Friday, January 23, 2009

Intimidation

For lunch, I basically only have 3 restaurants that are close enough to eat at within my 30 minute lunch break: McDonalds (the closest), Quiznos, and Tim Hortons. I'm ashamed to say I've actually eaten at McDonalds 3 or 4 times within the past month because of this! I work at that location twice a week and I'm very much a variety-girl... but I almost always get the Chili w/ a whole wheat country bun at Tim Hortons for $3.99. Cheap, healthy, and good. On the day I don't have Tim Horton's and I don't feel like eating at McDonalds, I head to Quiznos, which is right next to TH. However, I never end up eating there because I'm always intimidated by the customers! They are always all full-grown males! Plus, the path I choose to walk there (cutting through the parking lot) combined with the set up of the tables in the restaurant and the floor to ceiling glass windows increases my level of intimidation. I feel like a caged animal (except I'm actually on the outside). It's definitely an unfamiliar feeling to me... even as a server where I've served such a variety of customers including large-group tables filled with 10 huge males, 4 of which were tattoo-covered, bald-by-choice Caucasians in leather!

I read a Soompi thread quite a while ago on people who were intimidated to shop/eat at a store/restaurant for various reasons such its connotation, the kinds of clothes/products they sell, or the kinds of people who work there. They mentioned stores such as Abercrombie or restaurants like Hooters (lol). I couldn't understand it at the time, but now it's totally the type of customers Quiznos happens to get at that particular location! Next time, I'm going to suck it up (and get take out haha) and I will remind myself that I will be greeted warmly by one of the older Italian employees who is such a sweet, smiley woman.... and because Quiznos is healthier than McDonalds and other than the Chili or their bland club sandwiches, TH is full of junk.

Have you ever felt the least bit intimidated at a store/restaurant? Of certain people?

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Clothes Shopping Ban In Effect

I'm finished clothes-shopping in Vancouver until July 12th! haha
Yesterday, Nad's family + I went down to Westfield Southcenter. Nad and I spent around 7 hours in the mall. which wasn't enough time considering the huge-ness of the mall! We got there around 10:30 (mall opens at 10). For lunch, we decided to go to this cheap sushi restaurant my Aunt told us about called Sushiland and boy was it a mistake. It's like the chain Genki sushi where you sit bar-style and food comes around on plates on a conveyer belt and you choose which ones you'd like to eat. Each plate corresponds with a certain price from $1 to $3. Sushi was mediorcre with the bean curd wrapped rice thingy and the eel being my favourites. The $3 tasted funny - soft shelled crab roll + seared tuna sushi. There was a 15 minute wait (pretty busy.. had to sign in yourself!). There were only 2 or 3 Asian employees in the whole restaurant... all the others were Caucasian or Spanish and one of the girls couldn't even pronounce Agedashi...! Butchea, it's generally pretty cheap but Nad and I ate a lot so the bill came out to be $21USD. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't have some of the menu items I saw on their website like $3 udon bowls.
Anyway, enough about that. Back in the mall, we scoured F21. I ended up getting this thick knit scallop cardigan in a weird gray-purple colour, a cheap black tank, and a $16 knitted pencil skirt from F21, 5 pieces of underwear + a pair of navy blue stockings from PINK (Victoria's Secret), a bra from Victoria's Secret, 7 pieces of underwear ($1.90 each!) + sleeping shorts from Gilly Hicks (massive sale, IMO!), black Kensie mini triangle/diamond stockings and a Mint Julip face mask from Fred Meyer. The only other thing on my list that I didn't get b/c they were sold out was my Le Pliage Large Longchamp bag from Nordstrom...
SA buffered my pinky and tried to sell us some expensive hand cream/nail thingy set, I ate Red Mango's pomegranate yogurt w/ blackberries, and had some sweet tea.

omg My underwear is so cute! lol

Sunday, January 18, 2009

"That's What She Said......"

lolol Xiaxue's blog is so entertaining!

-It is not a crime to prance around pretty with make up. It is a crime to let urself remain ugly when u can make yourself look better.- Xiaxue

Schedule this week:
Monday: States Shopping
Tues: Work @ JH + Work @ home (evaluations)
Wed: Work double shift @ Posh
Thurs: Work @ JH
Fri: Work @ home + get shots + Dine Out @ Sequoia Grill
Sat: Work @ Posh (night shift)
Sun: Work @ home + Grandma's for dinner
Mon (26): Dine Out @ Joe Fortes

I work a lot... need to fit in more family time.

Kiwi Blush

haha Youtube.
I found a series of episodes called Xiaxue's Guide To Life. It's about this girl named Wendy in Singapore and she just... does stuff and it's all documented!
She gets her tongue pierced (shudder!! I can never do this! I actually watched the whole thing...), shows you how to clean the house, gets a tattoo, tries DIY home remedies (egg white mask and mayo hair conditioner), shows you how to bling your gadgets (I want to crystallize my phone now!!), goes to a fish spa, shows you how to put on fake eyelashes, teaches you how to furnish a princess room (lol)... kills a live crab to cook (how INHUMANE!), and tries to lose weight via acupuncture... among many many MANY other things.
haha she's funny! Talks a lot and kind of hard to understand! Singlish..
She's actually a celebrity TV personality and blogger too! www.xiaxue.blogspot.com

Served such a nice and polite group of 8 Koreans last night =) 7 guys and 1 girl. I think they were 19 and all the guys were gentlemen aww it was so enjoyable! Even a couple co-workers told me they really liked that table and came around often just to check up on them even if it wasn't their table to serve. You know, I think it's part of a customer's job to just be kind and courteous back to the server. Yes, servers are paid for their job to provide the best possible dining experience no matter how badly the customer treats them and I'm proud that everyone I currently work with does that, but we, as people, react. We feed off the way customers respond. I've seen it happen and I do it too - even if the customer is being a total ick (which is quite rare), we try our best and treat them as if they were having a great day but we don't want/feel that they deserve any extra bit of service (though we do do it). For happy customers, the servers go beyond and want to do even more for their customer. All you have to do is be positive and polite and, unless the server is an ick him/herself, you will get an even better restaurant experience.