Night Shift Noodles

Money money money money. Why the frICK does everything cost money. If it were up to me, I'd make everything free. Then again, that would be nothing short of communist propaganda, so I think I should stop whatever proposition I had right here.

Setelah liburan musim semi selesai dan gue terbang kembali ke Jepang, kesepian hati menjadi urutan nomer dua di daftar masalah gue. Urutan pertamanya direbut oleh keuangan. Ya, dari sebelum gue pulang ke Indonesia, gue sudah tidak lagi bekerja sambilan, jadi hidup gue serba ngirit. Makan nasi telor kecap, mentok-mentok paling nasi ayam microwave kecap. Untungnya gue tidak terlalu banyak main-main keluar, seperti nonton, jalan-jalan, dan sebagainnya. Untuk pertama kalinya, tidak mempunyai teman menjadi keuntungan dalam kehidupan gue. Tanpa adanya teman, gue bisa menjaga isi dompet dan juga kelangsungan hidup gue.

I was basically running on fumes for the first few months. Dari April sampai Juli, all I had was the allowance money from my parents, which was just enough for me to get by. Kecukupan mendasar, seperti makanan dan tagihan-tagihan, masih terbayar, tapi ya hidup gue selama jangka waktu itu cuma kampus-rumah-kampus-rumah aja. Yeah, I know, so much for making memories in my youth.

This time round, getting a part-time job was somewhat more difficult, because of my class schedule and also my linguistic skills. Mainly the linguistic part. Yes, despite having lived in Japan for more than two years now, my Japanese is barely comprehensible. Kalo untuk ngobrol santai mungkin oke, but any other situation, issa big nono. That is why I rely heavily on the student-run Facebook group where the university's students can post part-time job recruitment and openings. Sebenernya bisa sih I get rid of the middle man and apply to the place I wanna work for myself, but then I'd have to speak proper and formal Japanese, on the phone and the interview. Kalo gue dapet kerja dari grup tersebut, like the last job I had, the process is gonna be much simpler. I contact the person that posted the job ad through Facebook, the person then introduces me to the manager of the workplace, maybe I'll be given training shifts, and boom, just like that I am a productive member of society.

It took me almost four months to finally find a job, and if you haven't figured it out from the title already, it's at a ramen shop. Kerjaannya night shift, dari pukul 11 malam sampai 3 pagi, dan hari kerjanya bisa fleksibel, which is exactly what I've been looking for. Gajinya standar, 800 yen per jam, not the best paying job, but hey, at this point, if it pays, it's good enough.

I found this job just a few days before summer vacation started, and I did talk a little about the job in the previous post "Backstage Bonanza". Sebelum gue diterima kerja, gue disuruh ketemu sama manager dari kedai ramen tersebut, untuk sekadar dijelasin nanti kerjanya bakal gimana. Jadi, sebelum dikasih lampu hijau, gue dikasih training shift tiga hari. Selepas itu, kalo si manager merasa performa kerja gue mencukupi, baru deh gue bisa kerja full shift. Now, the training shifts and the early working days, there weren't that many to tell. My first training day was on the early shift, from 7pm to 9pm, and I was trained by a fellow university student, a Thai girl.

That's another thing about this shop. Gue baru tau kalo ternyata, kedai ramen ini cukup terkenal di kalangan murid universitas gue, dan mereka menjulukinya sebagai "Ramen Thailand". Bukan karena cita rasa ramennya ada pedes-pedes tom yum, dan pastinya juga bukan karena banyak ladyboy mangkal di kedai ini, tapi karena banyak murid dari Thailand yang kerja sambilan di sini. Not all of them, of course, take me for example, I know full well that I'm not Thai. There are also Vietnamese and even Tongan, but the majority is Thai.

Okay, that was a bit of a tangent, but anyhoo, during the training shifts, gue diajarin sama part-timer yang udah lebih lama kerja di tempat itu. The job was a bit more difficult than my previous one, soalnya gue gak cuma nyuci piring dan nyiapin makanan, gue juga merangkap sebagai pelayan, and if you know me, then you know how much I enjoy interacting with people.

That is correct, I simply do not.

But yeah, you get the general gist of it. Selama latihan, gue diajarin sama part-timer yang udah kerja lebih lama di situ, dua hari sama orang Thailand dan satu lagi sama orang Vietnam. Even though I felt like the three practice shifts were barely enough, sang manager merasa kalo gue sudah cukup bagus dan langsung memberi gue shift reguler. Hari pertama gue "officially" kerja merupakan hari Sabtu. And boy oh boy, let's just say I wouldn't wish a Saturday shift in that ramen shop upon my worst enemy. Day 1 on the job, dan gue bagaikan bayi yang diceburin di tengah Samudera Pasifik. Even with two other part-time workers there, we could barely keep up with the customers.

In hindsight, I think it was mostly my fault. I still didn't know a lot of things. And I messed up a lot of orders. And I got shouted at by the manager a lot.

At the end of the day, it did give me an idea about what's what and where's where and just the overall knowledge on how to do the job, so I guess it's a net-positive.

Another thing I discovered is that dealing with customers means putting up with their bullshit. Emang sih, kebanyakan pelanggan di sini to the point, masuk toko, duduk, liat menu, pesan makanan. Tapi kadang, some of them really be out here acting like they're a big time comedian. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mind if they pull a little bit of a friendly banter, or just simply trying to make small conversation, because I assume it is a little bit of an unfamiliarity for them when they enter a ramen shop and then greeted by a homeless brown man. Mungkin kalo tokonya lagi sepi gue gak masalah, mereka malah kadang ramah banget, kadang nanya gue dari mana, terus mereka cerita pernah ke Indonesia, and so on, but then when the shop is busy? Listen, mate, I understand the complexion of my skin itches your curiosity, but I'm not exactly employed to fill your noggin with knowledge of the outerworlds.

Ada juga satu pelanggan yang bikin geram gue dan juga temen-temen kerja gue. Hell, even my manager hates him. Jadi ada satu pelanggan, laki-laki dengan brewok pendek dan rambut buzzcut, probably in his 50s, yang merupakan seorang regular di toko ramen tempat gue kerja. Kadang dia makan sendiri, kadang dia dateng sekelompok (I assume they're his friends, but in all honesty, how he's even capable of having friends with his attitude I do not know), kadang juga dia dateng bawa-bawa prosties to fill his lonesome night. But man, this guy's a pain in the peehole. Setiap dia ada di toko gue, pasti ada aja bawaannya. My first encounter with this man was back in summer, and what happened was he tried ordering stuffs that are not on the menu and he fully knows we, the part-timers, won't have a clue, and then he proceeded to just say some "you useless gaijin get out of my country" crap at us for doing so. When he got his food, he had the audacity to call the manager and told him that "this tastes different, I don't like it, tastes like trash", and so my manager, obligated by hierarchical status and cultural norms, had to apologize for it.

Another occasion, he came with two prostitutes, which, I'm sorry for saying this, but Lord almighty, he couldn't even afford the good looking ones, during a particularly busy hour, and proceeded to annoy the living shit out of all three part-time workers at the time, including me. He kept on targeting one of the female workers from Tonga, which is dark-skinned and, well, relatively plus sized, both in height and weight. And out of all three of us, her Japanese is the least fluent, and this buzzcut ballsack knows that, and kept on trying to talk to her in a derogatory way, and the two prosties he brought in were evidently amused by this "exhibition" of his. She endured all this by simply ignoring him at all costs, but the other part-timer, a Thai girl, she was fuming, to the point where she just lost all care and basically said "hey, please shut the fuck up" to baldy and the fifteen-dollar girls. She tried so hard to hold back her rage that she let out a high-pitched screech, and this only amused the band even more.

The Thai girl then quit the job after that shift.

Okay, sorry, I just needed to let out a little steam there, that bald prick's been the bane of my work life in that ramen shop. Let's now move on to a lighter subject.

Kejadian-kejadian aneh juga terjadi di luar tempat gue kerja. Di jalan menuju dan juga pulang dari tempat kerja, gak jarang gue ditemui peristiwa-peristiwa yang di luar kebiasaan. Contohnya, sempet satu malam gue lagi jalan ke tempat kerja, gue disamperin satu perempuan yang jelas bukan orang jepang. Dia ngucapin "selamat malam" dalam bahasa Jepang, terus ngasih gue selembar kertas, which basically says "we are from X foundation, we need money for 'donation', please give money, thanks", and to me, this reeks of scam. If it is a real charity, though, I sincerely apologize. Gue pernah ngalamin hal ini pas gue jalan-jalan di Tokyo. I was just walking around the city, minding my own business, and then this woman in a hijab came to me, and handed me a paper that says almost the same thing. She then asked me where I'm from, I said Indonesia, eh ternyata ini orang juga wong Indo. Being put on the spot, I didn't know what else to do, so I just gave her 1000 yen.

Malam itu, gue lagi bokek. I didn't have money, and that was not an exaggeration by any means, but I guess that's a blessing in disguise. Jadilah pas gue ditagih duit sama perempuan tersebut, gue bilang aja "maaf, saya gak ada duit". I even showed her the inside of my wallet, dan tatapan geram si peminta donasi berubah jadi tatapan prihatin. Gue sedikit berharap jadi malah terbalik, dia yang ngasih gue donasi duit, tapi sayangnya itu tidak terjadi. Setelah itu, dia nanya gue dari mana. Nah, ini dia nih, kalo gue bilang Indonesia, dan ternyata dia juga orang Indonesia, nanti malah diminta ketemu lagi terus ngasih donasi di hari lain, ogah lah. Jadilah gue bohong. Gue bilang gue dari Filipina. Jawaban gue ditemui dengan dia menyerukan sesuatu dalam bahasa yang tidak gue kenal. And then it hit me.

SI MBAK INI TERNYATA ORANG FILIPIN YA GUSTI, KENAPA JADI BEGINI, TOLONG.

Dia ngomong sesuatu dalam Tagalog, which I assumed to be an expression of "oh, why didn't you say so, I'm also from the Philippines" or something like that. Gue ketawa canggung, berusaha sebaik mungkin untuk keliatan kalo gue ngerti apapun yang baru saja dia katakan. She then asked another question, which I couldn't answer, dan akhirnya dia kembali menggunakan bahasa Inggris dan bertanya,

"You don't understand Tagalog?"

"Eeeeuuuuhhhh weeelllll ahahah you see... I, errrrr I-I-I g-grew up in the United States, so my Tagalog isn't... that... good."

Dusta bagaikan tahi ayam.

"Ooh I see. But your parents are from the Philippines?"

"Ummmm y-yeah... my mom is, but my dad... is uuuhhh f-from the States... y-yeah"

"Oooooh so you're half? Where do you live in the States?"

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh....... Atlanta?"

Listen, the only place I could think of was one that starts with the first letter of the alphabet, okay? Sure I could've gone somewhere like Oregon, but hey, I was under pressure.

"Ah I see, Atlanta. Okay then, nice to meet you. Salamat ('thank you' in Tagalog)"

"Ahahahaha yeah, s-salamat... malem."

Gue kabur secepat mungkin.

Ada satu lagi, pas gue lagi jalan pulang. I just finished my Saturday shift, it was around 3AM Sunday, the streets were quiet and empty. Perjalanan gue pulang biasanya tidak eventful, paling cuma ditemani mobil dan juga truk yang lalu-lalang. Tapi, di pagi dini hari itu, gue tidak sendiri. Di seberang taman Shoningahama, sepasang manusia, pria dan wanita, setengah mabuk, berjalan ke arah gue. Long story short, they stopped in front of a Toyota dealership, the guy sits down on the side railing, the girl sits on the guy, and then they do the unholy, forbidden stuff. Only first base though, but still. I was wearing earphones and I set the volume up pretty high, even still, I could hear the shclopping noises of them having a mouth high-five. Being the respectful person I am, I put up my hoodie, maxed out the volume and walked on. Sempet kepikiran sih ngeluarin henfon terus ngerekam mereka sambil teriak "YOOO IS THIS ALLOWED?", tapi saya lagi gak pengen dihantem malam itu. Ternyata orang Jepang bisa juga gini ya.

ANYHOO, yes, my part-time job, it's been roughly four months now, and I'm still going. Gak cuma itu, gue sekarang udah dianggep sama si manager sebagai "senior part-time worker", soalnya kebanyakan dari part-timer yang lama udah pada lulus atau udah berhenti. Gue jadi harus ngajarin banyak pekerja baru. For someone that is not great with inter-human relationships, I am put in an awful lot of difficult situations like this. Tapi yah, I'm not complaining either. It's good experience, soalnya ngajarin orang sesuatu itu tidak mudah dan perlu kesabaran, jadi gue ambil positifnya aja.

I do wish the shop would pay me higher though. That'd be nice.

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