After a stressful month of finding a job, I finally got one. I went to GRV and asked if they needed a visual merchandiser and after a week, I was informed to report to work at my station, which is in Hamleys 1Utama. Yes, I didn't want to go back to work at the toy shop, I had no choice, this was my last resort if I were to not get hired by the end of August.
I was actually gonna get a different job. I got a call from this preschool called The Odyssey as an art teacher, which they call an "Art Specialist". They saw my application on JobStreet and called me in for an interview with the director, Petunia and then I was showed around the building. It looked really nice, I had never seen a preschool so well equipped with all the facilities a child needs. From low wash basins to tiny toilets and safety precautions along the staircases, I could hardly imagine a kid getting injured here, besides a fist fight between kids. They had a whole area for arts and music and it was so awe inspiring. It was just before the holidays when I went for the interview so there were only two kids in the building. Petunia scheduled me for another visit to see what it's like in a day at The Odyssey. As I've learned on that day, The Odyssey is a Singapore based preschool that focuses on child personal development and it's heavily art based. They have a lot of artistic programmes.
On my second visit, I was introduced to the whole work force at the preschool in groups. First I was directed to the toddlers room where I watched the teachers started the day for these kids with songs and then cooking class. The way all the teachers teach in class is that there is a teacher who speaks English the whole time and another who speaks Mandarin the whole time so the kids will learn both languages at the same time. After that I joined the class for a class with older kids where they sang some songs to remember the alphabet and did some art work. Then I went to the art room to watch how the present Art Specialist deals with the kids, after that it was lunch time. The class teachers helped serve the lunch made by the preschool chef and then they went for nap time. During this time all the teachers sit together and eat lunch provided by the chef as well. After lunch, Petunia called me and we talked a little. Apparently I was shortlisted into a group of three people and they were gonna make their final decision from the three of us. Petunia said that she'll inform me if I'll get the job or not in a few days time. It appeared to me that I was going to get the job despite the fact that I don't have a lot of experience with preschool kids so I had really high hopes.
Exactly the night after, I was informed that I didn't get the job because they really wanted someone who more experience with kids. That really let me down but I decided to get a job by the end of August because I don't want to sit around at home as I was running out of money.
The whole of August, I spent my time on JobStreet looking for a job and sent applications to ideal locations based on either location and position. I even started to look for jobs that required writing like copywriting and content writing, but no one, not a single one called me back.
After that one month, I went back to my manager at Hamleys and he was more than delighted to hear that I wanted to work with them again because he had been asking me to go back to work with them a couple of times. He wasn't as happy after hearing that I didn't want to work as a floor staff but he was excited when I asked for a position as visual merchandiser because they didn't have one and the marketing executive who was going to resign soon that filling in for the position wasn't doing much progress with the artworks they need.
So I this was my first week and the number one problem I face is how poor the computers are. It's so damn slow and it crashes a lot of times. I've never had that problem since 2011. Working withe Adobe CS3 is okay, not so bad, it's just the computer. I've never felt so frustrated sitting in front Adobe Photoshop in a long time. Also, most of the files are Illustrator files and I hate Adobe Illustrator because I didn't learn how to use it and it's so different from Photoshop. Also, the people who did the official artwork for the company are very messy. They don't group, layer and name their artworks properly, just finding a single stroke in an artwork is like finding a needle in a haystack.
But I won't lose hope. I'm sure adapt to this job, as long as I can get around the software problems. I'm also sure I'll get used to sitting in the office. I can't sit still in the same place where I used to walk around continuously. I have to make frequent visits to the selling floor to get a breather. Just seeing the people I used to work with go in and out of the office makes me wanna do it too, only I don't wanna work on the selling floor, the store room is great.
One thing I noticed getting the office job in the store is that there is a clear boundary between the office staff and the store staff. Which makes a lot of sense because I never dared to communicate with the office staff when I was working as a floor staff before, not until I became a senior staff back then but still, there was formality in the air.
Well, here's to another year at Hamleys Malaysia and GRV.
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