Work at Sunway Lagoon

It was Thursday evening at about five thirty when I received a call from someone from Sunway Lagoon. “Sheng Hung, could you come and work tomorrow?” she asked.

I was quite surprised at first, because I remember going for an interview at Sunway Lagoon some one and a half months ago. And I have only received one reply, which was during Chinese New Year (obviously, I did not take up the offer). It wasn’t long before I realized that they need more staff because it’s the school holidays. I returned her call after some consideration, and she gave me more details of my job.

So, all in all, I worked only for two and a half weeks there.

Yeap, I quit so that I have more time to do my post-STPM results things. (Don’t worry, I won’t mention a thing about that…haha…)

Anyway, back to my job. I was a guest service staff there. Basically the things that I do were checking bags and scanning of wristband (to those who don’t know, visitors are to wear wristbands to enter and exit the park). Place of work was at the entrances and exits of the park (there are two of each, one entrance and exit at the main entrance next to J Co, the other entrance and exit can be reached via escalator next to the Pyramid Tower Hotel).

Checking bags. Blah… blah… blah… I think everyone should now know about the procedures… It was not easy at all (not that I ever thought it was going to be easy…). First of all, let’s talk about the contents of the bags. Some of the visitors’ bags could be easily checked. Firstly, for small bags I would touch the outer portion of the bag, and if I want to, I could ask them to open their bag (procedure: the visitors are the ones to open their own bags, not us). Okay, nothing hard there (there were a few who lock their bags with codes… hmm…)

If I am satisfied that they were not bringing any food or drinks inside, I will allow them to pass, and they will move on to the tag scanning area. But if there’s a lot of clothing inside the bag, I would ask them to take out their clothes, and let me check further.

Okay, here’s the tricky part. What if they were caught with food inside their bags? Well, I would tell them to either finish it first, or put them in the lockers in the mall. The problem now was that many of the parents who were bringing their children refused to follow the rule; they insisted on bringing in food.

“This is for my children mah… they are so small…”

Well, I was scolded many times, but usually I would refer to my supervisors (just so that they could be the subjects of anger… haha!)

Not even water is allowed. Empty bottles are allowed.

I have to admit: this rule is very stupid. I did not ask my supervisors about the reasons behind the ruling (forgotten, should have asked), but as a staff I just followed lor.

Why? Water bottles also cannot bring in ah?

Ma’am, you can bring in the empty bottle. You first need to pour away the water. There are water fillers inside the park for you to refill your water bottle.

Water only wor?

Ma’am, (Pointing to the sign) no food and drinks allowed.

Pour it all out and refill again. Why like that? Isn’t it the same?

Sorry ma’am. It’s the rule here.

(Pause) Why even plain water also cannot go in?

I think it’s because there is a pool inside and they don’t want people to pour in… (As I have said, I do not know the reason behind this, I just made this up myself.)

But I am sick, I can’t drink other types of water than the one I cook at home.

It’s the rule here. It applies to everybody, ma’am.

Why got so stupid rule one?

Yeah (touching my head), I know…

Then usually people would go to the front where there’s a drain, and pour out the water. This certainly got some attraction from the other visitors. (One visitor was right when he said that doing so would embarrass him in front of his crowd, but I still don’t have a choice. Of course, he was furious.)

Sometimes, people just got so furious about this food and drinks thing that they would ask for a refund (after I refused them entry).

This checking procedure gives a bad first impression to the visitors, even before they pass through the tag scanning area. But as I have said before, I did it because I was following the rules. And it’s the truth.

I heard from my colleague who was performing the same task, that a lot of people got fired, sometimes on the spot, for allowing people with food to enter. Anyway, I wonder how are the people doing this kind of job gets satisfaction when they are being scolded and humiliated in front of large crowds? Not to mention, the pay is so low…

Okay, so much about this bag checking thing, there’s another task that we need to perform, which was tag scanning when the visitors enter and exit. We need to check whether they are wearing the correct wristbands (there’s two different sizes of wristbands for adults and children, and different colours for different areas that they can enter. There are paper wristbands also for tour groups and online tickets). If they lost the paper or rubber wristbands, they need to pay RM10 or RM50 respectively before they are allowed to exit.

That’s all. How I feel about my job? Well, the part-time staffs are underpaid (there are full-time staffs also). Of course la, what else matters other than the pay?

How I feel? Well, it is a very challenging job… in fact, if they were to conduct a proper interview to see my caliber, I doubt I would pass that one for the job.

Will I work there again? No.