Supper @ Island Cafe

We picked up PotatoGal’s part timer 1st at her apartment. As we were waiting for her, a voluptous Indonesian or Malay woman in tight t shirt and equally tight jeans came out.

At the same time, Ralph called PotatoGal. We shouted to Ralph, “Eh your girlfriend came out lar. Waiting for  you. Faster open the door lar!”

The woman fished out her handphone out of her pocket.

“Eh, eh! She’s calling you now ah!” We joked to Ralph.

Then our target appeared. At the other side of the road. Haha. Ralph swerved his car out. We followed but there were so many cars!

I called her, “We have space here! You get into our car ah! Don’t get into their car! Haha!”

But Ralph’s car arrived earlier and they (Ralph, BlackHairedGal and a newbie Month) waited for us. Target was already in their car.

We stopped right in front of their car. Someone came into our car.

“Month?!”

“Why you come in?” PotatoGal asked her. I pushed some of the bags to the side for Month to sit.

“Because I know the way, haha!” Month replied smugly.

So we followed her directions. We were in her area. :)  Ralph took the other way to SS2.

Once we reached SS2, we drove around, checking which place to eat.

Passed by Island Cafe and decided to go there.

Month was probably a frequent customer, she found a table for us straight away.  :)

The waiter passed some menus and left.

“What to eat? Sooo hungry!”

“I ate this yesterday,” Month pointed to the menu.

“Ha? You came here yesterday? Why didn’t say so? We can go to other place mar.”

“Never mind lar. I can eat other things.”

The Mocha choc chip ice blended was nice :) Some cream on top. Eek.

The white cream spaghetti was delicious, though not as delicious as Sam’s :) Maybe I’m loyal to my friends’ cooking..

The curry laksa’s curry, wow. Hot! Yummy! It wasn’t spicy at 1st though. I scooped lots of soup from Month’s bowl to mine. Maybe the spaghetti cream had tasted bland after I tasted the hot soup! :)

We talked a lot about work. Found out lots of secrets… can’t blog them here :)

Apparently Month could see and feel spirits too! She had pulled a bad spirit’s hand to the altar and chanted prayers. :) Another method in case I get pressed.

Month had a free ice lemon tea from her yesterday’s outing. BlackHairedGal complained it tasted bitter and weird. A bit, yeah. But we still drank it. :|

My last day at retail apparel counter

On my last day of work, I had noon shift – I requested noon shift as I had to adjust braces in the morning. But, the day before, I was getting sick – feeling like I wanted to vomit. So I slept pretty much of my last day of work’s morning and rearranged the dentist appointment.

It would be better if I were working morning shift instead. Coz that day, I heard that there was mock up training – each outlet send at least 1 representative to get training on the new season’s VM, then create your own display following the guides and stock available and then, something new – product test. Those who were going had Full Shift on that day. Which was really unfair because, they had to go to another outlet to train and then they STILL have to come back to own outlets and continue work as usual, as WELL as passing the knowledge to colleagues AND after the full shift finished, everyone had to change the display to the new season’s guidelines! ^_^

But by late evening, the 3 representatives selected by ShopMgr – herself, Thong & MCL – still hadn’t come home (Mid Valley).

At counters, PotatoGal, BlackHairedGal and I rushed to keep old stock out to get the sensors – we certainly didn’t have enough sensors! – and take out new Winter stock out. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of customers on a weekday. :)

I told myself, “Concentrate on replenishing stock. Forget the stapler, Blondie, Roger and that woman. Give good vibes to new clothes.”

After that I rearranged the store room again. Chimmy had suggested that we removed the middle rack to store blazers – so that we needn’t fold the blazers while hanging them and thus, less crease on the blazer -> less ironing time & effort. Oh yeah, can? So he removed the heavy wood pane. I didn’t know where he put the pane but I didn’t question anything. I was just happy that we he had new idea and it was a useful idea ;)  We used to have some – not all – blazer suit designs.

But for Winter 2006, my counter had only 1 – yeah, 1 – I opened my eyes big big to see the product list – design only. 1 colour at that. *shake head* Other counters had 1 or 2 blazer designs too. Guessed the buyer wanted to concentrate blazers at shops where they could get more exposure and sales. More about 1 Blazer Only…

So, I had to find the pane and put it back up so that I could stock the new shirts there! Else, the shirts would all fall out of the rack eventually from stacking so high! Ugh!

I saw a brown pane leaning against the wall. Maybe it was it. I took it out, nearly hit PotatoGal’s head.

PotatoGal asked, “This one ar?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders but couldn’t, I was balancing the heavy pane on my shoulder. PotatoGal and I tried to drop it onto the rack but halfway through the act, we saw that the pane was smaller than the rack. Wrong pane.

Then PotatoGal pointed to the 2nd last rack, “Neh, he put it here arh!”

Shit lorr… on top of the pane was all filled up with new season’s shirts! I had put them the day before. I moaned heartily. “How ar?”

If I took all the shirts out, I would waste my effort yesterday. If I didn’t take the shirts out to get the pane out, I would waste almost 1 whole section of the rack.

PotatoGal suggested, “Cut the cartons lar! Put it there (instead of the pane).”

“Cannot lar. Will sure fall. The carton is not hard.”

So on my last day, I decided to take out all of the shirts and dunk them onto the floor as well as the opposite rack which belonged to another brand (just lend for awhile, sweetie), then shift the pane back to its home and then rearrange the shirts onto the 2 racks.

As I was trying by myself to lift the damn heavy pane up, the sweetie from the other brand who had sex operation asked me, “Boleh ke? Nak tolong?”

“Boleh, nanti baru saya buat larr.” Paiseh. I didn’t need help from another si man girl, even though she was a man. Ego getting in my way, bad bad.

I hoped that PotatoGal quickly came up to help me but she didn’t relieve me of my duties – I was going to have dinner break and she had to come up to manage my counter. I’d better do it without waiting for her.. else the task wouldn’t finished on time (before I left).

After putting the stock into the lower rack, I wrote the design on masking tape using marker pen and taped it on the rack for easier search. It’s 1 thing for seniors like PotatoGal, BlackHairedGal and I, it’s another thing for part timer who work on weekends or newbies to search in our storeroom. Heck, even BlackHairedGal and PotatoGal who sometimes manage my counter need time to find for a certain stock.

I also wrote a sweet letter to my successor – BlackHairedGal. Our roles were reversed, or shall I say, like a fish had come 1 circle? BlackHairedGal passed the counter to me, she went back to shop and now, BlackHairedGal swam back to counter because I was leaving. :)

I wanted to update the stock map but didn’t have enough time.

After work, we went for a small celebration-heart-to-heart-supper at Island Cafe, SS2. Is it called Island Cafe?

1 blazer design only?

Requesting more colour Shirts

In a previous season, I forgot which season, when we didn’t have orange, peach, pink and aqua solid shirts, I had called Assistant Buyer about it.

“Yeah, your counter don’t have, ” Assistant Buyer confirmed. “All stock out already ma, that’s all you’ll have lor.”

“Cannot request ar? Check which outlet have a lot, pass some to me?” I asked.

“Cannot lar. Other outlets stock is theirs ma.”

I did tell ShopMgr about this. She said nothing then.

So why only 1 blazer design?

This time, after I had left the company, ShopMgr came over to counter and asked BlackHairedGal, “HA?! Why display the blazer like that?”

The face out (the area that is on the wall, facing customers/entrance) had 2 blazer suits on each side, both of the same design – because we the counter only had 1 design. That was during sales time. Originally, we had displayed 1 new season’s blazer suit on 1 wall stand and a 50% blazer suit on the next wall stand.

BlackHairedGal replied, “Waiting for VM mar. Put like this 1st lor. Here only 1 blazer design.”

“What?! Why didn’t ask buyer for more?!” ShopMgr asked.

I didn’t know if ShopMgr meant me or BlackHairedGal because I received the stock and the product list. I wasn’t there when ShopMgr asked her.

“Buyer already wrote give 1 only, 1 only lar. What to do?” BlackHairedGal retorted.

When BlackHairedGal told me about this, I asked her, “Did you show the product list to her? Maybe she didn’t read the product list.”

The Product List 

Each season, buyer would forward a Product List around a week before new stock arrives. It lists all the products and brief description on each design as well as which outlet gets the designs in 1 spreadsheet. We would then plan where to display what colour and design. Which would be more sellable, which would be kept in the storeroom, which would be taken as displayed on mannequins. We need to arrange storage in a way that it would be easy and fast to retrieve sellable designs.

I think I had told ShopMgr about our stock before I left, on the 1 blazer design as well but I didn’t request for more blazer designs from Buyer Assistant because I thought it would be to no avail since I had done such requests (albeit for shirts) before.

Got it? 

Maybe ShopMgr was too busy about shop that she forgot about counters. So in the end, ShopMgr got another blazer design for my ex-counter. Manager do have more omph in getting things done from HQ.