones there! Lol. Nowonder we're called casual labourers. Zongyi was late by more den 30 minutes, and then we waited about an hour for more people to arrive. Read: 1 hour = 8dollars.

After awhile I asked the lady in charge, i realized that we weren't waiting for more people to arrive, because everyone had already arrived. We had no idea what we were waiting for, just stand there stone and wait for instructions, which never really came. But who cares? stand there 1 hour, 8 dollars more haha =D.

There were so efficient in handling their manpower, that for quite awhile they looked quite flustered as to deciding what we could/should/were supposed to do. After some more waiting we were split up and finally assigned duties. We were supposed to direct tourists to their bus carriages, which just meant pointing to the exit on our right, but their instructions were sooo poor, we decided to start directing people around harbour front instead. Singapore cruise center should really pay us for showing people where phonebooths toilets mrts taxis cablecartower and money changers are.. hahaha.

We did that because we subsequently found out that our duty was void because all the C grp tourists (whom we were asked to direct) had already boarded their carriage and were already somewhere else to elsewhere. like wth man. but it's alright.. +8 +8.

After that it was nothing much, we relocated upstairs, where i had to do saigang jobs like carry signposts (which were quite heavy) up from the the storeroom (quite a distance). And the supervisor was also so fickle about the number of signposts he wanted that i had to run up and down a few times. But at least i was granted to privilege of access into embarkation checkin area, haha.

Real enjoyment came when were were given proper roles by the staff of the Artemis, a British ship docked here that was attached to Eureaka travel agency. It was a check-in counter, and we were basically runners to fetch matching cabin cards for the counter staff. The british people were really nice, and it was a pleasure to work for them and not some asdf agency. A good chance to play with fake british accents too. hahah.

released at 3.40+, i went to study for my basic highway code at the topfloor of vivocity, zongyi went pageone bookstore. We reported back at 630 after dinner.

They had moved their counters to another area, a more open and lousy environment. Only 2-4 counters were operating because of the small length of the counter. In front of the counter was right in the middle of harbourfrontmall, with no markings/cordons to direct the tourists as to where to stand. This was made worse by tourists that returned in bulks from carriages, instead of the slightly more trickle like arrivals in the afternoon. The old people had no where to sit, and we had to get chairs for them to sit. (they were almost all elderly)

All this while, the people frm youreka were nowhere in sight. No instructions, no guidance, no supervision. We had to do everythin on our own initiative, they really trust us to do everything huh? The British-Indian ship captain was getting quite pissed off by their absence as well, but thankfully he didnt shift the blame on us, "it's alright at least you tried to contact him". The british had apparently asked the agency for an extra table to set up another booth, but that table never came, and still the agency people were nowhere in sight.

That derrick (name altered) guy would probably still be somewhere walking around with the walkie talkie held to his ear, trying to look important, haha useless guy. Anyway he's this guy whos abt the same age as us, that walks around the whole day holding a walkie talkie (on his shoulder, most of the time). He may look busy, but a little more observation and you'd realize he's actually just walking around. Lol. Quite senior i think, probably related to boss. We should be paid more than him, irritating crap.

Soon after the Indian capt guy told me to go further down to direct passengers into the embarkation check-in area; the passage to the ship. Finally free of nonsense. I had the most fun here, greeting ppl and pointing them directions. Being able to offer them good service attitude is absolutely rewarding, the sense of satisfaction i got was really great =). I realised that im quite cut out for PR occupations, or just the lowly "hello goodmorning/thankyou" jobs. A receptionist/concierge would be fun! Anything that requires ppl services. By entering/exiting the ship so many times, a few of the tourists were already familiar with me, and smiled everytime they saw me. Before one of them boarded for the final time, he even said "won't forget you" and gave me thumbs up. That was like.. rocks.

Anyway what's so hard about providing good service and attitude? Besides me, there were 3 jc graduates like me, zy, and about 8-10 poly ppl. The poly ppl came wrongly attired, even tho we're told to wear white top black pants/shoes, and had to be given agency polos to wear. Attitude wise im not sure but they sure loved to crowd around and obstruct ppl. Almost all of them had dyed hair, and their dress sense is... what you expect frm neighbourhood schools. If foreigners ever have bad impressions of singaporeans, I can imagine who are responsible, lol. Oh well, at least they could speak decent english, not singlish. The jc ppl were properly attired, though they tend to look sloppy. I don't understand their inclination to have their shirts/polos partially tucked out, or their tendency to slouch. Why don't ppl see the importance in dressing/acting smart when working in service sectors? like hello it's a job. They just don't exude the kinda confidence ppl would expect; their posture, actions and the way they talk. even the poly ppl were a little better then them.

At the end of the day, zy told me that the indian guy had complained about poor service in singapore just before of all the things that happened, and that they come to S'pore once a year just to receive this kind of crap. Feel sorry for them man, felt like going up to tell them "hey Singapore's a great place, just that this agency sucks, please don't engage them next time".

Anyway it's a fact that the part time ppl who worked sometime back in 20-24th december or something haven't even got their pay yet. That's already more than 2 weeks ago. Makes me worried about whether id get paid or not.

They better pay up, or i'd arson down their pathetic office.