Being a Jack of all trades!

Most days, I work outside the kitchen. My daily duties would include making coffee and sandwiches in the morning, tending to whichever stall needs my help during lunch and tea-breaks. And I love the job! I enjoy meeting the people who comes to buy their food, chatting with them and it's always nice to see happy faces all over, most of the time at least.

However, on some days, I get to work in the kitchen, especially during the off-peak hours and around the Chinese New Year period when some of the Malaysian workers go home to celebrate the Chinese New Year with their families and we are really short-handed. This week, we already had some Malaysian workers go home for the Chinese New Year holidays! How nice! How I wish my home is just across the causeway!

My day in the kitchen usually involves preparing the vegetables for the rice or noodle store. This is not tough work and sometimes it is quite pleasant as you are left doing all the work in a rather peaceful environment. However, handling a knife is not one of my forte (I'm the non-violent sort!) and often I end up cutting myself instead of the vegetables. The other day, I just accidentally sliced my index finger with the kitchen knife...

Practice makes perfect I guess and if I do this often enough, I am sure I will excel in it! Now I am kind of the "Coffee Queen" as some customers will come and insist that I make the coffee for them, instead of anyone else! How nice! And just in case you are thinking otherwise, some of these are female customers too. As I said, "Practice makes Perfect!". I don't drink coffee and I probably could not tell the difference between a STARBUCKS and a local KOPI-O!

Come to think of it, maybe it's good to be a Jack-of-all-Trades! Hopefully I make myself more valuable that way! I have customers who tell me, "When you are in Singapore, learn as much as you can! Learn English, learn computer skills, learn different jobs and don't be afraid to work hard and learn, learn, learn!" and I fully agree. When you don't have the money or the time to learn all you want, the only way to learn is "on-the-job" but that's better than not learning!