Sunday, 2 December 2007

Peeps in the F&V room

For tonight, i shall compile the names of the people working together with me in the hell-like F&V room, which is forever dirty even though the cleaners pop in 2 to 3 times each hour to snack on fruits.(shall take a picture next time)


Aunties

Ah Loy Auntie - Auntie who introduced me to the other staff members of the F&V crew, also known as the most hardcore auntie in the department. She's forever asking me to hurry up when im pushing carts of vegetables in the morning, sometimes i feel like she really wants me to run with the cart.

Ivy Auntie - Most senior auntie in the department, the only person who helped me out with the calculation of wastage and the codes of vegetables. She's the one who can recite out any 6 digit codes of whatever fruits or veges, and i have no idea how anybody can possibly memorise all of the codes.
Me - "Auntie, whats the code for the 110C Dragonfruit 100g packet one arh?"
Ivy - "Alamak, it's 164987, faster write down." (without referring to any notes)

? Auntie - Very quiet auntie, in-charged of wraping and weighing fruits. Only sentence she spoke to me was "Ah boy, u waiting for O' levels izit?"

Indians

Azmi - Otherwise known as Assmi, funny guy who always asks me to carry stuff for him. Works in the morning shift. Knows a bit of chinese too. Oh ya, his instructions for picking and packing grapes?
Rotten = Throw, Angry = Eat.

Ah Bang - Friendly guy and also very hardworking. Works at the night shift daily and comes from M'sia. Seems to be very popular in the department and also with the others. For no reason, the other indians always ask me whether hes the most handsome one or not. I am in doubt whether to say yes(hes quite good-looking) or getting beaten up. The only person left in F&V after 8pm (when i leave) is him.

? - Dont know the name, but hes fat and always slacking around. In-charge of the fruit juices area. Always flirting with malay cleaners.

One thing common for all 3 indians- they all speak both tamil and malay.

Me - only one auntie in the department calls me by my actual name, the other aunties just call me "Ah Boyyyyyyyyy"(extra long stretch), and the indians always call me "eh,bro"

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by WEIMING at 21:16 | 0 comments

Friday, 30 November 2007

Still surviving

Have some time to blog now since my shift starts at 12pm till 8pm today('night' shift).

Yesterday was pretty fun cause i managed to learnt some new stuff in cold storage. First, when i reached the staff room at about 8.30am, i was asked by the aunties to bring the crimson and thompson grapes out. Had no idea what alien language they were talking at first but Azmi (Indian no.1) lead me to the chiller room to take out the grapes, and i can still remember his 金语良言.

Me: So how do we differentiate between Crimson and Thompson grapes?
Azmi: Bro, you see here *points to side of crate* this is crimson, *points to another crate* this is thompson, ok u wait a while.

Next, he moves about 10 (eff-ing) crates of grapes to the trolley.

Azmi: Pack. (and then he smiles like some dumb dumb while he goes slacking off)

At that moment, i was going 'WTF' in my mind cause the crates stack up to higher than me and it may take forever to finish wrapping them into the small plastic boxes. Nevertheless, I started working on the grapes and managed to complete the 10 crates of grapes after about 2.5 hours. It was difficult trying to wrap them up because i needed to cut them up nicely to fit into the boxes, and there's also the murderous task of picking those disgusting, foul-smelling rotten grapes.

Here's a snapshot of rotten grapes taken from yahoo search.

and im not exaggerating what i saw and smelled in cold storage.

Later on after lunch, i learnt how to do some accounting from the auntie in the department. Quite interesting to calculate the cost of wastage per day for just the F&V section, which actually amounts to quite a high sum, e.g ~$600-900 /day. For fruits/veges that are rotten, they cannot be thrown away and have to be brought to the room to be weighed so that we can calculate the loss.

Half an hour left before i leave home, shall go eat lunch now...

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by WEIMING at 09:57 | 0 comments