The Obliviousness of a Modern Servant Representation

“Why Should I Be Nice To You Coffee Shops and the Politics of Good Services” by Emily Raine, published online on Bad Subjects website in the editorial page, gives a radical insight of the writer’s comparative experiences as a server. Being a barista has confirmed to be her most unpleasant experience in the service industries; in contrary to her other work experiences at fine dining, cocktail waitressing and hip euro-bistro counter work. In this article, she made astonishing insights of the so-called almost-luxurious branded corporation’s clever ways of concealed marketing strategies, and, exploiting their workers’ individual qualities by controlling and assimilating them into the image of perfection to represent the corporate overall image.

Emily enjoyed every aspect of serving because serving gives her the opportunity to interact with her customer, as it takes about half an hour of interaction each table, which was a pleasurable experience she got from serving. But her experience working at Starbucks as a Barista made a huge turn of an event in her life. As serious and painful of an experience as this could be for her, she made a good twist with sarcasm by using quotes in her article, for instance, quoting the word, nice, to imply how she
felt forced to be nice.

The use of humor through her metaphors, too, has been deliberately added in the article, which molded the uniqueness of her ideology of specialty cafés and fast food outlets. Metaphors like “I felt like an aproned Coke machine” and “The penguin-suited household servant staff” that Raine used in her context marked her style as somewhat serious but the clearly concise images she portrayed, which sparks the humor in a spin. Raine made an impression of her idea of working at the specialty café as an exploitation of worker’s rights. In turn, workers get back at the company by taking time off their paid working hours by having their unassigned personal breaks. As a worker herself, she felt devaluated as a worker when all she did was one task assigned that she repetitively did all throughout the day and interaction with her customer each time was too scarce, which last for about tem seconds. The genuinely casual opening dialogue like “How are you doing today?” may likely be a disapproved thing to do by the company, as that is not the main focus of the company’s purposeful policy. Indulging dialogues would eventually lead on to longer chat that would hold up the line.

Being unhappy about the work system and the lack of humanly interactions, Raine put it out in the open about how she felt like a robot doing everything the company demands of their worker under their supervision and control in terms of dress code, the scripted quotes pasted on the cashier machines to prompt customers, and the closing line with a customer.

To reward the Good Samaritan behaviors of workers, the company offered benefits that can hardly match the needs of any workers who wish to attain full-time schedule in order to receive the benefits. In doing so, the company market itself to a level that makes them look professional and upscale and creates an image that they are the company that cares and have a good bond with their workers. With the great benefits the company has to offer, worker put up with the strict work ethics required of them. In Raines’s opinion, there should be no putting up with the company. She blatantly suggested Baristas to be rude when there is a need to with either customers or the management. There should be tolerance towards the working hierarchy, which the company sets to devaluate its workers indirectly, in order to show a little humanity that a person behind the counter has.

Raine has made this article very useful and she cleverly made awareness about the corporate structure. She may even be able educate readers with the right approach to deal with the worst scenarios in a manner that no one as a human can deny. Faking smiles and gestures are just ways to show genuflect to the hierarchy and reflecting of the image of the past “penguin-suited household servant” that Raine mentioned in the article. She have extensively emphasized on being an individual, not in a rebellious way, but a mindful way whereby one maintains his image to be respected regardless of where he stands in the company. If one thinks that low of you, that is when you get stepped all over regardless of how brilliant of a college student you are wherever you may work at.

Reign, Emily. “Why Should I Be Nice To You? Coffee Shops and the Politics of Good Service” Issue #74 Bad Subjects. December 2005. Reprinted in Faigley, Lester. Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond. NY: Pearson, 2007: 327-334.

My New Toy: Karaoke Machine

I thought this is something pretty interesting to show you guys. It's my very own karaoke machine with a build-in screen and an iPod dock which means I could download music and sing along to just any songs including the karaoke version that I can get online of course. I miss Japan and Karaoke so much that Josh got me this machine. It is a great deal for something pretty compact. I hope you guys find this interesting. It's loud enough to have it rock your house parties!



PS Before anyone comments on something about my elbow in video, I'd like to say....Yes, I know I have paint on my elbow from painting my kitchen..

Limo Ride

Have you ever dream of riding on Limousine? Well, you can over here in Gainesville, including some other cities.


Apparently, I got on a free ride with an uprising Rapper and his family from a town few hours away from Gainesville. I haven't got details about this rapper but from the music I heard playing in the limo and if it was really his, it was pretty good and groovy. If it wasn't for my friend, Lance, who came up with the crazy idea of getting a free ride by chasing them down the street and show them that we were "cool", I wouldn't have gotten this weird(but great!) experience.


Photos courtesy of Lance Legel, our future astronomer. Best he can get captured on a phone camera.

Blog Feature

I'd like to introduce to the VFS.blog readers a very insightful blog by Christine Reid.

Although this is a fairly new blog, her recent post have proven to be a popular discussion. Do join us there to talk about different issues. Recent post is a discussion about World of Warcraft. If you have anything to oppose or stand for, go ahead and post your say as a comment to the blog posting.

I have commented her and I'll have it here as well for you to see how interesting it got for me. To understand what I've said below, go ahead to Christine's blog and comment. She is now also under "Victoria's Hangouts" on the sidebar of this blog for your convenience.



"Okay. I have a jumbled up thoughts. So pardon me if it rather sounds confusing.

I sensed a good balance of the positive and negative points.

First, the good news to the parents whose kids rather stay home after school to play WoW: You don't have to worry about your kids' whereabouts. And it's up to the parents to schedule their kids' after-school time. My idea would be awarding my kids to play after they're done with their homework and let them get on it for a few hours before dinner at 6 pm. Classic.

For the working class, I've seen a lot who has the online world as a getaway from reality, work or stress. It's like a "thing". Sure it's a lifestyle to most. I guess it's better to have gaming lifestyle than to be associated with the illegal lifestyle like drugs, gang fights or too much partying and boozes. I'd say gamers saves a lot from spending. I'm sure some gamers party, but not as hard as the party animals who have input partying as a lifestyle. Why am I so sure about that? Well... Didn't I just said gamers got their gaming lifestyle? Yes, they spend most of their time on their games.

Here, I'm not only addressing just Wow, but also other gaming platforms. Each and every games tests different skills and even knowledge.

One just has to know how to manage their time. Well hygiene issues? Social? That's like almost none of our business. Don't forget that there are so many different kind of people and personalities. So what if they don't have a real life? Even in the real world, we have jobs that require absolute NO socializing or any team players. I bet people have the initiatives to make a difference in their lives if they know of something they're lacking of. Say, you don't like to communicate, take a job suits you well. If one needs to work somewhere that requires a better communications, take a course or a character-building guidebook. Life doesn't hang on what a gamer enjoys doing most of his life.

If really someone's that addicted to a game, maybe they need help maybe they don't. It's like how Einstein was so addicted to something so boring like his compass his dad gave to him. So maybe this gamer is a gaming genius. Maybe this gamer one day can make a difference to the gamers' world.

I can just go on and on about this. My point is there's always the good and bad depending on how one decides to balance it or just tip the balance to make one's life just a plain thrill. :D" -

Blu Sushi

Josh, Brittany and I went to this sushi restaurant. I was all eager and speaking japanese to the chefs thinking they know a little of the language since they work there, but no.... They do not even have a slight idea what I said. 0_0 Not even keen to learn a little. The concept of the restaurant interior is rather way contemporary for a sushi restaurant. I'd say the style would be perfect for a fancy vogue bar. I could see the similarity in the interior style in the restaurant to the new clubs in Singapore. I enjoyed the perfect interior and food they offer. Pretty high-class look for a small town.

Overall experience, I'd say 2 out of 5. Restaurant theme is not in tune with the great food experience. The great food served in a plate of two is overpriced. You got to be kidding me you're charging like about seven dollars for those.

Anyway, I'm looking forward for a japanese restaurant that reminds me solely of Japan, my previous home.

Project PAWS Yokosuka

Pets Are Worth Saving



One day, I decided to hang out with the cats. I thought,"Ey why not?" Usually people come in to love and care for the cats but I decided to do something very me. Bumming. So I started laying a throw on the ground and the cats just started to come closer and sit around by my side. Also, I took a short nap. Wow.. Journey to the PAWS by foot from the base's gate is indeed exhausting. I actually enjoyed being around them.

This was the shelter I got my Ally from. All animals in the shelter are given updated shots and the adult cats are sterilized. If you want a declawed cat, I'd suggest you do no harm to the ones with the claws still because look no more, you may just find a bunch of them declawed already in the shelter. I know how a lot of apartments here in Japan would prefer owners having declawed pets. Think about the trauma your pet has to go through with all the pain and blood. No doubt its life will totally be affected and its temperament would change too. Ouh man, that ought to hurt. Ally's declawed too and I'm just lucky that she's all nice and kind still. I don't think she realized she has no claws because she still scratch on cat's scratch cardboard really hard and all.

Anyway.. Pets are worth saving. They're our late night entertainment somehow at home. The constant love and licks they give us, the exercises you get from walking them and nice extra chores to train you to become more responsible and unselfish. Things we learn from them and them learning from us. A friendship to treasure for life. :)

Fay Hokulani

Fay is an amazing long time friend from Singapore. Not only does she has the talents for modeling, but she is an absolute real-life graphic design artist who has been an inspiration to me all these years. I've seen her grown from a tiny bud to a full bloom lily. To interact with this young, hip and sweet little starsky, you can log on to her myspace and chat with her in a live chatroom on her profile.

Jeff the Cat

Find out what this kitty cat has for its meals.

The Blue Sky [Book]

the book that made me a bunny again. i love how the story starts.

The Blue Sky by Andrea Petrlik Huseinović

"Everybody has heard the story about Cinderella. It is a story about a little girl who lost her mother and father and was left with someone who was not able to love her as much as her parents.

Does anyone thing about all the children who grow up without love and warmth? They are lonely and sad. They are misunderstood and rejected, and they search for love. They search for it in their dreams, in fairy-tales, among their toys, among birds, animals and flowers.

All around us sad children are growing into sad people all the time.

This is a story about such a girl."