4. Your feelings and thoughts
I felt excited for the first 2 classes as learning the piano has always been my dream since childhood. However, I have a little bit of frustration as learning something new could be challenging and for me, it's to remember what are the notes on the music sheet.

5. Any difficulties/concerns? How did you cope?
As I mentioned in number 4, the difficulty that I faced is to learn to read musical notation and translate it into piano playing. I guess keep on practising is the only way to cope with it. 

6. 2 words to describe elective posting progress so far. 

7. Your plan for next week (Week 2).
My plan is to continue to practice and hopefully, I can play the whole song by next week, and possibly start the process again on a new song.  

Name: Nurul Iffah Jihan binti Hairunizam

Matric number: A180801

Date: 28th July 2023

 

I've started my elective posting, and I've decided to work at a restaurant to gain experience along with improving my social skills.

I began my elective posting earlier than the official date to ensure that I could adjust to the unfamiliar environment. It's also to ensure that I can do my best in terms of time management, as the food and beverage business has a hectic schedule and tasks. Each worker has various tasks, yet we work as a team and must keep up with everyone's pace in order to provide good service to the consumer. The restaurant, like others, also received orders via online platforms. For instance, shopee, grabfood, and foodpanda.

During the first week, I was briefed on how to operate it prior to the opening period. I must ensure that tables are properly placed and assist co-workers in the kitchen as needed. The restaurant has recently begun using a QR approach for guests to order their own meals, so I was also briefed on how to use it and explain to customers if they needed assistance. For the first week, I was assigned to the counter to become acquainted with the system. At the same time, I was asked to learn and participate in food preparation because they are short-staffed and require assistance. It was a lot for me, especially at lunchtime. I was overwhelmed because the place was packed. Customers were coming in and orders were coming in from an online platform at the same time.

 

 

I thought working in the F&B operations would be easy as I seen others do it, but once I started, it was a bit overwhelming for me and I felt confused at times, but I am thankful and happy that I was surrounded by people who are kind enough to assist me and patiently teach me when times get rough. They even explained to the customers when I was a little delayed in working with the system. 

 

I was having troubles when I needed to handle multiple tasks at once, such as processing orders from multiple tables while also attending to a queue of customers waiting to pay at the counter. I then decided to evaluate what needed to be done first with what could wait.

 

 

I aimed to manage myself better and to be brave enough to ask for help from coworkers because I am new in this field and require assistance. I also planned to give myself some time to adjust to this new setting and practice time management with multiple chores coming at the same time.

 

Name: Nur Hafizah Binti Ilias

Matric number: A182030

Date: 30 July 2023

 

I started my elective posting one week earlier just because I want to be fully prepared at my workplace. I work at the stall at a recreation park. It was my first time working. So it is a new challenge for me. For your information, this place is more crowded during public holidays and weekends compared to weekdays. The reason is most people are working, so during weekends or public holidays they like to spend their free time with children and family in these beautiful places. 

The first thing I do is make myself comfortable in this new workplace. After helping arrange the product such as snacks, I arranged the drinks inside the fridge. I checked the ice-cream in the freezer and there were many choices. I watched the operator of the wonderful waffle. The smell is good. For the first week, I only help wrap the waffle and give it to the customer. 

I noticed the adult preferred waffle with peanut butter filling, where the kids love the waffle with the strawberry filling.  

 -Communication skills

-Time management

-Greet the customer

 

At first I felt anxious since I had never done this before. But as the time flies I can adapt myself to this new environment. It’s totally different compared to when you are in hospital looking after a patient. I think I have a lot of new skills. I really admired the operator who did the same work everyday. 

First of all I need to arrange the snacks, drinks and other items early in the morning. I usually feel worried if I can't finish the work before the customer arrives. I must remember the product if the customer asks the question. I think this matter can be solved by doing it everyday. 

 

 

-Exciting

-Challenging

By next week I will learn to make a waffle. It is not easy but if I learn thoroughly, I am sure I can do it well.

Name: Mohamad Raihan bin Kamaruddin

Matric number: A184221

Date: 30^th July 2023

2.       What have you done?

I start my elective posting on 24^th of July 2023. I’ve decided to work at a restaurant to help me improving my social skills and be more attach to the society.  The restaurant is located at a housing area near UTM thus, most of the customers are university students and workers. Same like other restaurant it is usually packed during the weekend and during breakfast as it’s a go to restaurant for Malaysian. 

When I first get to the restaurant I was brief by the owner and the supervisor about the restaurant and how it is run. I was given the time table on when I’m supposed to work and we had an ice breaking session with all the workers there. 

I started my first week with working as a waiter. Basically, all the workers are given a specific task but since I’m new, I was given the task as a waiter. It was pretty much an easy task I just go up to customers and ask for the orders and bring them their food. 

I do try some other work like making drinks, but since I’m new I do take longer time to make drinks so during peak hours I’ll solely focus on being a waiter and when the customer is less I’ll try to learn how to make drinks. 

3.       Points to remember from week 1!

Communication is a key to win the customers heart. It is important to approach customers with a nice gesture and a wide smile so that they feel more comfortable to talk to us. 

4.       Your feelings & thoughts 

It was somehow kind of an eye opening for me because I never work anywhere before. It’s definitely different approaching a customer and approaching a patient in hospital, surprisingly I’m more relax and confident about approaching a customer compared to approaching patients at hospital. 

5.       Any difficulties/concerns? How did you cope?

The major difficulty that I face is how to handle the customers when their food take longer to be ready during peak hours. My supervisor do thought me a few ways on making the customer wait patiently although they have to wait for quite some time. First we need to serve their drink as fast as possible as drinks are easy to be made compared to food and we also need to make ourselves look busy and make less eye contact with the customer that already order the food. This will make them think that we have a lot of customers and most of them will understand the situation and wait patiently. 

6.       2 words to describe elective posting progress so far

Exciting and helpful. 

7.       Your plan for next week (Week 2)

For week 2 I plan to be more involved in preparing the food and drinks instead of just becoming the waiter.

4. Your feelings and thoughts
Picking up a guitar and diving into the never ending journey of of learning is not an easy task, Mastering even basic chords and songs on the guitar give me a strong sense of accomplishment. This feeling of achievement greatly boost myself-esteem and motivate me to continue learning and improving.

Learning any new skill comes with its challenges. I experience frustration when my fingers don't cooperate, or when a particular technique feels difficult to grasp. However, overcoming these obstacles can lead to a greater sense of satisfaction.

5. Any difficulties/concerns? How did you cope?
When I start playing the guitar, pressing down on the strings can cause discomfort and even pain in my fingertips. This is a natural part of the learning process as I  slowly building the calluses. To cope, I usually take breaks when needed, gradually increase my playing time day be day , and ensure my guitar is properly set up for comfortable play.

6. 2 words to describe elective posting progress so far

7. Your plan for next week (week 2)
For next week, I will work on my strumming technique. Practice different strumming patterns (downstrokes, upstrokes, combinations) with a metronome to improve your rhythm. 

Actually, I’m not a creative person so I find it very difficult to design poster. So, it took me quite some time to come out with an interesting poster because I had to spend time to google and get some idea. 

Exciting and challenging 

I planned to start taking orders and restock some ingredients next week.