This week was the first week that I started to work part-time. I work as a trainee in the lounge of a hotel. Trainee basically means that I’m learning new things while I’m working.
I applied for this job several weeks ago and after a series of interviews with different managers I started working on the Monday of this week. It started with an introduction of the hotel (which was mainly in Chinese) and then I went to get my work uniform. I have two different uniforms, a long red dress to wear when I work during the day and a shorter black dress to wear when I work in the evening. When they wanted to give me the matching shoes and I told them my size was 41, they looked very surprised, because they only had until size 40. But now, they ordered for me shoes in my size.
I work in the hotel on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the afternoon from 3 pm to 8 pm and on Saturday from 10 am to 7 pm. It is a great thing to do besides the University and I can also practice my Chinese while working.
The lounge of the hotel is in the entrance area and people can sit down there to have a drink or to eat something. Since it is a business hotel, there are always some foreigners and my coworkers immediately send me to serve when a foreigner sits down: 朱莉， 外国人， go go go! (Julia, a foreigner, go go go!) This week I learned the basic things about the job: I learned how to take an order, how to cash an order, how to make simple drinks and how to serve them correctly. I also learned part of the menu in Chinese so in the future I can hopefully also serve Chinese guests.
My coworkers are all very nice and helpful. They seem quite excited to have a foreigner in their team, they love to show me things and translate things for me and some of them are happy to practice their English with me.
Otherwise I can also tell you that autumn has arrived in Shenzhen. The temperatures went down to 24-29°C and people already begin wearing jackets! For me it is just a pleasant temperature to go out and not be covered in sweat after going somewhere :)