Dear Dreams

[Monday, 19 September, 2006]

Jonshit made this possible for me to be involved in the Cocktail and dinner event at Capital Tower and thanks to my elder brother for lending me all the formal clothes and shoes.

I was all excited about it but of some worries as usual due to my inexperience of “outside” life. I supposed that was why Quek asked me to be “open” to the world, inclusive of showing me the partially-indecent night life.

I read through the email Jenny sent to me a number of times and even listed down the sequence of events in a small piece of paper; I was ready for a new learning phase of my life, into the practical world.

I could not doze off for more than two hours again but managed to get up by one in the afternoon. Lunch sucked totally with the packet rice full of only vegetable. I took only a few spoons and felt so full, or perhaps, had totally lost my appetite.

I made it early to the building, eager yet nervous about the job scope. The security was bad that you just had to fill up a row on a paper (unchecked) and you would be issued a paper visitor pass. I took the escalator up to the second level to catch the flock of lifts which would lead me up directly to level thirty-seven and from there I transited to level fifty-two. The lifts were at least thrice as fast as lifts in HDB flats.

I was there the earliest and soon the friendly Alvin and Rita met up with me and introduced themselves, bringing me more delights that the staffs were so friendly. Jenny arrived later and I was glad to see that she was young and energetic. We started unpacking some of the equipments.

Soon, I was shown to the place of arrival of guests, but Cecilia and I were pushing the trolley down to level two, we were stopped by the so-called security guard. Although we were at fault but we had received no instruction that we could not push it there and that guy was creating a nuisance out of it, terrorizing our ears. We were led to the cargo lifts but we decided to hand-carry the umbrellas down and then hand-carry the trolley back.

I was issued the walky-talky with ear-piece but luckily they took the troublesome ear-piece back before I hurt my ear by pushing it inwards every time anyone talked. Then, I went to settle some labelling stuffs.

I got to know this friendly girl Vernye who worked with me at the first storey to welcome and usher the VVIP. She was stationed at the counter with one of the six models who were dressed in Qi Pao, whereas, I was stationed by the roadside to receive the shuttle on the first go. It was funny that most of the time when I looked from far inside, the building’s floor manager seemed to be flirting with the model.

It was a boring job by the road side since there was only a small shuttle bus and some vans. The first bus brought only three guests over, which was pathetic. I still carried out my job to smile sweetly at them and ushered them over to the main door, but it was a weird feeling that they did not even care to look at me. The next few shuttles were almost the same, pathetic, since most of the guests came on their own and not from the hotel directly.

I realised the greatest problem was that the shuttle bus could not stop right at the door due to a height limit of 2.2 metres. The first van which went in were stopped and had to reverse back. The security guard came to me and said I was supposed to stop them at my location before they could turn in but soon I started to feel ridiculous and I supposed they got to realise the vans were not that tall.

Since a few batches of guests were brought over by the bus and thus had to alight at the junction to walk in, I believed they probably felt stupid. Moreover, we had to make a very little contour around the wall instead of walking straight because it was the driving path, and it could have given them a bad feeling.

Cecilia had so sweetly brought a bottle of mineral water down for me but it was so pathetic that all the dustbins were taped up and I had to walk until the bus-stop to throw it away. I had ushered only around five batches of guests over and it was boring to stand there alone of course.

There was a passer-by who asked me for direction to the SIA building but I embarrassed myself when I did not know the answer. Luckily she did not know I stayed so nearby. Then, one of the guests asked me how to get to Fullerton hotel but I could not answer him as well but he was so ridiculous to say that “Oh you don’t know English” when I was answering him in English all the while.

There was also a crap that when some of the guests wanted to leave, the person in charge of the shuttle could not make exception to allow them to get seated inside the van first when it was just minutes to the scheduled time, claiming that the van could not park there when the guests had even walked over to the main road in front of the vans.

I was there for the whole day until nine o’clock, and I was called up for dinner with Vernye and the model. I could alas take a few looks at the scenery, which was grand from the fifty-second storey. Dinner was Yang-Zhou fried rice, some vegetables, beef which I could not take, sweet and sour fish and wrapped meat like a dumpling. The dinner was alright but to be able to dine there was a bonus because not many people could dine at China Club.

However, we were called by Jenny to go down to usher the guests out as the event seemed to end earlier and I had only taken a little food, which was very good as compared to others who were starving.

I went to the thirty-seven storey to usher the smaller group of guests who attended the dinner. It was the time when I found it most satisfying because some of the guests smiled at me and even said thank; it was a sense of achievement too for my good service.

After all the guests had left, the few of us went up to help out with the packing up of the stuffs before we went for dinner at the same table and food. I was eager to leave because my favourite show “Han Wu Da Yi” had begun but I thought we could end the night after their dinner and I would fly back home over the few streets. However, we continued with a little packing up after that with two trips down to load some equipment into the van at level one.

We could finally leave with my back, knees and feet aching so badly. Alvin and Rita walked with me towards the MRT station. Suddenly Jenny called Alvin and asked us to share a cab home since it could be claimed as it had already passed eleven. They continued to stroll with me and soon boarded a cab which passed by and that ended our nice conversation.

By the time I reached home, it was around midnight and I was very sad to have missed my show. But no doubt, it was a very good experience even though I did not assist them much.