Letters to my future self

8th dec - life of an underpaid FnB worker

ok, so..... i'm back. unfortunately, i'm not as quite enjoying the holidays this time round. one, i'm plagued by financial woes again (which is the indirect effect of the next point i'm going to make) and... that i have to find a job in a 'relevant industry' to clock in 250 hrs of 'industry experience' as a graduation requirement.

the defination of 'relevant' here is pretty vague, but we were told 'hospitality' or 'FnB'. so retail is out, and my work experience with mart doesnt count. fortunately (and unfortunately) i've managed to find myself a job in one of the japanese restaurant chains (name omitted, lessons learnt from the ns incident) here in singapore. which is really a terrible terrible idea for many reasons.

1) this is the worst period to work in this industry
2) its a chain located in a heavily frequented shopping centre IN TOWN

and other small details which add to the overall amount of work that needs to be done over similar jobs in industry.

... and it pays peanuts. and i'm not talking abt nkf golden peanuts here. more like... 'lol5.5/hrlol' peanuts.

no benefits apart from the promise that i get to work 5 days a week minimum, and that the pay doubles on a public holiday (public holiday eves dont count)

which basically means that i'll be spending my xmas eve, xmas, new yr eve and new yr working. *sigh*

i cant say the work is extremely unbearable, my biggest complains is no doubt the weekends, where i feel that pay is unjustified for the amount for work that needs to be done and despite having my shift end at 10, more often then not, i'm only leaving the joint at 11pm on the really bad days.

in contrast to many jobs that i have taken before, this is by far, the one that pays the least for the most amount of energy put into.

only 1 good thing has actually come out of taking on this job - i'm actually more conscious of the money i'm spending right now, since i tend to relate the amt i spend to the amt time i have to spend to recover that money.

take for example, my trips to work there an back daily is ~$4 (damn u, transport companies) which means that per day that i'm working, i'm working the 1st 43mins jus to cover back my transport costs.

and that my carls jr dinner tonight offset todays takings by nearly 3 hrs.

at this point however, i cant decide which is better, to earn more and spend without thought, or earn peanuts and spend more conservatively...

*sigh*
-out-