Part-time jobs has been difficult to find since the moment it pops out, everyone manhandles every job opportunity available thus leaving me to struggle in university skint-ness.  To be fair, no one really wants a tiny Asian girl as a bouncer (though I would definitely kick ass) or an experienced secretary to sell veggies at the grocers.

While buying an unhealthy chips and cheese dinner, I decided to as my friend Sean, who owned the local take-out store, if there were any jobs. Thus, the start of kebab-girl.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for a book.”

I whipped out the search engine. I’m going nail this. I will nail this, “What’s the title of the book Miss?”
“I don’t quite remember…but I think it has 365 stories or something…I think it’s in the title…”

Right. Confidence going down a little. I can still do this. I type into the keywords search box: 365…

“But! It might not be 365…could be 360. Could be less.”

Oh boy.

“In fact, it might be a lot less – could be 80 something. Somewhere between 80 to 360….”

Crap.

“Miss, it’s hard to find the book without the title, ” I said apologetically.
“Oh it’s like lots of stories for boys…I mean girls…I think in general 9-year olds. So do you have the book of 80 to 360 stories for 9-year olds?”

What the.

“Right, Miss. I’m not too sure on the book you’re talking about…but I’m going to take you to the expert.” I see Emi from the corner of my eye, “Aha! Here’s the epert in children’s books! He should help you find it

“What! No!” Emi protested.

I grinned.

“I hate you, ” gritted Emi as he struggled to help the customer.

So far, aim achieved.

“What’s wrong Kak Nida?” I asked.

“Me and Emi were told to decorate the display for the ‘Brisingr’ promotion, but Mr. Liew rejected our display.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Bad Feng Shui.”

“Hello, may I speak to Sabrina.”

I looked around the store; to be honest, I had no idea who Sabrina – I really am quite awful with names. Miss “What’s-her-face” was next to me using the other computer, but I was positive that she wasn’t Sabrina.

“I’m afraid she’s stepped out,” I replied cunningly, “may I take a message?”
“This is actually rather urgent, but it has to do with a loan (insert something technical where I had stopped paying attention long ago) – anyway, ask her to call me back.”
“Not a problem. I’ll make sure she gets the message.”

I run out to find Kyle and asked him, “Where’s Kak Sabrina?”
“There!” he pointed, ” She’s been right next to you all along-lah!”

“So…Malaysia’s the laughing stock of the world.”

Right. I’m going back to bed.

I was rather shocked, “Sorry?”

“‘The Bitch.’”

I didn’t understand how he could say it with such a straight face. People are usually rather conservative here
“How do you spell that sir?” I started to type: B – I …

He gave me a strange look, “You know…the place by the sea…”

“Ohhhhhhh. Beach. Heh heh heh.”

“I didn’t say a bad word! I don’t know what you were thinking tsk tsk,” laughed the customer.

“Anyone else have any other comments to add to the briefing before we open shop?” asked Mr. Liew.
“Yes,” answered Juli, “it’s about these receipts-”
“Yes!” interrupted Aria, “I have that same problem too! When I blah blah blah….”

“Ugh! So angry! This Kak Aria…keeps on talking and talking,” whispered Juli to Yati.
“Be patient. There’s a reason she’s not married.”

“Hello, may I speak to…” as I looked at the customer enquiry form, “Mr. Lee Ben Woh?”

There was a pause on the other line.

“Yes. This is SHE.”

Oops.

Just as I was going to skim through the latest recipe book, “Yes, how may I help you?

“I’m looking for the Oxford Primary Dictionary and the Oxford Primary Thesaurus.”

I check the stock. Damn. No stock for the dictionary and only one left for the thesaurus. In the children’s section. And knowing my amazing luck, it would be impossible to find.

Realising how the children’s section is almost always completely thrashed (due to children of course), it would take me forever to find the book; not only would I upset the customer, I would lead her to nothing-ness. Consequently, with my sheer brilliance, I passed the task to Emi, who was in charge of the children section and just as new as me

With the job off my hands, I made backup phone calls to transfer stock for the thesaurus and dictionary only to find that the system is down in other branches. Brilliant.

“Eh!” Emi called for me, “I couldn’t find the book – I think we’ve stopped ordering Oxford Primary book-lah.”

Snap. “Sorry miss, but I’ve just called the other branches about the books you’ve requested for and their systems are down.”

“Oh,” the customer replied in disappointment, “then what to do -ah?

“I’ll have to wait for their calls back. It would be easier if you left your name and contact details,” I said passing the customer enquiry sheet to her.She scribbles her details quickly while I proceeded to start my other customer service work. However, I then noticed that she still stood next to me and stared blankly.

“Um…miss. I’ll call you back when I hear news of your books.”
“No worries, I’ll wait.

It was getting uncomfortable.

The phone rang and I excitedly picked up the phone. “Oh So you have it?” Finally some good news from the other branch, “Can you transfer it to our branch? Great. Thanks.

“Miss, good news – the other branch has stock for your books so I asked for a transfer. It’ll take ten working days for it to arrive, and I’ll call you when the book arrives, Miss.”
“Great! Thanks so much!”

I happily went back to my other customer enquiries when I realised that she was still hovering around the counter.

“Miss? Can I help?
“When are the books arriving?”
“Two weeks time. We’ll call you.”
“Oh what about the one here?”
I was getting a bit annoyed, “We don’t have it.”
“So where are the books?”
“Coming from another branch, Miss.”
“When?”
Oh dear. “Two weeks time.”

This carried on for another fifteen minutes. When I finally was able to convince her to go home, I decided to check to store room/office to get some tissues out of my locker.

Only to find a copy of the Oxford Primary Dictionary in the store room.

I ask, “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” and smiles a very cheeky grin.

My eyebrows furrowed intensely. I was definitely not too keen to help him out. His friends grouped behind him and chuckled. Thus, I pretended to do other work. He continued to hopefully stare a date out of me for the next twenty minutes. His friends continued to tease him about when he was going to make a move. With luck, a colleague of mine was able to pull him away.

And that was the start of my customer service career.