a lowly cog in the capitalist system: an epic failure
on 13th of december 2023, i was officially employed as an assistant restaurant manager at this new establishment in the heart of a tourist trap at downtown KL. it was a short stint; something i did not plan because i thought i'd probably stay for a year or so but it ended as soon as it began. a failure of an epic proportions, trying to be a cog in a capitalist system.
i started my job on a positive note, despite being one of the few folks who wore masks at work. after a week, i noticed the xenophobia and racism was rampant in the company. most of the floor staffs are foreign workers from bangladesh (91% of bangladeshis are muslims), and it's fucking annoying to see these fucking malaysians shouting 'save gaza' and 'free palestine' but at the same time you're being racists to your bangladeshi brothers here in malaysia. fucking hypocrites.
as time went on, the company started to show their true colours. staffs are not allowed to bring back home unsold food declared as wastage (as someone who worked in f&b industry, this is my first) and they rather see the food in the trash bin. mobile phones need to be kept away in locker. i understand you cannot play with your phone during work but what about emergencies?! (which already happened before). floor staffs are subjected to security pat downs after closing as if they're meeting the prime minister. any food purchased at the market needed to be stamped and the guard will write down your purchase in the log book. constant reporting in whatsapp group instead of doing it once daily at the end of the day. i had to do the sales report on my offday too like wtf. not to mention my colleague is a walking red flag of a privileged, abusive malaysian male. stories of him being a physically abusive person outside of work was circulating but of course nobody does anything about it. there's a truckload of shit that he'd done (plus talking about me behind my back instead of in front of my face because he doesn't have balls, which i only found out on my last day of work) but i'm not gonna crowd my own writing space because he's not worth it. like utterly a worthless person who wastes your oxygen.
anyway, on 5th january i got infected with covid for the second time (because that damned place was a tourist spot and none of these international plague rats wore masks). thank fuck i did not infect anyone else in the family. human resource kept asking me to come to work. my fucking colleague did not accept my corrected house quarantine order; it was issued by the ministry of health but there was a glitch and i managed to get it fixed and he didn't fucking accept it. he didn't approve my emergency leave either. so out of the goodness of his heart, he replaced all of that with my offdays so that my salary won't get deducted -rolls eyes-
that one week isolated from the world was enough time for me to decide about my future at the company. they don't give a shit about the wellbeing of their employees. as soon as i got to work, i told my superior that i'm tendering my resignation. he begged me to stay. suddenly my fucking colleague was nice to me and told me whenever i needed a break i should let him know and he'll give it to me -rolls eyes again-
the new general manager was appointed and she's a literal piece of shit. she instructed that all chairs at the cashier station should be removed (which was allowed by the previous general manager) and poor cashier staffs was on their feet like 8 hours per day (12 hours for the foreign workers). she demanded all the employees to greet her (like who the fuck are you? military commander? are we working at a military camp?!) and she prefer to address any issues on group whatsapp chat so that the whole fucking company will see it instead of talking about it to my face (even though she just saw my face like 5 seconds earlier) because she don't have the fucking balls to do it in person. oh wait, she doesn't have any.
for the rest of january, my time at work was dedicated in making things easier for my subordinates, especially the foreign workers. all of them are sad that i'm leaving (because no one is fighting for their rights) but i have to take care of myself first. i hope in the future someone good will come along and be their assistant manager but i wonder if that sort of person will survive such environment.
i slept for 12 hours a day for five days in a row after i resigned. that's how tired i am. i'm just a lowly tired cog in a capitalist system.
"capitalism offers you freedom, but far from giving people freedom, it enslaves them"
-- ian mckellen