because my dad accepted this huge project, we worked through the weekends and everyday i have been going to work (as can be seen from my previous posts). basically, the name "Emilda" or "Perez" has become a taboo word in the shop. everytime we hear the phone ring or the mention of these names, we'd roll our eyes/shudder/break into cold sweat or simply just show no expression because of the exhaustion. we even had to ask my cousin to come down just to help stamp numbers on the index cards. imagine having to stamp hundreds of indexes per set and we have 6 or 7 sets per volume. and even though we have been chionging since... a while (basically, i started working last saturday evening, but my parents/bro/everyone else have been preparing for it since 2 weeks back), we are only at Volume L. and my mum is intending to stop at Volume M. its a very very huge court case dealing with a few large organizations. and for days, i have been doing nothing but binding/ packing/ photocopying/ stamping indexes. the difference between this job and all other jobs we used to do is, the amount of pressure. as quoted from my parents, in their 25 years in this line, this is the worst case they have ever come across. and because everyday, Emilda (the lawyer's secretary) calls everyday, more than 10 times a day, just asking us if the documents were ready, causes so much tension in the office, my parents keep arguing.
its not easy, honestly. my dad, having been a salesman for almost 40 years of his life, pledge his life (i daresay) to good customer service. basically, if you're his customer, you can be rest assured he will deliver as promised. and he's an excellent boss as well.. during our OT, he made sure we all had our meals, made sure we were all well nourished by buying fruits and fruit juices for all of us. because he knows the other 2 girls have been working tough, he gives them $30 transport allowance every night to take taxi home whether they really do take cabs. he buys all of them dinner. on the other hand, we have my mum, who basically.. controls the company. honestly, without her.. i don't think our company would be thriving. she's fast, efficient.. makes sure things are done correctly. and all the customers have to go through her.. big or small. she supervises everything thats going on in the office. basically, anything you're unsure of regarding our services, its better to ask her than my dad.
so the thing is, many a times (especially this time), my dad loves to see his customers happy and therefore, accepting as many jobs as he can. but sometimes, he accepts these jobs without realising that we are actually shorthanded or that we simply dont have enough machine to run these jobs. and my mum, having to oversee everything, and when overstretched plus her bad temper, gets very frustrated. so they'd argue because my dad kept accepting OTHER jobs when we already have enough with Emilda's job. and my mum is just soooo frustrated with Emila that she keeps telling my dad to stop accepting jobs. and there was loads of yelling in the shop these days. really. for me, im used to it. and the girls in the shop, they knew this would happen. its not the first time. but the thing is, because emilda's job just goes on for weeks, the tension builds up. there were a couple of times my mum was so frustrated she cried. because, i really have to say, the job is fucking stressful. i tell you, my mum is one woman who is most capable at handling stress. if she can't handle it, it means that the job is near impossible. so, me and my brother try to not piss them off any further by trying to do our best in everything.
usually, when i work at their shop, i can slack a little.. because somehow, i relied on my mum to do the quality check. so i knew that if theres any mistakes.. it would be found out and i could rectify it then. but this time, my mum was so busy.. there was basically no room for mistakes. and usually, when im there, i'd help out with the "calafare" roles. i would either be assisting angela/peck lian to staple the stuff they photocopied out, or just help bind the books etc, which are rather idiot proof. but this time, because we're short handed and im considered "skilled" since i have been helping out there since 13.. i have even started collating in primary school.. i was tasked with the more.. brain-using stuff. like, actually taking charge of photocopying the books. and in charge of doing amendments. which really didn't allow room for improvement and furthermore, my mum relied on me and didn't QC the work that i did. which is why, this time, i really took my job very seriously. and amidst all the yelling and built-up tension, plus the machines took turns to breakdown and we still have to deal with all the walk-in customers and deal with rejecting our regular customers, there was basically no room for other matters other than work. i'm glad i minimised the mistakes i made (i am very careless) and i have never focused so much on work in their shop ever in my life as i have this time. and i'm really rather proud of how calm i handled all this. basically, i didn't take sides because they are both just tired and worn out. so, i just do my work and volunteering help to whoever needs it. and when my parents ranted, i just let them rant while i sat on the fence.
Also, this time helping out, i made my first deliveries. it was fun! i have always wanted to try delivering the finished documents to our customers but never had the time/balls/opportunity to do it. and this time, cus everyone was busy, i actually tagged along when they delievered some of the documents to Emilda. also, wanted to see how that bitch looks like. lol. shes not bitchy, but she's rather slack. therefore, all the last minute rushing. my mum was so frustrated with her, my mum scolded her until she cried. seriously, she kinda deserves it. really.. all this could have been given to us earlier with more time for us to complete. the delivering bit was damn fun! basically, me, peck lian, dad and bro took the van to emilda's office. cus there was no loading/unloading bay, we had to do it quick and we had about 20 odd boxes of documents? so we all stood in a line and peck lian passed my dad the box, then he passed to me and i passed to bro who put it on the floor. and the traffic police is rather strict on loading at the double zig zag line so we had to be really quick. and after we unloaded, we all had to rush up to the office. which was soooo damn messy. first time visiting a real lawyer's office. madness. really. lol! so we unloaded and chao. hahaha. and the van ride home, was mad funny! especially when we went up the humps. like roller coaster. lol!
yeahh. so you can see how mad it was. and right, just a rough estimation of the amount of work to be done, our finished documents for volume E, when stacked from the floor, formed 4 columns and they were as tall as me. thats the amount of photocopying/binding/punching/packing we had to do. and its only 1 volume. so yeah. really mad chaos. on tuesday, my parents worked from 7am to 11pm. yeah. they didnt wanna wake up up so we only reached the shop at 11am? ya..
NANA's birthday!
well.. so anyway, thank goodness the really bad part was over by thursday.. though we are still doing her job .. but the rushing bit is slightly better already. so my mum allowed me to go to nana's birthday chalet stayover on thurs, which was last night! so, managed to get off work at 6pm. chionged to icing room to decorate the cake for nana. then chionged to pasir ris, with cake in hand during peak period. omg. i swear, nana is a fucking good cook. the chicken she marinated and barbequed were.. ohmygosh. so fucking awesome, beats JSJ, hands down. so me, nana, xiin, mormor, emma, sx and nana's sis, samantha just kept eating while chatting about random stuff. then i watched abit of TV. then managed to surprise nana with the cake. followed by loads of chatting and all. samantha is soooo fucking funny and cute!!!! lol! then emma and sx went home.. while the rest of us stayed over. we kept camwhoring with xiin's macbook. lol!! and we kept doing videos. there was one part, where we took a video and xiin pretended to fall onto morgan's arms and they both fell down. and we laughed like some mad cows. seriously, every single time im with these girls, we'd laugh until all of us cried/lose all our stomach muscles. i swear. we just kept laughing and laughing. and here's some of our pics.. LOL! and anyway, nana bakes fucking awesome nutella tart.. as we were camwhoring/bitching.. we just kept digging into it. and the cake i bought for nana, no one touched because we'd rather waste our calories on nutella tarts. i swear. i brought the leftover tart home and my family LOVED it. yummeh! but i ate so much, i am so fucking gaining weight. tomorrow - jog.
this pic is DAMN FUNNY! LOL!
everyone grabbing each other's butts.
(Not very) Hot lesbian kiss.
we're supposed to be peeing.okay la, to end this post.. i shall end it on a funnier note:
LOOOL, RIGHT?!anyway, im really glad we survived this week. but i really need to start studying already. so yeah. i have got sooo much thoughts in my head during these few days. but im so sleepy now. i had only 5 hours of sleep yesterday. was soo tempted to sleep today but decided to stop being a kid and went to help out at work instead. yeah.. okay lar.
Thoughts:
but im scared my thought would slip away.. shall blog it next time ba. or shall mention abit here before i forget. aiya! fuck it, might as well just continue..
just about a month back, there was a night when i had my insomnia. and i was thinking about what my future will be. accountant? finance person? jounalist? and then, something occured to me, what would happen to Classic Copy if i didn't continue? and deja vu-ishly enough, this phase of crazy work load just came right after i was thinking about it. in the past, i feel rather obliged. but the thing is, i grew up there. in the basement of Hong Leong finance. my father's voice, my mum's sneezing rings through the basement. we knew the old neighbours - uncle kiat who sells snacks/ random food, the japanese family who runs the travel agency, uncle robert who sells flowers. and in the past, we had auntie alice who ran the salon next door.. and so on. when i was young, me and my brother would go there and my parents would lay big pieces of paper for us to sit on and draw our day away. i don't think i can ever imagine a future without this shop. though its just a small shop.. its homely. my dad treats all his customers like old friends, especially regulars. and our customers, though many have changed printing shops, do come back to us despite us charging a rather pricey price (a.k.a 10 cts per black and white photocopy. while its just 2/3 cts at katong shopping centre?). our suppliers are our old friends also. and the machine maintainence people.. they are also our friends. imagined.. without the shop.. i dont really think hong leong basement would be hong leong basement. im not joking. i didn't realise it but im so accustomed to the smell of paper. the touch of paper.
and especially these days, when i felt the feeling of being given more responsibility, i felt it becoming more real. my connection to this shop. its not easy building up this business. and i used to have doubts about taking over it because it really isn't easy. standing from 9am to 6.30pm. and you know, during these few days, my hands have been so dry from taking paper out from the machine.. and because we were too busy to be careful, both my hands are covered in paper cuts and also, cuts from the sharp corner of the binds that bind your notes? i even have paper cuts on my legs eh, because sometimes i need to arrange stuff on my laps. and breathing in the fumes that comes out of the machine, especially long hours? its really not easy. really. and, my dad NEVER closes his shop during his stated opening hours/days. the only time he did, was during grandma's funeral. and only for 3 days. and during that 3 days, don't know which bitch/bastard pasted a sign on our shop door asking why we had to close?? which is why, when we go on holiday to further places, he never goes. so, if i worked there.. i'd have to sacrifice my wanderluster dream. yeah. but the thing is, i don't want the shop to be closed in my hands. now i know what i want.
EVENTUALLY, i will want to carry on my dad's legacy.
he spent 25 years into this, and before that.. 10 years plus selling photocopy machines. i want to pass this business down a few more generations. i really hope to eventually continue the good job my parents have done. and maybe make it better. but i refuse to expand the business. because i feel.. the current service we're giving.. is very nice and homely. we treat our customers like guests, not money making sources. unlike the big photocopy centres, like unimax.. i really like the kind of service my dad gives people. the bigger one expands the company, the more diluted the service gets. do you think people selling iPods actually treat it like they're selling products of their own? i mean, they work hard because they want a raise/ promotion. but here, in my dad's shop, i hope to work hard to keep up the good job. and i have a lot to learn. also, i have been working in the front side of the business.. i actually haven't even touched the co-ordination side of it (i.e co-ordinating people to pick up the job/ analysing if we have the capacity to do the job etc). so, my plan now, is to just complete this degree. see how well/bad i do. and then maybe work somewhere in the printing industry as well.. and learn the ropes from the big guys. afterall, my dad got inspired to start this business through his many years as a photocopy machine salesman.
i have alot to learn. i still don't really dare talk to customers etc. but my brother, on the other hand, is very confident with dealing with customers. which kinda puts me to shame. but oh well.. im glad i have him anyway. yeah. but yeah, i will eventually want to run this business. its really not easy building this.. customer base. and i refuse to see my dad's shop close. imagine you see your hard work thrown away.. 25 years eh. no joke. haha..
okay la. have been a fucking long day and actually, i was super sleepy. but blogging just gets my brain moving. i shall sleep and tomorrow, mugging session again! and then gonna drink with reggie. nights!
i used to see this shop as.. a backup plan for my future. in case i dont have a job, i have the shop. but now, i WANT to continue this business. just not immediately. i want to gain more exposure elsewhere before i run the company.
P/S: IT FEELS DAMN AWESOME blogging all the stuff that has been on my mind out. it took me 3 hours to do this post. hahaha. but it felt like.. A GOOD SHITTING SESSION after 3 days of constipation.
p/p/s: managed to buy sally hansen's base coat for my nails. THEY ARE OFFICIALLY PAINTED AGAIN! i know i sound bimbotic.. but you know how.. un-shirley it is to not have my nails painted! i am back! WOOO!!!
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