By Nrl Liya
Edited by Siti Nur Najihah
A busy mind is a calm heart.
I whisper as my working days blend. I woke up at 6 in the morning and fell asleep at 10 to regain the depleted energy after 9 hours of working at my old high school koperasi.
For context, I started working at my old school koperasi one year ago during a break before I started my degree. So the familiar yet different environment greeted me a month ago and I welcome it. I wanted to share what I do during this semester's breaks and tell a story of my working days.
*cues in Téir abhaile 'riú by Celtic Woman
7.30 A.M.
As the dawn broke in and high school kids gathered around for their morning assembly, I started by collecting three pails of water to cook a steamed bun. This was one of the tasks that exhausted me to the core but the first thing I would do as soon as I arrived at my koperasi. The steamed bun would take 2 hours to be properly cooked, thus the earliest task on my agenda. In a day I would end up cooking at least 100 steamed buns or even more on Wednesday and Thursday. Five flavours of bun and six trays to be filled. It took me at least 20 minutes to finish up before I could move to something else. After finishing prepping the steamed bun to be cooked, I would gather food and drinks that I needed to be carried to the teacher’s lounge.
When all the urgent tasks were done, like making sure all the drinks were cold and nothing expired would be served to the kids, I started cleaning up the place. This meant sweeping and mopping the floor, arranging and clearing out the inventory, wiping the counter and prepping it with food, and clearing out empty boxes from the ice cream truck.
This was my opening shift, where I made sure that everything was in order. Took me at least an hour to finish everything before taking maybe a 15 to 20-minute break before recess started.
9.00 A.M.
Recess began for me when the Takoyaki vendors arrived with three trays of Takoyaki. I'm not going to lie, I used to love eating Takoyaki but after about 2 months of facing it, I lost my appetite for it.
When she arrived, I pulled up the shutter gates and started taking out the drinks. During this time, two evening koperasi prefects would help me during the morning session. (This high school has two school sessions, morning and evening due to the overpopulated housing yet only two high schools in the area).
9.15 A.M.
And the hustle began, feeding over 1000 hungry kids separated by three rush hours sure took a lot of energy from me. The usual questions during the buying process repeated countless times to the point I could phantom it before I went to sleep.
The questions were always,
“How much is this?” (1.20)
“Are there any cold ones?” (*shakes my head*)
“Can we photocopy this?” (How many pages?)
“Are there any cold ones?” (This one just got out from the fridge)
“Is there any vitagen?” (No, we haven’t sold it for a month already)
By the time Form 5 finished their recess and the morning finally settled down, I was left in sweat and a stabbing feeling on my foot from all the walking and standing.
12.30 P.M.
I was finally getting my breaks and getting lunch, it was either a packaged lunch I bought from home or random snacks I bought at the Koperasi as I was usually too lazy and exhausted to go out and buy food at the canteen.
I would count the money that we have collected during the morning session, restock the fridge with drinks, and clean up the mess left from the morning rush before I genuinely settle down for my breaks.
I would either go to sleep or watch TikTok until either a teacher, vendor or I forbid, students came to ask for the Koperasi services.
2.50 P.M.
Evening school session was usually much calmer since Form 1 and 2 recesses were divided into four sections because they needed to pray zuhr. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t exhausting.
I would take it that since they are younger, they behaved much more childishly in terms of paying and buying stuff. It required more attentiveness from me since they always gave me the wrong amount of money. I hardly blame them, numbers are complicated.
4.00 P.M.
The closing shift started, which meant trying to fend off students who should have been in class but instead tried to buy ice cream. I and the other two morning koperasi prefects started putting away all the food to appropriate places and filled the fridge yet again with drinks for the next day.
I would also drain out the water from the steamer machine and tentatively clean the trays so it won’t smell musty in the morning. Again, this took me the longest, and also ended up doing it for another 20 minutes.
I locked up all the shutters and gates before making my final check to make sure everything was in its place and no food was left to be rotten overnight.
4.30 P.M.
Called my brother to pick me up.
.
.
.
7.30 A.M.
Repeat.
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