Girls

I think most girls are quite easy to please. :/ I don't speak for most girls, don't speak for most guys either. In fact, I lack the right physical anatomy to speak for guys at all. But I already made my thesis statement, so I shall explain.

I found that most girls in a relationship want the same things - love, affection, attention, and presents. No, they don't want these things, they think they are entitled to it. As shallow as that may sound, I agree that that's the primary purpose of a boyfriend - anymore than that is a husband. Not saying that I personally subscribe to these needs, but I shall explain that later. For now, most girls.

When girls are emotionally attached to someone (ie: boyfriend) they obviously think they are in love, and wants to be loved back. So once said feelings are confessed, they become a couple. Therefore, love is a must, regardless of how you define it (attraction? care?).

Next, affection. When a girl is in love she wants affection and tenderness from her boyfriend. I think this is quite common sense generally for people to want affection from their loved ones. This is not the same as attention, because it's about quality, not quantity. A 'good quality' affection cannot be hampered by distance and time apart. A girl knows when she's given good quality affection versus bad ones.

After that is attention. This is where it gets tricky. Both guys and girls require attention from their partners. The difference is how much? Girls usually ask for more attention because that's their nature. A guy may require only a good morning and good night sms on a regular non-date day, but a girl needs good morning, good brunch, good lunch, good afternoon, happy hi-tea, good evening, bon appetit dinner time, good night and ten 'I love you's and 'I miss you's throught the course of the day.

Please bear with me. I'm no expert at relationship matters, but I am going somewhere with this.

And finally, presents. I don't mean just for special occassions like birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine's day. But for little things. Something as common as sulking sometimes can be defused easily with a present. I've seen girls who don't consider themselves 'materialistic' ask for a gift offering.

Maybe for guys who are not financially gifted this is very typical and quite hard to do, but it is actually the easiest. Most girls can easily appeased by a visible/physical token of the heart from their partners. Perhaps I am influenced with the way I am brought up that money was the easiest to ask for from my dad. Asking for his time, his signature, or anything that required him to be there physically was hard but money is easy. Just mention the purpose and amount and it'll get banked in. Or if money can substitute his presence, then even better.

Therefore, because I value a person's time and company more, I think gifts are the easiest thing to give someone. If I sulk, I won't ask my partner for a gift to appease me. I would rather appreciate his time to explain his situation and honesty above all else. I make it sound like all girls are shallow except me, but like I said, I am very surprised to see 'humble' girls demand gifts to appease them. Girls, why cheapen yourselves with gifts!?!??! (unless it's something extremely expensive then maybe, but still, gifts are cheap).

After all, time is the most expensive gift of all. Time lost cannot be replaced, and everything in this world requires the currency of time. Money can buy time, but time can always buy money back.

I think it's a good gauge of someone's commitment to their partner too. How willing are they to spend their time with you and all that.

So guys, be grateful if your girlfriends only need gifts to be appeased. Also, they are shallow, so go find someone else. :P

Ta'ra.

My Life So Far (Again)

Dear blog,

It has been a long time since I last saw you so I suppose I have so much to tell you now. Hrmmm, what comes to mind first? Oh of course!

Omar, one of my oldest friends got married! It is quite an amazing thing considering he was engaged two weeks after proclaiming he will only get married when he's 30. Pfft.

 

His wife Zara is very pretty. :3 Congratulations! You are an inspiration for reforming rakes the world over! Hehehehe.

 

What else? Oh yes, I turned 26! It's a good age to be! 25 feels like borderline to me, but 26, nobody can accuse you of being a kid or being old! Hahahaha. This has been quite an issue for me in terms of credibility. I hate it when people put my ability into question because of my age. Also, at this age onwards I will no longer think my friends are too young to get married. So to all my classmates, you have my approval to get married! (overrr)

 

I spent my birthday going on a food trip with my darling girlfriend. I went to Dip n Dip for the first time and found out first hand why people are addicted to it. I mean, just LOOK! AT! THIS! SHIIT!

The most delicious shit ever, I say.

Yulia also gave me the nicest present ever. Book vouchers! I always gave them away but rarely received one. And such a generous amount too. Thank you Yulia! You can bet your birthday prezzie will be awesome too! (are you even reading this? hehehe)

 

And lastly I met up with an old, old friend from primary school who came to KL last week. She was in the 'berbunga-bunga' phase with her boyfriend so I was kind of curious. Fetched her from KL Central at 2 am when she arrived, and sent her back to KL Central at 3 am two days later. In return I got RM30 worth of coins (in exchange for my RM30 notes).



 

 

The notes that she took from me were the only notes I had left in my wallet at that time, and I thought, if I wanna go out to eat I have to withdraw more money. But then my neighbour suddenly dragged me out to eat at the mamak shop nearby. So I had no choice but to gather them all in a plastic bag, and put it in a tiny hello kitty paper bag and go out to eat with it. I felt so medieval.

 

So that's it for this post, blog. If I continue anymore it probably won't end. Not that you'd complain eh blog?

 

 

Ta'ra!

3:51 AM - 4:19 AM

Dear blog,
It's 3:51 am in the morning and I am bored. Normally I would read some books before bed, but maybe all those hours of movie marathoning has made me restless. But today is the start of my 3-day off and I am having mixed feelings. Relieved, to finally have my rest, but also anxious, because it's the middle of returns week and I STILL HAVE A LOT TO DO!!111111111111

BUT!! It is my designated rest days so I AM GOING TO REST! or at least, relax. Or something. Returns will return after I return to work. *shudder*

Also, I was ranting alone on facebook. And since it's 3 am in the morning, nobody replied. I should sleep.

In the end, all I could think of is "Who is THAT now??"

Ta'ra!

Money Issues

I am terrible with money. I have already set a goal to have at least half of the capital I need for my online business venture next year, so I decided I will put 2/3 of my pocket money into my ASB account because withdrawing money from there is a hassle, therefore will discourage me from spending it.

So imagine a full amount of my monthly allowance. Just imagine it, I can't say it for fear I'll get robbed. Okay that, and then I'm supposed to dump 2/3 and live off the 1/3. It should be plenty enough for most people I was told. Anyway, after that I have my salary which I just received yesterday.

Before anything, I put 1k into my maybank. They are for bills and money from the sale of our english cotton my sister sold.

Oh, today there was a chocolate fair at BB Plaza, so I thought I should buy some farewell gifts for those people leaving Kino soon. And BB Plaza has a lot of money changers so it's perfect! I woke up at 3.30pm, but it's fine! I shall pray zohor, and Asar, and then left home without showering FULL OF VIGOUR!

I went around the chocolate fair. It wasn't big, but they had a lot of variety of chocolates that I got greedy. It was probably a good thing I haven't withdrawn any money yet and had only a few ringgit in my wallet. I tasted the ones I thought were interesting and then stumbled upon a money changer. They have good rates (3.465) and had small change for 20000 Japanese Yen. When I told them I'll come back to withdraw money, I saw that other money changers had a lower rate of 3.46. When I calculated, the difference is 1 ringgit. At 3.465, 20k yen is 693. At 3.46, it's 692. But they probably don't have small change I reasoned, and I was lazy to ask and besides, it's not a huge difference. I wipe my ass with RM1 notes anyway.

After that I proceeded to the Maybank ATM and withdrew 800. I bought the 20k yen for 693. Then I smsed my neighbour who said she's on her way over. Her husband owns the chocolate shop near the fair area and has a booth in the fair too.  While waiting for her I went to the CIMB ATM which is a little further away from the fair area. I withdrew 700 because I'm supposed to put 600 into my mom's money box. Half for my savings, the other half just money I give her. But actually I owe my mom's money box 200 so I really should withdraw 800. Since it's not urgent, I didn't. (and she said I could use the money if I want so yeah).

So after I got my monies, I saw an ad for a book fair at level 3 Sg Wang, so OF COURSE I went to check it out! The selections were...not great, but they had some Archie comics and they are always very awesome and nostalgic. I like Betty and Veronica Digest. Hehe. After some time my neighbour called and I met her back at the fair. I left the book fair without buying anything.

So back at the chocolate fair I bought 6 Russian chocolates at 45 and 49 for each set of threes. After that I got some marble strawberry cereal balls from Chocolat-ier for 48 after discount because I went with my neighbour who is friendly with them. I thought I was done but I found some nice seaweed snacks and spent another 28 on it. Then I thought the chocolate gold bars at another booth would be great for my chocolate hungry colleagues so there goes another 70 ringgit.

Oh did I mention I haven't had dinner yet? Yes I haven't. I wanted to go to Paradise Restaurant to buy food and they are not cheap. Spent another 21 ringgit. But that was it. The end of my spending. After that I went home and realized my phone's credit is expiring today so I will need to spend another RM50 later.

I hope someone is keeping track because I am too afraid to count the money left in my wallet right now.

And oh another 10 on this bag of 5 keropok.

So um, yeah.

Ta'ra!

Diary of a Bookstore Employee 1

Hello. Today I shall start a new series, thus new life into my blog. I'm gonna call it 'Diary of a Bookstore Employee' because that's what I am.

Ahem.

So the Christmas season is ending. As of 2/1/2013 things will go back as normal, which means Returns (HELL) every month. Yes, I can already imagine those frantic days of pulling dusty books from the shelves, sorting through them and putting them in cartons. Oh joy. But other than that, I quite look forward to being back to normalty. At least returns is only 1 or 2 weeks of hell per month, the Christmas season was hell for TWO FREAKING MONTHS!

And WHAT is with the type of customers walking into the bookstore these days!?!?! They walked in and expect to be treated like some freaking VIPs! THIS IS A FUCKING BOOKSTORE, NOT YOUR MOTHER'S HOUSE! So of course following the rise of people is the rise of idiots, and following that is customer complains! Lately it's not just our customer service that gets complains, but there has been reports of missing handbags/wallets/handphones/children/spouses in the shop as well. What's funny is that when these people/things are missing, and never recovered, people blame US the bookstore. Can you imagine people saying stuff like:

Why didn't you look out for my stuff?
Your store is so big that's why my son got lost.
Your staff didn't notice my very average-looking son?
You couldn't even look after just one bag?

Get the picture? There's so many questions that I could reply back to these stupid questions. But being the polite staff I am, I am obligated to hold my tongue and just smile like an idiot. Even worse is that, after these incidents were reported, and the managers all got rallied together, in the end it is the sales floor staff who got a 'reminder' (ie order) to be mindful of customers' belongings/children/spouses.

This, came right after we had to sign an agreement to perform all the basic customer service things that we already have to do ON TOP of being mindful of our display, merchandise, ordering, counter safety, customer safety, shelf tidiness, stock level and a myriad of other things. Now we also have to add 'Guardian of Customers' Personal Belongings' (including persons) = GCPB. It's been a while since I made acronyms. What irritated me more is that these rules are imposed by people not in the sales floor, but spent most of their time in the office, away from the day to day bs of serving customers. It's not just one or two. It goes on and on and on and on and on even after the store closes sometimes.

So when you see service-related employees being rude to people outside of work, now you know why...

This post is not very coherent it seems. I could barely keep myself on this page long enough to finish it. I have lost the zest for blogs obviously, but I needed to rant.

Ta'ra!

Work, work, work

I can't be bothered with resizing and editing the pictures for the post that I wanted to originally do, but there's just some things I needed to get off my chest, so here goes.

I've only recently turned fulltime at Kino and had just been assigned my own section this week. It's great to have your own section. It gives me something to focus on and I no longer feel homeless per se. It has also been quite an adjustment and although I've known this fact before, I've never actually realize it before. The fact is - parttimers and fulltimers live in completely different but parallel worlds!

Let me put it into perspective because most people are only in one and not the other. Only precious few have been in both and stayed long enough to tell the tale.

When I was a part-timer, my job description goes something like "to be the extra hands and legs of the fulltimers". On the ground it means my first priority of the day is to display. Sometimes you do wrapping, serve customers and other physical work. So during briefing time, you explained how many trolleys you cleared, how many you sent in, what sections you displayed, what section you couldn't display etc etc. It's important for everyone to hear because you display every category and their respective retail execs need to know. In addition to your chief who needs to be updated on what you did. Repeat process the next day.

As a part-timer I had a vague idea of the kind of paperwork the fulltimers do. Most of the time they are simple enough, and most of the time I think they spend waaay too much time than they need to with them. I am not wrong in this :P. I especially hate it when there are 3 fulltimers and I was the only parrtimer on duty because they don't do display or any of the physical shit and I would be the only doing display and later on, packing shelf. It is fucking annoying to have 3 'bosses' all telling you to do different things. Even more so when they are all telling you to do the same things. By then I'd just roll my eyes and snap back. I've always had my suspicions of people pretending to be busier than they really are so they can avoid drudge work (I know who you are :P). But as a lowly mindless slave, it is not your place to comment on them. Most of the time, their tardiness do not affect you. Most of the time.

Fulltimers' main focus is their section and their merchandise. Eventually they are expected to know everything that their merchandiser knows like ordering, warehousing, negotiating etc. And surprise, surprise, they are expected to know how to teach parttimers to be able to do their display so they can spend more time in the counter doing ordering and shit. Of course this doesn't mean you don't go to the shelf at all. It just means you have more free time thinking about how to improve your sales than doing mindless things other people are hired for.

Before I had a section, I was a homeless nomad. I already mastered the skills of a super part-timer which included some of the skills of a fulltimer. I have a strong basic and was taught the advanced things quite quickly compared to the other newbies who came with me. But because my 'teachers' were often distracted I could barely learn much at first. That was the weekend after all. Therefore in between, not allowed to display, I just stayed at the counter serving customers until I am sent out to pack shelf. It's funny how much freedom I have in my own section and how other 'people' can't easily order me around anymore. And the things they order me around for, I can see now that some of those things they are supposed to be doing anyway but couldn't mostly due to poor time management. Nobody told these people how we are supposed to work fast and efficiently around here?

Briefing time was different too, for me. Anything I had to share usually only things that effect me, my section and people who do display there. Nothing I said felt as important as clearing one trolley and sending it inside because that actually has a big impact on our day to day. I suppose I have yet to realize how important my current duties are. Sometimes when I'm doing work inside the counter, I look out and try to imagine what goes on in the part-timer world and felt out of touch because I really don't know what they are doing. I usually know exactly how the displays are going; how many trolleys are out there, what sections fill them, what sections can be cleared quickly and what sections are constipating etc etc. Now I just don't know. I still feel that I do need to know those things in addition to my own shit. I am still being taught a lot of things so I can't really work according to my own schedule yet. I look forward to working according to own pace. I just hope the slower pace of fulltime work won't make me lazy though.

To reward you guys for reading through this dry post, here's a picture of walabies from the Kristiansand Zoo in Norway.

Ta'ra!

My New Shelf

I finally got around to transporting my shelves to Kuching all the way from IKEA! I only managed three small ones on this trip, and I still have a lot to go, especially the big ones. But I think I'll just courier them over instead of travelling with them, since they are so heavy. My room looks turqoisey blue in these pictures but it is actually green. I actually wanted my room this color, but the shade of green I got was the closest I could get.

Notice my porn smiling on the shelf?

Not pictured: (non-porny) books to fill the shelf.

And also you can see the line of hooks I imported all the way from IKEA. Hooks are easy to bring because they are small. But who cares! I FINALLY HAVE A SHELF OVER MY HEAD WHOOOOOO!!! Now, if only I have my funky books to fill it? xD

Oh yes, I haven't introduced my boutique yet. I kept forgetting to take pictures of it. Here's a picture of the sign. I think I'll put te rest in facebook for promoting purposes xD.

Signage designed by The Other Farah.

Ta'ra!