Thursday, April 1, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.145

It’s April. Time for a new class, a new school, a new job, and a new life. I remember how disappointed I was at my college life when I started it. Everything was so stupid. To get out, I planned to go to school in England. I didn’t have any money and that was why I got my first after-school job. It was a cashier at a restaurant. The bar code era was years ahead and I had to memorize all the prices on the menu to put them on the register as quickly as possible. People came to the place all at once at dinnertime and the cashier wasn’t allowed to be slow punching down the keys of the register by looking at the price one by one. I memorized innumerable prices and punched the keys fast, but there was one thing I couldn’t manage to do. Changing small rolls of paper inside the register. It had two rolls inside, one for receipts for customers, and one for the record for the headquarters. When it’s running out, the color of paper turned pink. My boss told me how to change it with a new roll for several times, but I couldn’t get it anyway. Every time the pink paper came out, the only thing I did was to pray that the paper would last until my shift was over. It worked for a month, and then, my luck ran out with the paper. The customers came to check out ceaselessly after the roll for the record turned pink. The paper was finally out, but it was such a busy night and I kept punching the keys. When my shift was over, I was reprimanded, and worked overtime unpaid to complete the record by hand from the order sheets. My boss told me to conclude the record with my apology to the headquarters. Although I was supposed to write ‘I’m sorry’, I wrote ‘I’m not sorry’ by mistake. I burst into laughter while other workers were staring at me with stern faces. They say a cashier is one of the easiest jobs, even that I couldn’t do. I’ve been observing myself for many years and it seems there’s no job in this world that I can do satisfactorily…