Oct 7, 2024
In the past, I had to work at a smoothies place to make ends meet even though it had nothing to do with programming at all because I couldn’t find the work. It was a pretty incredible—and, at the same time, a pretty rough—working experience for me.
After I finished my internship at R V Connex, I stayed at Rangsit for a few months, then moved back with my family in Chonburi to take a break (who also moved to a whole new place). Some time passed and I moved again to Bangkok in mid-July to pursue my Computer Engineering degree.
One of the main reasons I decided to get a degree was P’ Tor, my manager at the time. His leadership skills left me amazed and I thought “Damn, people with degrees can be this good?” And he gave me great advice on finding a job. He told me that having developer skills would get you a job, but your base salary would be determined by your degree (It was a bit of a reality check, but not necessarily bad advice. I appreciated that anyway.). It was like he was subtly letting me know that I might not get paid as much as I could have if I’d gone to a different company without a Bachelor’s degree.
I had half a month worth of time before the first day of school, aand I was almost out of money. I quickly started looking for any job I could find just to make ends meet. I even looked at shift work or a job in the mall. I posted on Facebook and tried looking for a job where I live. Then, I found the smoothies job post on Facebook and thought the graphics were pretty cute, so I proceeded to LINE. I got contacted about 2-3 days later and was told to choose between 2-3 malls that I can travel to. I was relieved after the call ended.
So I started my job on August 1st. I was initially place at the kitchen because you were supposed to wear many hats here later on. My job was to preparing the ingredients and closed the shop with other team members at 10 p.m. This was my first experience with shift work and working six days a week. I thought it was pretty okay for the first few days. It was easy enough. But after a while, I spoke with my manager about changing to another branch because there were too many customers and the transportation was costly. I had to take a motorcycle, then the subway back and forth. This new branch could be easily reached by just one bus trip.
Over time, I started to have some negative thoughts. My routine started to fall apart because of the shift work. I traveled less often to save money. I would binge-watched YouTube and play video games because I was so tired. Sometimes I went back after work to cry, blaming myself for fallen from grace. couldn’t find myself a developer job even though I had some skills. “Because I have no degree?” I thought. I didn’t want to work the job from the start because I knew I wouldn’t earn my full-time rest. Think about it. Would a person who worked six days a week and had a Sunday class have a quality rest?
One day, someone found me through my LINE account. I guess he’s the person that my professor referred me to. So,I got in touch with him and he was indeed the man. The company he worked for needed programmers to maintain some system. We had a chat and then arrange to meet up. I immediately asked a team member for an evening shift and said that I’ve got some “errands” to do.
I think I’ll get the job, but I’m not sure when. After that, I sent my four-week notice because I was told during the orientation that weekend students with an Associate Degree/Diploma would need one year of experience related to the field of study. Two for those who graduated high school. I decided that I quit and risk my time find a new job instead.
I was entering “survival mode” while counting down to my final day. I had to be significantly frugal than before. Luckily, this branch was heaven for a man in survival mode. There weren’t many customers, the shop was easy to close and the transportation was quite nice. Things got a little better, then I was able to get back into my routine. I listened to a bunch of philosophies on YouTube. I started reading e-books. I would spent my time at Kinokuniya bookstore during breaks. I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 6 a.m. at least, and that was not bad.
The longer I worked there, the more I learned about the company from my coworkers. Everything they said just confirmed my opinions on this.
I was chatting with my colleagues one day about the possibility of leaving the job. It seemed like everyone had the same idea. We talked about our situations and the other team members, as well as the work environment.
First off: There’s no clear position. In a decent mall job, you’d know exactly what your responsibilities were, like being on the kitchen crew, cashier, cleaning crew, etc. We didn’t do that here. Everyone had to do everything from preparing ingredients to managing stock, opening and closing the shop, calculating sales, and handling customers, etc. It was just about everything you can think of. It made me think of 7-Eleven employees, for some reason.
Next: Understaffed. This is a pretty common reason that often leads to other problems in the business. When you’re understaffed, employees end up doing everything that’s not in their job description. And because you’re understaffed, someone will probably have to work overtime, no question asked. Their work contract probably said something along the line of “work 8 hours or as demanded by the manager”. That meant most of us, including me, had to work 9-10 hours most of the week. They didn’t even considered breaks as time stayed at work. Some people were forced to work every day. Some people had to open the shop, then stay late to close it (10 a.m. to 10 p.m., 12 hours a day).
Next: Difficult to take days off. If you can, You’re gonna work every day for a while. I’ve often heard that you can call in sick or run some errands, but it’s another story as to whether or not you’ll actually it. Because we’re understaffed, someone taking a day off will surely has a consequences, but everyone understand if you do. For instance, one of my coworker needed her days off to take her mom to the hospital, but then she had to work every day after that. Requests for day off are regularly declined. What happened was, you’ll come in to work sick (that’s me.). Unfortunately, you won’t get the worker rights you deserve here.
All these problems stem from: Growing too fast. I didn’t know what the management was up to when they decided to open 6 branches in 1-2 years without taking into account the number of employees we currently have. The newest branch that opened last month had team members from other branches branches help out with the opening. Actually, moving between branches is also a problem. It clearly indicates that you’re so so understaffed, so you had to bring people from other branches. After growing branches, some branches had pretty much no customer at all. Some branch won the bread, but understaffed (again).
And another important point: An incompetent manager. Have you, for once in your lifetime, had to ask your manager where and when you supposed to go to work, because this guy managed the teams’ schedule? Even worse, he just replied in the morning of the day I was supposed to work even though I had asked him earlier for days, so I could be better prepared. This one sucked so bad. Additionally, he liked to communicate with me and others using a middleman, which was just my branch’s team lead, instead of just talking to me directly. Oh, and if you found this useful at all, the manager is Gen Z.
All of this mess for ฿12,000 per month for full-time employees
Understaffed, underpaid and under a lot of pressure. The things I listed kinda reminded me of working for a startup for some reason.
Since this was a six-days-a-week service job, I’ll always look forward to Sunday because I can finally just study. I started my Sunday with pineapple pie I bought, and go out and study the living hell out of myself. I used to be, and still am, a laid-back student. I didn’t have to put as much effort to get good grades. And even though I could do the same thing now that I pursue a Bachelor’s Degree, I chose to put my full effort into this. I guess it’s my early exposure to the reality of working a job before I even graduated (I did this during my Diploma years). I’m also committed to not taking on any more jobs like this. I gained more than enough motivation to pursue higher education and just want to do my best. “Class day = Rest day” was the mindset.
While I was back at the original branch, I went to Asia Books to find something to read. I came across “Conscious Luck” which made me reflect about what I have and how lucky I am to have it. It told me to make a commitment in my note taking app like “I made a sincere commitment to being lucky, now and forever.”. This is so freaking powerful, it made me feel optimistic all day. Whatever situation I found myself in, I would think of myself being lucky. This idea, combined with Stoicism that I regularly read and listened to, helped me to better regulate my emotions and be more optimistic.
After two months on the job, I decided to take some time for reflection. This job was pretty terrible, and it just kept getting worse. Having to deal with an incompetent manager, an excessive work load, and management decisions that didn’t consider the fundamentals reminded me of startup work culture for some reason. On the flip side, I got some good practice in Stoicism, found a few new bus routes, picked up a few sales skills because I liked staying at the cashier and talking to a lot of tourists, and just saw how easy it was to sell something. It made me think of the quote “Speaking is free, so you can sell”. MWhat’s more, it helped me recognize my strengths and realize that I have a long, long way to go instead of just stuck in this shit job.