It's 2:15am and it just started randomly raining hard. I'm on my way back home from my friends house. We were watching shutter island but I already watched it so I left in the middle of it. I'm a minute away from my house. All that's left is a left turn and I'm on westbriar road. It's raining and I'm going 40 in a 30mph zone. Just barely speeding. I see blue lights flashing behind me. eff. Now you need to understand the situation I'm in right now so let me give you a flashback.
11:30AM: I just finished the STAT 250 final. It was decent. I think I got at least a B on it so I'm satisfied. I go to JC. Chill a little. Then at 1:15pm, I leave to get a haircut.
1:40PM: I pick up my friend jimmy from NoVA to go get lunch and to keep me company while I get my haircut. Get to the hair salon Shanel at 2PM. Lady tells me she has an appointment at 2PM. I didn't bother to make an appointment. I tell her I'll go eat lunch and come back at 3PM. She says perfect. Eat lunch at popeyes with jimmy and get my haircut. Ended up costing 25 dollars. Most expensive haircut I've had in my life but I liked how it turned out so I'm satisfied.
5PM: Get to school, go to JC, get people to go play basketball at the RACC.
9PM: Finish balling. Sucked ass. Missed every three in 5v5 games. Sucked ass. Played the freshmens 3v3 for drinks. Ended up owing them +2 drinks. Had to buy cookie Freshens and Doh arizona green tea. -6$. WTF.
9:15PM: Everyone decided to go eat at Illmee buffet for the late night special of $11.95. Got there at 9:50 but the lady made us wait 10 minutes to eat. Pissed us off. Just 10 minutes early wtf.
10PM: Walk into Illmee for the second time. My phone and everyone elses phone clearly says 10:00PM. Walk in. Lady points to her old, circular, battery clock that is off by 5 minutes and says we have to wait longer. Scammed.
10:05PM: Finally walk in and zergling rush the sushi. Got an entire plate of sushi because they stop making it at 10 so its first come first serve. Ended up eating 69 pieces of sushi to get the max value out of the 11.95 but ended up getting bloated.
10:10PM: I was full. Couldn't eat anymore. Everyone called me "minus EV" and told me I was a Buffet Fish. Pissed me off but it was true. I can't eat very much. Had to sit there and watch everyone enjoy their meal while I was sitting, miserable and too full to even have a bite of anything.
11:00PM: Waited. They are finally done eating. We walk outside of Illmee and just talk a little. Topic of a Movie titled Pirates came up. I didn't believe it existed. Thought of it as a sick bluff. It's real. Wikipedia it. Decided to go to Choi's house and go watch a movie.
11:30PM: Get to the house and go down stairs. Turn on Netflix on XBOX and search through movies to watch. Surprisingly, Pirates was on the list and was about to watch it when we got scammed. It was DVD rental only. Too much scam for one day. I take out my wallet, keys, and cellphone out of my pocket and put it into my backpack. I take off my jeans because it was very hot in the house. I am wearing just a shirt, socks, and boxers. It felt much more comfortable with boxers on. Felt breezy and nice. Keep in mind that I just played basketball for 4 hours and haven't showered since.
12:00AM: I'm very irritated because the 8 of us couldn't come to a decision on what movie to watch for 30 minutes. Just continued to look through the list of movies until Shutter Island came up and everyone started decided to watch that movie. I already know the ending so I didn't want to watch it again. But I didn't complain because everyone else seemed to want to watch it.
1:45AM: Movie is still boring as hell. I'm half way through it. Decide to just go home. Say bye to everyone and head out. Walk outside without my jeans on. Who cares? It was 1:45AM. No ones going to see it. Take my keys out of my backpack and throw the backpack back into my trunk. Start the engine and start driving.
*Climax*
2:05AM: Driving on 123, towards my house. Most of the lights are flashing yellow. I see from a distance one light that isn't blinking and instead is Green. I'm going 40MPH when I'm supposed to be going 30. The green light suddenly turns yellow. I'm in a tricky spot right now. If this was broad day light, 100% of the time I would slow down and stop. But this was 2:05AM. If I sped up super fast, I would still be running a red light, but barely. I speed up like crazy but for some odd reason, I immediately break before the light turned red. I was scared of cops.
2:10AM: I'm literally a minute away from home. One left turn and I'm there. Still on 123. All of a sudden I see flashing blue lights. WTF. WTF. The left turn is about 20 feet away. I know for a fact that I've been going 40mph consistently for the past 5 minutes so I saw no reason for him to wait this long to pull me over. Clearly a scam. I drive 20 more feet, take the left turn towards my house, and pull over. Cop follows right behind.
2:15AM: It's raining hard randomly. It was perfect weather 5 minutes ago. Damn. I pull down my window, keep my hand on the steering wheel and watch the cop come to my window. He asks for my license and registration. I tell him my wallet is in my backpack in the trunk. He tells me to go get it. I grab the handle to open my door and in that second I realized that I am not wearing pants. FUCK. Tricky spot. I open the door with confidence and head towards my opened trunk. He asks in a very tricky, confused, and mocking voice "Why aren't you wearing pants?!?". Tricky man.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
What annoys me at work
I've been working at H-mart for a little over a year now which I'm amazed by. I would have never imagined that I would be dedicated enough to work for this long but now that a year has passed, it wasn't really too bad. I can see now how people can end up working for companies for 10+ years.
I decided to make a top ten list on what I hated/annoyed most from working as a cashier in an Asian grocery store. I swear, cashiers at Giant and Safeway don't have it as bad as me because they don't have to deal with the crap that Asian grocery stores do.
Top 10 things I hate:
10. Working during holidays
I remember asking my manager what days H-mart is closed and he just gave me a sly smile and a reply. "We don't". I was shocked. I can see why the business would be open for the less important holidays like labor day, martin luther king day, columbus day, memorial day, etc. But what about Thanksgiving, christmas, and new years? This past year, I worked all three of those holidays and it SUCKED. Nothing is as depressing as working on christmas night.
9. Language barrier
There isn't a single person that works with me at H-mart who can speak english fluently to have a conversation with. They either know korean or spanish. I can speak korean on a decent level but there is still a clear barrier with trying to get to know my co workers. And with the spanish coworkers, we have very limited conversations. Literally everyday we say the same thing to each other. "Como estas?" "Muy bien". That's it. Occasionally we will say simple phrases that we both understand like "consado" for I'm tired. I used to work at AMC movie theaters which I hated but at least I had people to talk to.
8. Lady with the jacked up coins
I swear to you, there's this old lady that comes to H-mart often, and every effing time she comes, she comes to my line and she pays with change. There's a few people who do this but they usually pay with quarters. This lady straight up whips out a bag with a shit load of pennies, couple nickels, and few dimes. No quarters. But that's not it. Literally every single one of those coins went through some kind of acid attack. I don't understand this ladies purpose for doing this to me. It's like she purposely collects jacked up, erosive coins and comes to H-mart to piss me off. I can't even accept coins like this because I can't give other customers change with these coins. People won't accept it. I'll tell this lady "I'm sorry but these coins are damaged. I can't accept them" but she doesn't understand a single thing I say and I end up accepting them. She doesn't even count the change herself and hand it to me. She just dumps it on the counter and expects me to count it.
7. 10 cent discount maniacs
In H-mart, we have these bags that we sell for a dollar. They are made of some kind of cloth material and it is sold so that customers can bring it when they go grocery shopping so that they can help the world by not consuming plastic bags. We give them a 10 cent discount per bag that they bring. It clearly says on the sign that we only do this for H-mart bags but some people don't read that shit. Only like 5% of customers bring their own bags so its not very common. Some bring a couple bags because they are doing it to recycle, not to save 10 cents. But there are those that are so cheap that they will go crazy as if you forget to discount 10 cents. I forget often to do the discount because A. very few people bring their own bags and B. very few people who do bring bags care about 10 cents. But some ladies will start yelling and go ape shit if you forget to take out 10 cents.
6. Last minute shoppers
H-mart closes at 11 but there are those people, evil people, who come at 10:55 to ruin your life. I tell them that we are closing in 5 minutes but they don't care. They just keep shopping even tho it's 11. I tell them we're closed but they continue to shop. What can I do here? Use force and drag them out? I can't do anything. It's just a shitty spot to be in. I remember this one dude I told him we are closed and he gets really angry and says "WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THEN? JUST STOP NOW? I'M NOT DONE SHOPPING FOR MY GROCERIES. YOU EXPECT ME TO JUST LEAVE IN THE MIDDLE OF SHOPPING?"..... What the fuck? Answer is simply yes, get the fuck out.
5. People who ask dumb questions
I get asked a lot of dumb questions. Some of the top ones are "Do you guys accept cash? What about credit?", "So this is an asian grocery store so do you guys ONLY sell asian food?". This one korean ahjumma came up to me and asked what kind of spices you were supposed to put in some jjigae I've never heard of. How do you expect a 20 year old male to know that?
4. I only brought 50 dollars
These people are just straight up dumb. After I scan all their groceries and tell them its 78 dollars or so, they say oh I only have 50 dollars. If you knew you only have that much, then why would you get so many groceries that is CLEARLY going to exceed that amount? I end up having to void all their shit to lower it to $49.87.
3. Scammers
I know the difference between a white cabbage and green cabbage. White cabbages are lighter in color and are flatter than the green. I also know the difference between an american eggplant and an italian one. Italian ones are smaller and are shaped differently. I also know the difference between regular tomatoes and beef tomatoes. Beef tomatoes are bigger, redder, and has a sticker on them. All these items and its counter parts have a significantly different price. American eggplant can go for 79cents a pound while Italian ones will go for 3.99$ a pound. I know this shit by heart but their are those customers that try to scam you and swear to god that it is the American one and not the italian to get the cheaper deal. You can't scam a scammer.
2. Smelling like fish/chicken
I have to scan a lot of fish and chicken in plastic bags which often times are leaking with the disgusting blood from the animal. The smell of fish I got used to but the smell of chicken blood disgusts me to this day. I end up squirting hand sanitizer every time I touch a bag of chicken. But the worst one is Pork Uteri. You probably have no idea wtf that is but subconsciously you do. Just imagine the most disgusting thing you can think of eating from a pork and imagine how bad it smells. Puts me on tilt.
1. Customers who don't bag their own groceries
I understand that it is my job to bag your groceries but a little help won't hurt. I would say only about 10% of people bag their own groceries. I hate those customers who buy $100+ of groceries and just watch it pile up with nobody to bag it but they don't do anything. They just stare at me, expecting me to do everything.
Sorry for the rant.
I decided to make a top ten list on what I hated/annoyed most from working as a cashier in an Asian grocery store. I swear, cashiers at Giant and Safeway don't have it as bad as me because they don't have to deal with the crap that Asian grocery stores do.
Top 10 things I hate:
10. Working during holidays
I remember asking my manager what days H-mart is closed and he just gave me a sly smile and a reply. "We don't". I was shocked. I can see why the business would be open for the less important holidays like labor day, martin luther king day, columbus day, memorial day, etc. But what about Thanksgiving, christmas, and new years? This past year, I worked all three of those holidays and it SUCKED. Nothing is as depressing as working on christmas night.
9. Language barrier
There isn't a single person that works with me at H-mart who can speak english fluently to have a conversation with. They either know korean or spanish. I can speak korean on a decent level but there is still a clear barrier with trying to get to know my co workers. And with the spanish coworkers, we have very limited conversations. Literally everyday we say the same thing to each other. "Como estas?" "Muy bien". That's it. Occasionally we will say simple phrases that we both understand like "consado" for I'm tired. I used to work at AMC movie theaters which I hated but at least I had people to talk to.
8. Lady with the jacked up coins
I swear to you, there's this old lady that comes to H-mart often, and every effing time she comes, she comes to my line and she pays with change. There's a few people who do this but they usually pay with quarters. This lady straight up whips out a bag with a shit load of pennies, couple nickels, and few dimes. No quarters. But that's not it. Literally every single one of those coins went through some kind of acid attack. I don't understand this ladies purpose for doing this to me. It's like she purposely collects jacked up, erosive coins and comes to H-mart to piss me off. I can't even accept coins like this because I can't give other customers change with these coins. People won't accept it. I'll tell this lady "I'm sorry but these coins are damaged. I can't accept them" but she doesn't understand a single thing I say and I end up accepting them. She doesn't even count the change herself and hand it to me. She just dumps it on the counter and expects me to count it.
7. 10 cent discount maniacs
In H-mart, we have these bags that we sell for a dollar. They are made of some kind of cloth material and it is sold so that customers can bring it when they go grocery shopping so that they can help the world by not consuming plastic bags. We give them a 10 cent discount per bag that they bring. It clearly says on the sign that we only do this for H-mart bags but some people don't read that shit. Only like 5% of customers bring their own bags so its not very common. Some bring a couple bags because they are doing it to recycle, not to save 10 cents. But there are those that are so cheap that they will go crazy as if you forget to discount 10 cents. I forget often to do the discount because A. very few people bring their own bags and B. very few people who do bring bags care about 10 cents. But some ladies will start yelling and go ape shit if you forget to take out 10 cents.
6. Last minute shoppers
H-mart closes at 11 but there are those people, evil people, who come at 10:55 to ruin your life. I tell them that we are closing in 5 minutes but they don't care. They just keep shopping even tho it's 11. I tell them we're closed but they continue to shop. What can I do here? Use force and drag them out? I can't do anything. It's just a shitty spot to be in. I remember this one dude I told him we are closed and he gets really angry and says "WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THEN? JUST STOP NOW? I'M NOT DONE SHOPPING FOR MY GROCERIES. YOU EXPECT ME TO JUST LEAVE IN THE MIDDLE OF SHOPPING?"..... What the fuck? Answer is simply yes, get the fuck out.
5. People who ask dumb questions
I get asked a lot of dumb questions. Some of the top ones are "Do you guys accept cash? What about credit?", "So this is an asian grocery store so do you guys ONLY sell asian food?". This one korean ahjumma came up to me and asked what kind of spices you were supposed to put in some jjigae I've never heard of. How do you expect a 20 year old male to know that?
4. I only brought 50 dollars
These people are just straight up dumb. After I scan all their groceries and tell them its 78 dollars or so, they say oh I only have 50 dollars. If you knew you only have that much, then why would you get so many groceries that is CLEARLY going to exceed that amount? I end up having to void all their shit to lower it to $49.87.
3. Scammers
I know the difference between a white cabbage and green cabbage. White cabbages are lighter in color and are flatter than the green. I also know the difference between an american eggplant and an italian one. Italian ones are smaller and are shaped differently. I also know the difference between regular tomatoes and beef tomatoes. Beef tomatoes are bigger, redder, and has a sticker on them. All these items and its counter parts have a significantly different price. American eggplant can go for 79cents a pound while Italian ones will go for 3.99$ a pound. I know this shit by heart but their are those customers that try to scam you and swear to god that it is the American one and not the italian to get the cheaper deal. You can't scam a scammer.
2. Smelling like fish/chicken
I have to scan a lot of fish and chicken in plastic bags which often times are leaking with the disgusting blood from the animal. The smell of fish I got used to but the smell of chicken blood disgusts me to this day. I end up squirting hand sanitizer every time I touch a bag of chicken. But the worst one is Pork Uteri. You probably have no idea wtf that is but subconsciously you do. Just imagine the most disgusting thing you can think of eating from a pork and imagine how bad it smells. Puts me on tilt.
1. Customers who don't bag their own groceries
I understand that it is my job to bag your groceries but a little help won't hurt. I would say only about 10% of people bag their own groceries. I hate those customers who buy $100+ of groceries and just watch it pile up with nobody to bag it but they don't do anything. They just stare at me, expecting me to do everything.
Sorry for the rant.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Vietnam
Probably wondering why the title is vietnam.
I was at the cash register, just chillen cause there was no one at my line. I see this old white guy, probably 50s, coming to my aisle with two crutches. Just by the way he was using the crutches I could tell he was a pro. This wasn't a "sprained ankle so i gotta use it for a few days" kinda cruches walker. He was a master. He would just plant the two ends of the crutch to the ground and kinda do this leap frog momentum swing to get from point A to point B.
I guessed some kind of disability where his legs were paralyzed. I was wrong. As I got a full view of his body, his left leg was MIA. Where'd it go? Wtf happened to him? Was he born like this? He's pretty buff for an old guy, did he lose it in war?
All these questions in my mind. I knew that the moment he steps out of h-mart, I'm going to regret not asking him what happened to his leg but at the same time that's kinda jacked up. I've been in these situations before. Not once did I ask the person what happened because it's just unstandard and I'm a pretty standard guy.
I was thinking of worst case scenarios of what would happen if I ask him. What would be the worst reaction? I put myself in his shoes. I'm an old white guy. One leg. Mildly decent looking asian kid at h-mart asks me what happened to my missing leg. Wtf is this kids problem? Who asks those kind of questions? You're supposed to not stare at that kind of thing, pretending they are perfectly normal. Except they aren't.
It's like if a midget walked into h-mart to buy food. The moment she comes to my line, I would scan her stuff. Bag it. Take her money. Give her change. Say thank you. Perfectly standard. The moment she leaves, I turn around to choi and say "yo did you see that midget?"
You're not supposed to talk about that kind of stuff TO that person. "Why are you a midget?" That's just inappropriate.
But I was curious so I had to ask about his leg. I'm not used to these kind of questions. These semi rude, should be polite when asking. So I tried to formulate a sentence to say to ask him what happened. What came out was
"Is it rude to ask what happened to your leg?"
Instantly I realized how dumb this question was. This isn't asking him about his leg. It's asking him if I'm being rude. He could just say yes or no and have answered that question. It was just a horrible way to ask him. I SHOULD have said something like
"I'm sorry. This may be rude but I'm very curious. What happened to your leg?"
But naaa. I had to say something quick. So I asked him the question. He stared into my eyes for a second or two. Then he finally opened his mouth and said "Vietnam".
"That's what I thought. Did you step on a land mine"
"Ran over one"
"I'm sorry to hear that"
That's how the awkward conversation started. I read this article about the vietnam war once and the affect it had on the soldiers. One of them was how much the soldiers hated asian people during the war. They HATED them. Wanted to exterminate every single viet they could see. I'm korean yo. This man doesn't know this. I thought about how much he probably hates me. I wanted to ask him the dumbest question "Do you hate asian people?" but that would have been truly the dumbest. That would be full retarded. Can't go that far.
He kept talking to me for a few more seconds about benefits after his leg got cut off. But most of it I just smiled and nodded, pretending to understand what he was saying cause he was so damn quiet. He was basically whispering. All I got out of it was the word benefit from his 2 whispering sentences.
I thought about how great america is though. United states soldier loses his leg at vietnam. Probably gets monthly checks from the government to just live life. Probably doesn't have to work. Probably doesn't make much from it but enough to live a stable life. Probably crappy life but stable. Probably single in a tiny ass apartment. But still, he's living free. Now imagine the vietnamese soldier who lost his leg during the vietnam war. Probably got some crappy ass amputee surgery which consisted of needled morphine injections, a cutting saw, and a lot of towels. After that, he probably was sent back home to do what ever he could to survive. $0 from the government. Surgery was probably free. Probably had to cook noodles for the rest of his life.
I got jumped by vietnamese people once. Well, I didn't. My friend did. I was there. All he did was smile.
I was at the cash register, just chillen cause there was no one at my line. I see this old white guy, probably 50s, coming to my aisle with two crutches. Just by the way he was using the crutches I could tell he was a pro. This wasn't a "sprained ankle so i gotta use it for a few days" kinda cruches walker. He was a master. He would just plant the two ends of the crutch to the ground and kinda do this leap frog momentum swing to get from point A to point B.
I guessed some kind of disability where his legs were paralyzed. I was wrong. As I got a full view of his body, his left leg was MIA. Where'd it go? Wtf happened to him? Was he born like this? He's pretty buff for an old guy, did he lose it in war?
All these questions in my mind. I knew that the moment he steps out of h-mart, I'm going to regret not asking him what happened to his leg but at the same time that's kinda jacked up. I've been in these situations before. Not once did I ask the person what happened because it's just unstandard and I'm a pretty standard guy.
I was thinking of worst case scenarios of what would happen if I ask him. What would be the worst reaction? I put myself in his shoes. I'm an old white guy. One leg. Mildly decent looking asian kid at h-mart asks me what happened to my missing leg. Wtf is this kids problem? Who asks those kind of questions? You're supposed to not stare at that kind of thing, pretending they are perfectly normal. Except they aren't.
It's like if a midget walked into h-mart to buy food. The moment she comes to my line, I would scan her stuff. Bag it. Take her money. Give her change. Say thank you. Perfectly standard. The moment she leaves, I turn around to choi and say "yo did you see that midget?"
You're not supposed to talk about that kind of stuff TO that person. "Why are you a midget?" That's just inappropriate.
But I was curious so I had to ask about his leg. I'm not used to these kind of questions. These semi rude, should be polite when asking. So I tried to formulate a sentence to say to ask him what happened. What came out was
"Is it rude to ask what happened to your leg?"
Instantly I realized how dumb this question was. This isn't asking him about his leg. It's asking him if I'm being rude. He could just say yes or no and have answered that question. It was just a horrible way to ask him. I SHOULD have said something like
"I'm sorry. This may be rude but I'm very curious. What happened to your leg?"
But naaa. I had to say something quick. So I asked him the question. He stared into my eyes for a second or two. Then he finally opened his mouth and said "Vietnam".
"That's what I thought. Did you step on a land mine"
"Ran over one"
"I'm sorry to hear that"
That's how the awkward conversation started. I read this article about the vietnam war once and the affect it had on the soldiers. One of them was how much the soldiers hated asian people during the war. They HATED them. Wanted to exterminate every single viet they could see. I'm korean yo. This man doesn't know this. I thought about how much he probably hates me. I wanted to ask him the dumbest question "Do you hate asian people?" but that would have been truly the dumbest. That would be full retarded. Can't go that far.
He kept talking to me for a few more seconds about benefits after his leg got cut off. But most of it I just smiled and nodded, pretending to understand what he was saying cause he was so damn quiet. He was basically whispering. All I got out of it was the word benefit from his 2 whispering sentences.
I thought about how great america is though. United states soldier loses his leg at vietnam. Probably gets monthly checks from the government to just live life. Probably doesn't have to work. Probably doesn't make much from it but enough to live a stable life. Probably crappy life but stable. Probably single in a tiny ass apartment. But still, he's living free. Now imagine the vietnamese soldier who lost his leg during the vietnam war. Probably got some crappy ass amputee surgery which consisted of needled morphine injections, a cutting saw, and a lot of towels. After that, he probably was sent back home to do what ever he could to survive. $0 from the government. Surgery was probably free. Probably had to cook noodles for the rest of his life.
I got jumped by vietnamese people once. Well, I didn't. My friend did. I was there. All he did was smile.
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