Saturday, January 14, 2023

Putting pieces together (2 of 4): Little things.

After working with my one (Thai) (newlywed) coworker a while, I noticed that like one out of every three shifts when it was slow when we started out working, she'd just be on me about something, like, I should offer chopsticks to every customer, and I shouldn't offer the "side spices" (chili paste and dried chili flakes) to customers, but only give them to customers when they ask for them, and I was going up to tables too fast, that I should give them more time to decide what they want, always something little like that, but not every shift, maybe like once a week.

And, I figured out it was her just being grumpy in the morning, so I was always like, "Okay," and I just went and did whatever I was going to do.

And, you wouldn't believe how many different iPads and shit we have out back behind the counter, because of all the different delivery apps that the restaurant has to deal with, and these have so many little intricacies about how you confirm orders and whatnot, and then there's multiple giftcards, too, that are all entered in different ways.

So, I'd always try to learn, but I'd double-check when I wasn't sure about stuff, since this was dealing with customers's money and making sure orders got in right, and I didn't want to mess anything up or cost the restaurant money.

"I told you once," she'd always be like, when I'd ask about something like that, and I'd demure and say that the last time I dealt with that thing was like a month ago, and one she argued with that and was like, "No, it was two weeks," which I didn't think was right, but I didn't say anything.

Mostly, I figured it was rote learning like they had in (Thailand), since her husband had told me about STEM education there, and it sounded like you just had to listen and recite back what an authority figure told you, without doing any independent thinking or even questioning about anything.

I mean, who doesn't channel past behavior that they were formed in?

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