Sir. Would You Mind..?

Working as usual in the banquet department and come every weekend, wedding dinners are perpetually always on-going. But this time round it's a tad different. Different in an unusually bad way i would say. It all began with tell-tale signs which was the smell of smoke which I originally thought came from the staff toilet, which happens every now and then but this time round it just smelled heavier.

Never did I know it actually came from within the ballroom and inhaling 2nd hand smoke via air-conditioned ventilated working environment is the last thing ever imagined. Even better, towards the end of a Chinese wedding dinner last night, a few table of drunkards started puffing off their cigarettes.


I got to witness first hand the destruction of human nature in a ballroom of 300-odd people.

The weapon of choice? Alcohol. Add a few complimentary bottles of cordon bleu, cheap wines and free-flow of tiger beer to a bunch of ill-educated people and you'll get an equation of inevitable mayhem. Worse still, if they smoke, and they did.

Not even my managers were able to persuade drunkards into sanity, what more could captains like myself and part-time staff conjure? So there we were, happily sucking in tainted air.

' The first thing in the human personality that dissolves in alcohol is dignity '

I love banquet.

Life... Up Till Now.

' pa, working in the hotel and making money is not easy man '

' now then you know that making money is not easy '

' yeah man, i dun think i'm ready for the adult working life yet leh '

' then go and get a rich father lor! '

That pretty much summarizes my life in Holiday Inn at the moment, through a phone call with dad.

Words like going home late, overtime, time constraints, shortage of staff are often associated to the life of banquet operations. Initially i didn't understand why people, so many of them, are so enthused with this physically-stressing department. But after 2-weeks of labouring, the sense of accomplishment when setting up a totally empty ball-room into something to be of a spectacle, it gives one the feeling as if you're on top of the world. Well that is if you're the one giving orders and stuff but nevertheless, it's a great feeling.

There are still, positives to derive from banquet actually. The ability to move around as if the hotel is like your 2nd house gives you a sense of command that no other departments are able to give you. Truth be told, the license to roam never felt so good.

All in all, I've never liked banquet, not even now cos' i still know it's a shit department to work in because getting too physical, like standing up for a shit load of time and serving guests with trays and heavy-ass plates has never been my thing. I know it'll all change once i hit management level but i know i'll never be in this department.

2-weeks more till being posted to Clemenceau Bar where practically all the hot chicks will be all at. Sometimes you just wish time could fly past faster.

SIGH. Hot chicks...