So, June last year I worked at F&N for a short 2 weeks before Hari Raya, under recommendation from my Bing Qian who's working at some other garbage job , he basically took every job in the universe so idk fam but anyway that agent he recommended me, let's call him J.
So, the job description is promoting drinks. Alright, let that sink in. Promoting drinks.
I'll get back to that later. So I thought to myself, you know, the pushcarts you see at NTUC, the aunties with their Ribena, eh I guess I can promote drinks. I can just banter around and say "wanna try" to every cunt walking past me or just raise cups like Leonardo DiCaprio in that scene
I mean, I'm quite a influencer myself. I influenced my friends to play Blackshot when I was in Sec 1, influenced my friends to play Mousehunt... Influencer confirmed. The biggest plus was the job location was at the NTUC at AMK Hub. I was salivating at that thought. No need to travel for 1.5 hours, unlike now for some 1 hour tutorial at the Far East of Singapore? Sign me up.
Anyway, on that day of the interview, I actually ate lunch with my boy YX at 18 Chefs and guess who's back? Your boy Irritable Bowel Syndrome known as IBS the MOTHER FUXKER who has tormented me since Sec 4 striked again and it was a doozy. YX was quite worried but I went for it anyway, there's money up for grabs and my mum will surely complain if I 'waste my time at home playing computer games' so I just endured and went on a trip down to the office district.
The agent, J, was messaging me frantically cause there was a briefing going on for the job by F&N people and he didn't want me late. The problem was I felt like puking every 10 seconds so obviously your boy couldn't really walk fast. I told him I had gastric problems and he's like "k but still, get here on time cause I don't give a fxxk fam just kys and get yo ass here"
Anyway I was around 10 minutes late but I still managed to get into the briefing. Inside a room was like 30+ guys listening to some presentation by F&N on their target audience, branding, competitors (Coca Cola hah) and the new drinks they were promoting. So, (not paid by them now btw) the new flavour was Lychee Pear for our dear Muslim friends, and yadda yadda don't talk to Coca Cola salesboy btw yada yada.
On that day itself, my mother came along with me to NTUC as I was uncertain on how to start my job. Like, the briefing told me useless corporate garbage and not who to report to, what to ACTUALLY DO ON THE DAY ITSELF. So when I went down to NTUC I tried to find the manager of the store to get me pushcart and start riding round town like I'm Judge Joe Brown. Turns out there wasn't any pushcarts. Ok, so I promote drinks while standing there? Without samples? Alright, that's a little less convincing but if that's how you wanna promote your drinks I'm down. So I stood in front of a row of drinks, with my bright green shirt and confused face just telling people "Buy these drinks it's $1 each
Alright, remember the part just now about promoting drinks? Let it be known, that the job description clearly emphasised on promoting drinks for the festive season, and also restocking it on the shelves. This was Day 1. Soon, I realised I wasn't here to promote drinks. I was here as cheap labour.
One guy from NTUC just came up to me, and in a mix of Mandarin and English "Hey you're from F&N right? Come and move these whole stack of drinks from the opposite end of the visible light spectrum to here"
I didn't know what he was talking about. This is my first day on the job, ffs. I thought this was the F&N corner?
Turns out theres another part of the supermarket with drinks, and the supermarket is half renovating so there was a stack of leftover sad depressed abandoned drinks in the middle of nowhere. I asked how the hell am I supposed to do that shit by myself, and turns out I had to borrow a trolley from the storage.
I forgot to mention this earlier, but I had to sign in on a book before I came for my job, and also take a selfie of my depressed face to send to my agent. I had never went into the deep underbelly of a supermarket before and I was intrigued when I went in. There was an air conditioned storage with a security desk with tons of bags of other part timers like me behind him. He was also the guy to look for when I needed to rent a trolley. I put my bag there and had frequent breaks to drink water just to escape from the monotony of this job.
Connected to this room is the carpark of AMK Hub. Hot, loud, smelly. Lorries with goods were making a ruckus, tons of boxes everywhere and a rubbish dump at the side with a smell that I can probably smell right now and throw up on. I held my breath every time I went in that place. So apparently, I had to restock by moving crates of drinks from here and to the front. Did you ever notice goods being on top of shelves at supermarkets? If there were gaps at the top, I was supposed to move drinks from the carpark, onto the top of the shelves. Then, if there were gaps at the shelves, I take the drinks on top of the shelves and put them on the shelves. That sounds quite simple right?
In practice, these are 1.5L drinks, in crates of 12. If you've ever carried such an object, you will know it's not that bad to carry. But hear me out. What about, lifting this above your head to put on top of the shelves?
I came back home after my first day to discuss this with my parents. The consensus, don't injure yourself, just do what you can.
Second day, third day, I don't recall the specifics. What I can tell you, is that for every passing day I promoted less but carried more. I come and the shelf is half empty? Well, guess it's MOVING DRINKS FOR THE WHOLE DAY THEN. IT'S NOT LIKE I'M HERE TO PROMOTE DRINKS OR ANYTHING RIGHT? HUH? NOT ENOUGH ICE CREAM SODA? GUESS I GOTTA GO AND PULL SOME OUT OF MY ASS AND PUT THEM ON THE SHELF.
If you know anything about me, you would know I have injured my right arm a grand royal total of 3 times. Injuring myself again? Hell no. No way I'm going to risk my arm for $8 an hour. I carried crates 1 by 1, used trolleys and ambled around when I got tired of staying at 1 spot. I also made a friend, guess who, the Coca Cola guy, my counterpart who is in Poly and hating his life as much as me. I ended up exchanging Insta handles before we left and I still follow him till today.
Here comes the big boy problems, there's this guy who comes along every now and then, I suspect on weekends only, to restock drinks and he orders me around like I'm his dog. I get it, I'm a new guy so I will follow you, I won't try and be some twat but because Big Chungus was bigger in size of course he's gonna lift more drinks and shit. So on a certain fine day I noticed there was a Kyogre raid going on at AMK Mrt, and what luck BC had to come at that time to order me around. I slipped away just to get a shot at the raid and slipped back, and when I returned he interrogated me on my whereabouts. I just said I went to buy a drink cause lifting drinks with a skinny frame like me ain't too easy. He said there were cameras around watching me and if they complain then I will be in trouble. Alright alright BC I know you're Malaysian and fat and all but this is not my job. Your job is to carry drinks, my job is to apparently promote??? At this point, I wonder why am I here.
After I realised BC only came on the weekends, I was relieved. The weekends over meant I can do my stuff in peace. Even though there was more shifting every day, I took some time out farming FGO events. Later on, I regretted not farming more during this time. Cause it was apparently the best time to farm QP but guess I gotta be a good worker right? I still used my phone often though haha.
The manager of the store, can't remember his name so I called him X, was a real nice guy. He's not the manager per se, but he was in charge of drinks and dry rations or something. I came to him to get him to sign my attendance every day but he's so elusive and busy it was a struggle finding him. At the end, I had to get him to chop my sheet with NTUC's logo and doing that was certainly arduous. It still worked out in the end so I was relieved.
So, nearing the end of my short stint, I went from promoting drinks to everything but promoting drinks. F&N had things other than the carbonated drinks, and anything under them was apparently my problem as well. Mineral water. Syrup. 100 Plus. That's my problem. BC was furious when he saw those stuff 'not at the front' cause I'm supposed to push them in front when people take them off the shelf. So I had to apparently, move stock from warehouse to front, carry them up the shelves, organise shelves, and last but not least, probably the least important, definitely not what I came here for, 100% the thing nobody cares about, promote a certain set of carbonated drinks to the general public.
Guess what I did the most.
To end of this post, I would like to talk about some interesting characters I found. There was this guy, 50+ male, who took my trolley filled with plastic and cardboard , dumped the rubbish at 1 side, dropped his drinks in it and walked away.
Now you might be thinking, it's just a trolley right? Just get another one. Except this trolley has a number on it. And a sign that says Not for use of the general public, for staff only. And it was registered under my name, at the logbook.
This dumbass went to take the trolley, when I was busy not looking after my trolley cause I had things to do. Gave me a shock but not so much cause in my heart I knew this will exactly happen, I've always had paranoia issues about losing my stuff. This just justified it more. I ran like lightning around the store and found that dumb cunt, told him off politely (is there such a thing?)
Sir, this trolley is not for you. I'm begging you, I'LL MAKE 1 TROLLEY HERE RIGHT NOW JUST GIVE ME THIS ONE BACK. FFFFFFFFFFF
I had to run and take another trolley, bring it back to Your Majesty and transfer everything myself. Took my trolley back. Please. From that moment on I had to check on my trolley every 5 minutes.
Also, there was this old man with a bandage that is almost dropping off that comes and make rounds once in a while. He was grumbling out loud to himself, and everyone avoided him. It's clear that he has mental issues. Feels really bad but I can't do anything about it, especially since I'm working. His bandage was covering a really large wound that looks red and raw. I was afraid of him getting an infection. Really makes my heart ache when I think about it. He needed help but nobody offered help. I'm sure he doesn't mean any ill too.
Lastly, there's this young woman, looking like from China, wearing a F&N jacket. She asked me to help her set up this refrigerator. I didn't know whether I could like complain to her or something. Not sure if she was a higher rank than me in this organisation. Maybe we are both privates. Till this day she's still there, I saw her recently.
Well, I guess it's still a learning experience for me. Despite how bad it was, I still learned.
