BR!

Don't you just LOVE bubble tea? My favourite flavour is honeydew milk tea, with tapioca, of course. My other regular flavours are mango, green apple. If I'm feeling especially adventurous, I get other kinds of fruit jellies instead of tapioca. Without these small touches of garnish, bubble tea is really just juice--I was really disappointed by the big Asian hype when I first had bubble tea.

Btw...
NOOO! BR DOES NOT MEAN BUBBLE REPUBLIC. DON'T BE SO ASIAN-MINDED!

Sorry, I just felt like trying out different font sizes 'n stuff. But yeah,

BR = Baskin Robbins !

Hm, for this post I'm gonna try something new, like not making it a million words long. Here goes...

So in my life, my parents have encouraged me to do activities that enhance my personal development, such as swimming lessons, skating lessons, competitive soccer, constantly aiming to improve my grades, joining orchestra, and just joining whatever random sports teams I can make it onto. They made a big mistake of not encouraging me to get a job. Sure, I know it's partially my responsibility, but when I'm still kind of young and so sheltered, they should give me a little push to start me off. As clarification, I don't mean that my parents should find a job for me, but they should have maybe warned me that around grade 9 I should start looking for an actual job. But no, they preferred that I stayed inside practicing piano and keeping my dainty little fingers safe. On a more serious note, I really only started trying to get a job this summer. After hearing no response from basic receptionist or secretarial/administrative positions, I decided to humble myself a bit. Hence began the visits to local convenience stores like Rabba, Bargain Shop, and, lo and behold, Baskin Robbins.

I passed out my resumes with all my half-decent looking qualifications (e.g. pharmaceutical assistant, hospital volunteer), which were really all obtained through family connections. -_-" I guess it's better that I started being realistic now rather than later, after all I finished my first year of university for goodness' sake!! In fact, I start my first co-op term in January. OMG, and if you don't get a job like...twice or three times, you FAIL the program. LOL. but anyways, I'll save my frantic delirium for personal contemplation.

So, nobody responded EXCEPT Baskin Robbins. Fun, fun. You know what, I lied, this post isn't going to be short at all. I just love talking too much, sorry. I went in for the interview, had no idea what to wear, and I ended up wearing black and white is completely inappropriate, but I just listened to my mom so it wouldn't be my fault if clothing was the issue. So anyway, they asked me basic questions about my definition of customer service, gave me a simple scenario, and they KEPT ASKING ME IF I WAS PHYSICALLY CAPABLE TO DO THIS JOB. This kind of annoyed me because it goes back to the Asian stereotype. Btw, the owners are Korean, and they thought I was Chinese--again, denied by my own people. I admit I don't have much upper body strength, but once I saw the other girls they hired, they're all thin white girls. I actually did not notice this point by myself; these co-workers were actually talking about it, and I agree with them wholly.

What made me even more offended at the interview was they were MORE INTERESTED IN MY BROTHER because he sounded mature answering the phone when they called to schedule my interview. They asked me, "Your brother is very smart, isn't he?" "Does he get good grades?" All that time working hard to keep up my grades, and my brother makes a better first impression. This also goes back to what I said about social skills, not intelligence or hard work, being the key determinant of one's success in the world. Anyways...after the interview I felt like crap and didn't think I would get the job, but they ended up hiring me anyway.

So yeah, I actually love my job, but that's probably because I've only worked there for about 1.5 months now. The other girls there hate it because they've been working there for at least a year now. From what they told me and their attitude on the job, their biggest issue is the crappy customers that drop in, complain about prices, try to take advantage of freebies, or the all-too-familiar-motto: The customer is always right. HAH! That is the biggest joke I've ever heard. Check out: http://www.notalwaysright.com/

Let me tell you one thing. This job has significantly increased my cynicism towards humanity and opened my eyes as to how spoiled North Americans really are.

I'll admit that BR is a bit pricey, and this can put people in a bad or picky mood. However, it's been around for a while, and the upper management probably thinks they can get away with slightly raised prices, since they have the general public's brand loyalty. This is actually kind of true; people complain about all kinds of ridiculous things then you see them coming back a few days later to further indulge their ice cream addiction.

Some of the people that I have had the misfortune of encountering are:
-one guy asks for extra topping in his milkshake then refuses to pay for it. Instead of communicating like a civilized grownup, he just shakes his head then refuses to pay. One of my co-workers, who has worked there a long time and is low on patience, gives in and tells me not to charge him. I don't blame her.
-sometimes people ask me to wash my hands after wiping the ice cream cabinet. All it is, is water and ice cream drops. If you're worried about that, should I sterilize the scoopers too?
-one lady asked me to wash my hands because "you guys touch money". Well, so do you, and you're the one actually touching and eating the product. We only touch the paper around the base of the cone and scoop the ice cream with a scooper, not our hands. My apologies, if you're one of those types who likes eating the paper.
-some people ask for a "LARGE single scoop". No such thing, there is a standardized measurement for a "single scoop". Got a problem? Go talk to the BR CEOs.
-one lady "doesn't like" the taste of our strawberry ice cream. She could have requested a taster spoon, but no. She insists that it tastes like milk and wants another scoop for free. I mistakenly indulged her request; I think I'm too soft to deal with the tragically flawed homo sapien.

Of course there are other instances like people wanting us to make things that aren't on the menu, complaining because we have a flavour at another location but not this one, or complaining about what season it is and why we don't have a certain "seasonal" flavour. I will never look at the cashier of any retail store the same way again. I totally feel your pain.

Just for interest, if you want to get ice cream at the location where I work (if you don't know already, it's top secret hmph), we currently have:

-Butterscotch Ribbon: butterscotch in vanilla ice cream
-Cotton candy: A purple+pink child classic, self explanatory
-Old Fashioned Butter Pecan: A senior favourite, has pecans and a strong mapley ice cream
-Love Potion #31: personal favourite (other than bubble gum), white chocolate, raspberry ribbon, and the chocolate hearts have raspberry syrup (pink and white =)), popular with females, wonder whyyy...
-Peanut Butter n' Chocolate: huge peanut butter chunks, quite popular
-Rocky Road: chocolate with almonds and marshmellows, a classic
-Chocolate Mousse Royals: chocolate mousse with chocolate chips, a co-worker's favourite
-World Class Chocolate: White and milk chocolate mousse, a co-worker's favourite
-Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: Kid favourite, self-explanatory
-Cookies n' Cream: Vanilla ice cream with Oreo cookie bits, kid favourite
-Gold Medal Ribbon: Chocolate and Vanilla ice cream with caramel ribbon, yummy
-Rum Raisin: some weird beige ice cream that tastes horrible, very soft, but still somewhat popular =/
-Baseball Nut: Vanilla with raspberry ribbon and cashews
-Chocolate Chip: self-explanatory
-Citrus Twist: lemon lime, almost like a sherbet, kinda sour, popular--also used in fruit blasts
-Pistachio Almond: Pistachio flavoured ice cream (?) with almonds in it, surprisingly good
-Chocolate: yay
-Vanilla
-Non-fat vanilla yogurt
-Mint Chocolate Chip
-Cherries Jubilee: cherry ice cream, bits of those fake cherries, and hint of...rum?!, decent
-Jamoca Almond Fudge: Coffee flavour
-Very Berry Strawberry: strawberry with real strawberry bits!
-Mango Tango: mango with a mango ribbon
-Maui Brownie Madness: surprisingly good for a lower fat frozen yogurt!, popular
-Pralines and Cream: vanilla with caramel and praline nuts
-Perils of Praline: lower fat yogurt version of pralines and cream, not as good
-Coconut
-Pineapple coconut: lower fat yogurt, no sugar added, evidently a senior favourite
-Rainbow sherbet: pink, white, and orange sherbets? =S, visually appealing to kids
-Orange sherbet: orange flavour, preferred by kids--tastewise

Oh and I just realized when I started working there that the pink symbol between "Baskin" and "Robbins" is a 31, which they also use to stand for "B" and "R", in case you're slow like me :) Apparently, the 31 is because we are supposed to have 31 flavours, but not always.

Ice cream makes me happy!~Just not the customers...