No more late-night MSN sessions, no more breakfast at 4pm, no more casual clothings or weekend shopping......I finally started working. No boring admin work for me or taking part in tedious commercial shoots. With zero experience, I jumped straight into the retail line. A job that I've never imagined myself to be in. The long retail hours, the troublesome customers, pressing sales targets and burned weekends add up to be a terrible nightmare for me. However, just for the fun of it, I applied for the job. And got it.

Contrary to what I thought, the job turned out to be fun and rewarding. I tended to a small beauty counter all by myself.
A typical work day starts like this: Fetching water in a small pail to clean the counter top, rearranging the products, stock taking and reporting of sales figure, doing demos for customers, paper-work and perharps, stoning during weekday mornings.

I always had this assumption that Singaporeans are a difficult bunch of people to serve. However, most of my customers doesn't fall in this category. They are genuinely interested in hearing what I've got to say, ask intelligent questions, and some even spoke to me as if we were friends already. After closing the deal, they'd asked for my number so as to keep in contact. It's rather fun meeting and talking to so many people from all walks of life...Of course, I've met my fair share of weird people too! As one of my products contains pearl powder, one lady asked me how we managed to extract pearls from oysters. She even asked me if we rare those oysters ourselves..(???) Another lady specially bought many small containers so that I can fill them up with my foaming cleansers, exfoliators and moisturisers that I use for display purposes, since we do not provide samples.

Apart from meeting so many customers, I met many fellow promoters too. Therefore, I'd help myself to numerous free sprays of fragrances at the fragrance counters, touch ups from the cosmetics counters, and staff discounts for bags. It'll be Lacoste perfume for one day, Escada or Versace on the others. If I feel that my store is stuffy, those fragrances will become my air-fresheners..As for my own products, the foaming cleanser act as a hand wash for me, and the moisturiser ($105) is used as my hand & nail lotion..Right now, I can also differentiate the different uniforms of cosmetics companies. Shu Uemura is white and grey, Estee is dark blue, Chanel is black, Paul & Joe is green, Clarins is white and red, BioTherm is white, Givenchy and Clinique is black and white, Laneige is light blue and white....etc etc..I can also tell you which company has the prettiest girls, the normal looking girls as well as the ugliest girls..I managed to take note of the above when I'm feeling damn bo-liao..

Back to my own sales record, it stands at $11,200 in about 3 weeks. I'm happy. I'm proud. I have proven to myself that I can do things that I always thought I couldn't. I thought that I could not handle tough customers. I thought that I wouldn't do well in sales. I thought that I cannot convince them. I thought that I'll put my personal feelings into work especially when I meet rude customers. I thought that I'll die if I were to work during weekends. I thought my soles would give way if I were to stand for about 8 hours a day in my heels. I thought I wouldn't smile the whole day at strangers. I was wrong. I was wrong in a good way. Good thing I got them all wrong.

Last sunday, just before work, I heard a slogan from the radio. I felt that i'm quite "ke lian" after hearing it--- " We are working because you are not." A few days later, I felt that it's worth it when my customer told me she liked how I patiently explain everything to her without being pushy. This I have to admit. I put in my best when serving everyone that comes to my counter. Even though they specify to me that they only want to know more about my products, not to buy them. Even though they are just asking for directions...Job satisfaction definitely worth more than my salary..

Last but not least, I have to thank and apologise toFeng. Thanks for always meeting me for lunch, popping by my counter and bringing me home from work everyday. Sorry for leaving you alone during the weekends..However, this will end soon..Since I'm giving myself 7 days of leave before school reopens. I'm not looking forward to going back to school though..Boring.. rush to school just to wait for the time to rush home..

Anyway, I guess almost all of my salary would be gone by then..but I'm sure that the experiences and satisfaction that I have gained will be worth much much more...