Working 13 hours !!!

Last week was a real test of our endurance. Our main staff on afternoon duty, Palla, had to go with her boyfriend to Penang for his first time application of a tourist visa. The trip to Penang for this application takes in total 4 days. She left on Wednesday and was scheduled to return on Saturday evening.

At the same time, our evening supervisor who is also our cashier took 8 days off from Sunday, 1st October to Sunday, 8th October. The unplanned leave she took threw us off guard and suddenly from Wednesday to Saturday, John and I were stuck with having to work day and evening.

We had only one jeep between the two of us and while John was scheduled to work days and myself the evenings, we had to be awake for the total duration of the working works. I had to take him to work for our opening at 1pm and he had to return to fetch me back from work when I finish at 2am.

The positive effect of this hair raising event is that we know we are capable of handling the situation. But it is certainly an event that we would not want repeated. Our normal day off is Sunday and due to the lack of cashiers for that whole week, we had no day off for the last two weeks. We were truly very happy when Palla came back on Sunday for the day shift and we could then concentrate on the night shift. Hopefully, this weekend will be uneventful and we can have our well deserved rest.

Yesterday we also had the tap for Chang draught beer installed. So, now we have another added item to our vast menu. Preparing for the installation was another event altogether. When we discussed with the supplier for the installation of the draught beer, nothing was mentioned about compressors and cylinders. Couple of days before the installation of the tap, the Chang technician came and said that we had to prepare a space for the compressor.

He gave the measurements to John and suddenly it looked like we might not have sufficient space for the compressor behind the bar. After some juggling around with space, John had to go to the bar at 9am one morning to cut off a section of the bar preparation area. He had to go early because he had to complete the job before the afternoon shift starts. Luckily he managed to get it in time and now we can offer draught beer to our customers.