Journal no. 3

4 things that happened at the shop yesterday...

1. Sashimi

lady bought a sashimi-grade piece of salmon.
and she requested for it to be sliced, sashimi-style. i would advise against that, because it will be done by the same guys who mainly handle descaling and removal of guts.

when the guy sliced it and put it in a plastic bag, wet black fish scales from his gloves got on the bag. i should have replaced the plastic... the lady must have been grossed out by it when she unwrapped the package.

2. Jie Mo

during the busy period, a Chinese couple, who don't speak English, picked up some Korean wasabi and asked their server some questions, but she didn't speak Mandarin.
i tried to translate by telling them that it was wasabi for raw fish, in my broken Mandarin. but they still kept asking if it was "jie mo". what is that?

finally, another server was able to answer their question. all she said was "yes", but "jie mo" means wasabi. geez.

3. The Sink

customer showed me the small cut on her mother's finger she got while handling fish, and asked if there was a place to wash it. the boss had told me before that we don't provide any hand-washing facilities at the shop, customers will have to go to the shopping center toilet.
but i thought this was an exception since the cut was bleeding, so i let them use the sink behind the counter.

the boss caught me and said never do that again, because insurance doesn't cover anything that happens to customers behind the counter.
okay... i guess they don't want customers to wander through the deadly 1 meter of space between the sink and the customer area.

4. Discounts

a lady asked for a $0.05 discount after taking forever to dig out her coins. it was almost closing time, and she was soft-spoken and polite. i wanted to give her change in a round figure because my brain couldn't handle all the mental calculations anymore, so i agreed to charge her less without consulting anyone.

earlier, a man asked and received a $2+ discount from the boss because he said he was going to buy more stuff after getting the crabs.

so, you can get a discount when the conditions are right.