As I stepped into the shop, my first thought was that there was nobody around. Second thought was that I'd have to eat maggi mee for dinner again. Ei? Saw two people sitting around and one guy standing up talking. Thinking they were having a lovely conversation, I went over and was about to politely ask for my cha sao fan when I realized the guy (who was the boss of the place) was scolding one of the ladies to death. Something about her filling in the checkbook using the carbon copy instead of the... well, the other one (doinks). He was basically saying the same thing over and over again - stuff like "na li you ren zhe yang ben de" (where got people so stupid wan) with the "!" and "?!" all the way. As I waited there awkwardly, wondering whether I should run away or stick around for my precious dinner, the guy suddenly turned to me (chuak!) and said, "Yes, girl, what do you want?" politely, as if I never saw the scolding. And after I said 2 packets of rice, he nodded and went back to scolding the girl. -_-
He was finally satisfied with the forlorn look on her face and walked over to where the ducks and meat were (or were supposed to be, since they weren't there yet). Just when I thought I was going to get my dinner, he said: "Wait ar, I'm going to open shop d."
Err ok. Whatever that was supposed to mean. Isn't his shop already open?
And he just stood there with a hand on his hip and another on the table. Like he was waiting for the ducks to fly over or something. I stood there, trying to hide my o_O face. He then realized that he had nothing to do and walked over to where the ladies were. He stood there with a vacant look on his face, and then decided to start scolding the girl again. After he did, he had nothing to do again. So he stood there again. (Notice the abundance of "again"s. It implies a redundant repetition of actions.) Imagine how awkward I was feeling already. Gahhhh.
After what seemed like eternity (but in actuality could be just 4 minutes), he walked back to the ducks place and finally had his ducks brought to him. He took his time in hanging the ducks and meat up, but he finally got down to giving me my cha sao fan. As I watched him dilly-dally, I was thinking that I should have gone to the rojak place first since they were most certainly already OPEN. And I was also thinking of how we Chinese always put the Malays down with insults like how they're always so slow, inefficient, etc, but we Chinese are actually about the same when we let ourselves be. Like this fantastic, slow-moving guy right in front of me. I'd been there other days, and he had always been rather quick in preparing my order. He was really upset about the checkbook, I guess. And some other stuff, since he was also complaining about some poor fellow who didn't help him at all that day, who came to help right after he'd finished everything, and who was sent back in cuz he was no longer needed.
Right then I decided that even guys could nag. And nag real good.
Next, I went over to buy rojak. I stepped up to the counter and asked for 2 bungkus rojak. I was totally ignored.
Is my voice too soft or something? I'd gladly repeat my order, but no one's even looking at me.
After they busied themselves with handing wrong orders to their customers and spilling kuah all over the place, I finally heard one of them point to me and said I ordered something. Oh, cheers. I saw another lady waiting to the my right, and thought that I'd get my order pretty quick after she got hers. After what must have been 10 minutes of waiting and watching her wait, I began to put on the -_- expression. It didn't help much that my specs (that rosak-ed after a basketball slammed into my face one Sunday evening) kept slipping down my nose.
It wasn't like there were many people there. I could like count the number of people. And I must add that I usually don't count very well without my calculator. Just when I thought they'd finished unjumbling all their orders, some Indian guy walked up and asked for 5 bungkus mi rebus. I thought, nevermind, cuz I ordered first so they sure give me first mah. Mana tau... that guy preceded even the lady on my right. I was really getting tired of all the inefficiency I was getting that day. And that thought about going to the rojak place first just vanished into thin air.
There was this guy at the counter whom I'd never seen before, and he was in charge of scooping the kuah. And I could tell he had a lot more kuah to scoop, since he was obviously less competent than the girls, and as I watched him clumsily scoop the kuah, he suddenly stopped and lovingly wiped the tong of kuah, which I didn't perceive to be needful, since I didn't think the tong contributed to the taste of the rojak in any way. Amazing how people like to make themselves busy.
Well, the lady on my right finally got her order, but I had to wait for a few more in between before I got mine. As he packed my rojak, my heart stopped beating for a moment when one of the girls said: "Bagi tu dulu", pointing at another guy sitting at the table.
Really.
My -_- =.= faces were really starting to alter my entire countenance. I even thought of leaving the place and saying, "Hey, look guys, call me when you finally finish." But then another thought came to me, which is that they'd probably forget my order when they didn't see me there.
People in real life don't just kick up a little fuss, cheer up when you give them cookies, and then leave when their heart levels get to zero, like in Cake Mania 2. People in real life get frustrated and give you The Look, and then scold you in all sorts of languages and probably not only never ever come back again, but also spread the word that your stall is so not the bomb.
Yeah, life is tough. For them, anyway. I'm the customer, I get to fret and complain. Bua-ha-ha.
Right then they were lucky I wasn't the type to fret and complain though.
Too bad if they got my mum instead.
Anyway, the guy must've seen the look on my face cuz he changed his mind and said tak per, he'd give me first.
So I paid up and left, pondering how some people could be born inefficient and some people, efficient as they actually are, could choose to be inefficient.
Next time you buy cha sao fan and rojak at Taman Asean, maybe you should write your order on a piece of paper and pass it to the rojak people, then lepak somewhere until it's 5.30pm when the cha sao fan stall should be very open, and then you can go order your cha sao fan and leave to get the rojak. Since the cha sao fan is probably quicker, by the time you get back there, he'd have finished. Woohoo! Lots of time saved!
Of course, more time would be saved if they could just buck up on efficiency and speed.
But who am I to judge?
*just realized it's "shao" and not "sao" but lazy to change. Oh ya, sorry for another pictureless post -_-
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