Hahaha back to the story, the first B stands for BIG (did I say it is not Big Beautiful Woman? Ha yes I did, be patient.), the another B stands for BAD (ha, scratch that! It's not beautiful, it's bad!), and finally the big fat W stands for WOLFFFFF. Ah woooooOoooo.
There you go. The Big Bad Wolf Book Sales. ;)
One thing you must know about BBW Book Sales is that they sell books at extremely cheap price. DIRT CHEAP PRICE. Cheapest price you can find elsewhere. :D
.....
Okay, last November I've applied a job online (thanks to Weijan for the recommendation) and I got hired successfully after a short briefing at Book Xcess bookstore, located in the Amcorp Mall (google it if you don't know). So I am the floor and stock crew team member. :) The duration of my work was 21 days, starting from the 3th of December until the 24th December. Hahaha, such a long period don't you think? But nehh, all the sweats, hardwork and the lessons learnt are well paid off. Speaking of a good paying job like this, it is not easy. I repeat, IT IS NOT EASY. It's intensed, tiring, stressful, and boring (if you're not a fan of books). But on the brighter side, you get to know a lotsssss of new people, who eventually become your new cycle of friends of all age, ranging from the 18-30. That's right. If you're a fan of books (like me!), hahaha well I enjoy working with books so I basically don't have much complainsss about it. Peace.
It was my first time working, tbh. What I want to gain in this job is more to experience, rather than the money. I'd love to know how does it feels like to communicate with other people in this society, how to work well with them, how to tolerate yet be strict at the same time, how they behave and such. I am more courageous than before when it comes to talking and requesting. I am quite proud to say that there was no shy-ness or awkwardness in any conversations between me and the people there, it was like.. "Hey! May I help?" and that leads to "Hey buddy!" in the next few hours. The set-up days were stuffy (no air-cond), heaty, stressful (as we need to constantly add in stock above and below the tables from the storage area, arrange them nicely), and crazy (the venue of the sales = 3 halls = it's huge). I was in charge in Children section that time, with Jan, Jeesin, and Mongyen. (it was the most horrible section, so many stuff and books needed to be displayed that we could practically gone mad anytime). All of us felt so relieved whenever the siren alarms - indicating that we're free for 1/2 an hour for our precious lunch/dinner break. Rushing out of the hall like a criminal, the feeling to get some rest is just so good! Haha, sounds like a jail break right?
After setting up, pinning the red clothes, adjusting the huge BBW banners, cashier-counter-packer training, almost of us were ready for the media-preview day. :)
On that day itself, all of us wore BBW-orange T-shirt (that we get for free) and good god, we all looked so cheerful! xD Hahaha. Some of the working mates were assigned to be the superheroes themed- mascots. It was so cool. Some people even designed costumes made of recycleable paper boxes.
OCBC staffs get to shop for the books that they want as well! It was a treasure hunt held, all the staffs were basically running around the hall, grabbing their favourite (as expensive as possible) books away (god knows what book they grabbed :P), hahaha it was amusing and fun looking their happy yet tiring faces when they were heading to the cashier counter. Not long after that, those who got the Preview Passes got the chance to step into the hall to purchase the fresh-from-oven-BOOKS before the date of the official sales. How lucky, weren't they?
The first sentence (almost every) customer said will always be,
"OH MY GOD. *looking left to right, right to left* WHERE SHOULD I START???" with that extremely excited face, pulling their luggage bags/trolley/recycleable bag (on wheels).
WOW I must say. It was my first time encounter with something like this. People actually bring luggage to store their books! WOW. It was indeed wow-I-am-speechless. Pardon me, I've never been to BBW Books Sales before so I don't have the habit of seeing people with luggage in book sales but well I know now. BBW Book Sales is exceptional! :D
One of the epic loud conversation I overheard was,
"Baby you go the children section bringing boy. Girl you go to the fiction area. Boy follows Mama closely, Mum you go to the cookery section and the rest go to where-ever section you want, I'll be at the History section. See y'all here later!" instructed the dad of a family before they said OKAY and separated for their hunts, bringing their own bags.
Yes, it's crazy once again. I saw a lot of book-lovers and book-enthusiasts! <33 It makes me happy, I don't know why. :D
Btw just incase you're wondering, I was assigned to take care of books at Self Help section. :P Met my team mates, exhanged hellos etc. Sooo many books and tables to take care of but blehhh (I shouldn't have rant too much because apparently business's section was hell more than that. Hallelujah I'm in self-help) :D Jee sin was in charge of Religion/Reference section, Jan at cashier counter, and Mong yen at children section. :) Hahaha. In self-help section, my ex-leader went to become part of the sorting team (those who sort unwanted books that were being dumped on the floor by the customers). William was my leader for two weeks, I was so called his "assistant" for two weeks as well. We hardly speak English to each other, guess what we language did we use to communicate? (Cantonese). Hahaha, laugh all you want. I bet none of my friends have ever heard of me speaking Cantonese before. I-myself was surprised too, of course there were times I didn't know what word to substitute the things that I wanted to say so I used English instead. #likeaboss
It feels great actually, at least I have someone to speak Cantonese with, which in turn trained me to become a better and fluent Cantonese speaker. :P (I'll never forget the love story that you told me, William. How you celebrated your anniversary, how sweet you were to your girlfriend, how nervous you were when you wanted to ask my idea about "gift", etc. Okay if you happened to read this, William, don't kill me. Haha. You're a good man!)
Bahhh, during the second week of working days, some of the floor crew team were being dragged to help cashier team due to the massive crowd during the midnight sales, I wasn't excluded. In fact, I was being dragged during the days when my friends came over to look for me. :( I was a little bit upset that I couldn't direct them but I got to meet them at last! <3
Oh yeah, another crazy fact you must know is, BBW Book Sales do open their door to the crowd during midnight! Crazy? Insane? I KNOW. The response was so overwhelming, more people came during midnight/midmorning just to buy the books that they want. :)
Have I not tell you about the food that we ate? Hahaha, food were provided during work, I mean during lunch/dinner break. It was.. well I don't want to tell how it looked or tasted like. There were food stalls on the second floor for the customers who wish to rest before continuing their book shopping. :D KFC, Tomyam stall, Sushi King, Chicken Rice, Pizza Hut, etc. :P Sometimes our crews went up, sneaked to the food stalls and dine there instead. Hahaha, shhh but the tomyam there was the best! The currypuff too. xD
.......
If (you) have been to the last BBW book sales last December, there was a deejay hosting the sales from 9am til 9pm, who is quite informative, and effective in reporting missing items/people SUCH AS baby socks, little innocent kids, baby bottles, wallets, WIFE/HUSBAND and many other valuable (sometimes laughable) items/human beings. The songs being played accordingly was
1) Live While We're Young 2) Skyfall 3) Locked Out Of Heaven 4) Diamonds 5) and the list goes on repeating reapeating and repeating DAILY. Hahaha sounded boring but these songs are so much better than the old songs with no lyrics that were being played during the first week. Bahh, I tell you. If these didn't exist, all the floor teams would be so bored, hearing the sound of chattering crowd, loud scream by kids, bahhh it was so tempting me to sleep. :3 Hee. Thanks again, deejay/s for the entertainment. :)
On not so positive side, some of the crews were being shot by a gun (fire in another word) silently, I mean maybe bosses found out that they violated the rules and hence BANG. (fired). There you go, the intensed mood, the stressful feelings, the will-I-get-shot-by-a-gun-silently-as-well worries, which actually affected one of my days during my work. The fear of getting none after all the hard work, the fear of losing pride. Thankfully, I managed to survive until the end. :) Thanks to my teammate who constantly worked hard with me together, eat together, kill boredom together, have fun together and last but not least being AWESOME together. :)
Hereby I'd like to thank a person as well, for keep cheering me up by sending manymany sweet text messages. :) Those messages really made my day, you mindreader. Can't stop smiling, I became more positive after the period of unnecessary worries. Hence thank you, dear mindreader. :)
When I was part of the huge team, the people that we have to face everyday were the customers. No matter how demanding, how irritating, how nice, how kind, how desperate they are, we have to plaster a smile on our best, trying our best to assist them and answering their multimillion questions. There was a few days when the customers were actually asking for the Chicken Soup Series (which were all sold out on the second day), they even were willing to wait for me to finish my dinner so that I could stock up the series as soon as the sorting team send in any new stock. Hoah, I tell you the pressureeee. :O
Nonetheless, through conversations with them, I get to know more of new books, authors whom I never heard of but who is super duper famous like Mitch Albom, Robert Kiyosaki, Robin Sharma,.. Books like "Fifty Shades of Grey", "Outliers", "Don't Sweat The Small Stuff", "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", "How To Win Friends and Influence People", "Rich Brother, Rich Sister", "How Starbucks Saved My Life", "The Five People You Meet In Heaven".. have you heard any of these titles before? Good if you had. I was the otherwise. Before the second week of working, these titles sounded so strange to me! As time passes, I can recognise the books so well now to the point that I grin whenever I'm at mph bookstore, reminiscing the days at BBWBS. :)
Well, the best memory in BBW working life is definitely the awesome people I met there. :) I just love the togetherness and I'm missing everyone now! Not to mention, the higher status- staffs are equally friendly too. Kak Lina.. Ms. Christine.. Mr. Mogan.. Ms. Samantha.. :) Despite of some manager who were strict (which scared me a little) but I totally understand that they are doing their job in monitoring us. :)
On the last day of the sales, all of the team mates couldn't wait for the arrival of 9pm! :) The deejay, upon receiving requests from the customers to extend the time, he finally announced,
" Ladies and gentlemen. Here is a good news I would like to share with you. The sales is going to close at 10 o'clock tonight! So hurry up, do the quick book shopping, grab as much books as you can."
All the crews = jawdropped.
Some of the customers did chuckle and said, "Haha, extra pay for you guys!" continuing picking her book and ciao. :B
......
During the last minute, all of us gathered to count down. And ding ding! "Thank you ladies and gentlemen for all the supports. The BBW Book Saled officially ends tonight. Goodnight!". Woohoo. \\m// Hell, it was very fun. :D
On the 'dismantle' day, it was pretty tiring. Putting the books back into paperboxes, wrap it, arrange them in the palettes nicely and wrap it like a huge present, which to be sent to the storage area. Our last dinner was KFC + Pizza Hut + soft drinks. ;')
And then! A few months after that, which was end of February to early of March this year, I got myself engaged with BBW Aftermath Sales again, at the same place. Hahaha. :D This time, I came as the EX-crew, (sounded so old omg /.\ ) and I was assigned as one of those ex-crews to lead the new team members. :)
Truth be told, the last time I led such a huge team was during the time in high school. I tried my best in assisting them, giving them work to do equally, helping each team, and interacting well with them. My section this time is Non-fiction which was very huge. 72 islands (2x2 long tables) can you imagine. T___T The hall was somehow smaller, 1/3 of the huge hall last time! Books are lesser, the spaces were quite limited for walking. The most crazy incident that happened for this sales was the queue which was super duper long, until the customers have to make a S shape from the entrance. Yeh, queue from cashier counter until the main entrance and from the main entrance until.. nowhere. :O
Hahaha. The people I met there (mostly juniors) were generally nice. In the end, I am able to manage my section well and this is all thanks to my team mates who did their job well too. :)
Let me present you some group photos. :D
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Last Dec BBW Book Sales. :)
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Aftermath Book Sales :)
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Hi, I am a temporary iron lady. :3
Lessons learnt!
When we just get to know a person, all we see is appearance, the surface of the heart which is so pure and innocent. When we get to know the person deeper, (as time goes along), we'll finally see the colour of the heart, the true personality and all the bads -attitudes/manners/temper/whatever. Hence, don't judge when we first see a person, how he/she/they treat us on the first day knowing us will be soo completely different compared to the 54th day of knowing each other. (Well, just saying anyway). A few of my friends and I were being accused on the first day, it was not so pleasant at all. So 'sueh' on the first day itself, but we were friends after that. Oh yeah, please standup for youself if you did nothing wrong. Be nice to everyone you meet, but be wise at the same time. I found out that some people are good in talking, bossing around, ordering/instructing, lazying - are never good at doing their work properly. Keyboard warriors as they say. :/
Mouth -other than to eat, it is used to talk, but words cannot be given out based on temporary dissatisfaction or bad temper. Once they are blurted out, we'll feel extremely sorry. Another point I'd like to point out is, do not be disrespectful. Whoever we are going meet, they have something to teach us. Do not belittle anybody, learn from what they have to offer instead.
P/S : I found it very enjoyable to work with books. I am happy to be able to help all the customers that I have encountered to find the books that they want. :) The "thank you thank you thank you so much!" reply to your favor feels so nice. The process of finding the books indeed were tough, but it was all worth it in the end. I like it! :)
PP/S : The most proud experience I had was that I made a customer dissapointed because I can't find the book that she wanted, however in the very last minute. I FOUND IT. Praise to lord, I searched for the customer (who wanted it) in the sea of crowd and praise to lord once again, I found her. It was a grateful day :')
PPP/S : If you ask me whether will I work with BBW again, I'll hesitate no more but to say yes. :)
PPPP/S : By the way, this blogpost has no intention in offending anyone. If my words happened to hurt you in anyway, please accept my deepest apology.
PPPPP/S : BBW Book Sales was held at Penang a few weeks ago and now they are heading to Kuantan! Please support and get the information on their facebook page. :) https://www.facebook.com/bbwbooks
PPPPPP/S : HEY I AM DONE WITH THIS BLOGPOST HAHAHA YAY.
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