domi_quell
22 July 2008 @ 10:56 pm
Warning: This is a pretty long entry. Head to another page if you don't want to bore yourself to death. You have been warned.

Forgive me if you spot any grammatical errors. Or whatever. I'm just too lazy to read it all over again and edit. It's fcuking too long.

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Yeah, I know, I know, I should just get over this nostalgia thing. Move on. Do what I gotta do. Live life the way how it should now be lived. But you can't really blame me.

It never dawned on me that I would actually miss the work. C'mon, who would? The grumpy customers? The clogged drains? The unstable POS? It was all a mess. But, you know what, when I think about it...those are what I miss the most. Well, next to all the great people I worked with. :)

Johnny Rockets is one big black hole. When you get too near it, it engulfs you, despite all your objections and efforts to paddle away. And I'm so glad I subjected to the force. xD

It truly was more than I expected. Five months ago, when Mrs. Dapul said that we were going to be trained in a way which is far from how we would be if it were here in the country, I just thought it was going be a little different and a little harder. I guess I was more than a little wrong.

We don't have Johnny Rockets in the country, so maybe it'll be hard to comprehend. But I'll try my best to share my experiences as honest to the real thing as possible.

If you work in a self-service restaurant here in the Philippines, (e.g. KFC, Jollibee, McDonald's) it's a very simple set-up. Say you work as a cashier. You stand behind the computer, the customers line up in front of you. But you have a counter that defines the boundary between customer and associate. And you move in a confined space. No matter how busy it gets, you just move there, where the customer can see your every move. And you do nothing else but flash a smile and give a greeting, punch the orders in the system, upsell, grab the food from the rack thing where all the orders come out, prepare the beverages, grab some fries, and walk back to the counter (which is just a few steps away), back to the waiting customer and, most of the time, the contact ends there. Unless you get a complaint. ~_~ Then comes your next customer.

Full-service restaurants are probably a bit more different. But thing is, if you're a cashier, you're just the cashier. And if you're a server, you just do the serving.

On the other hand, this is how it's like in Johnny Rockets: )

I committed so many mistakes when I started: I served raw chicken strips, messed up checks, served half-filled malts, etc. Well, I also made a couple more after my first month. Like spilling ranch dressing on my guest's dress (also on a kid's shoe), spilling ice tea on a co-server, messing up checks again, etc. But just like what Tammy said, "it happens." ;D

We didn't just work as servers, cashiers and cooks, we had to be utility people too. We cleaned tables, washed dishes, cleaned the restaurant, etc. Especially, when there was no utility person to do these, which happened a lot. And part of a server's job is a couple of cleaning duties on closing time. Oh my.

Oh my.

Ohmy. Ohmy. xD This is getting pretty long. Haha.

I have so much more to share. But I think I have to stop. xD

See how much I love Johnny Rockets? I learned so much there. I even grew muscles. And people ask me why I've become so skinny?

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I wrote this because I wanted to document a few things before I forget them altogether. For practicum report purposes. :)

I don't have anything against Americans. And I didn't mean to offend anyone. I also had a lot of guests from different cultures that were as hard to deal with. Just, most of the time, I had Americans for customers. I was in America after all. :D
 
 
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