Journey of Jeju Island——my korean manager

On the first day of my arrival at hostel, manager looks restless when he found out I can barely understand what he said in korean. I'm feared too, I can't imagine what kind of life I'm gonna go through for the coming days here.

 

Because of my limits in korean, I need to be train from morning till night 8 days in a row before I can start working with payment. Furthermore, our 2 other colleagues will need to go back M'sia for certain period, by then will be only me and my manager running the hostel for ONE MONTH before their return...... OMG!  

 

When we only have each other...

During that 1 months working closely with my manager (we can rely on no one else), I tried my best to communicate with him with limited korean, google translate, dictionary, pictures even video especially when come to explain the problem faced by our guests staying here. Working as a receptionist here at the hostel....

During morning shift (7:30am to 2:30pm) I need to:
1. Prepare simple breakfast for our guest
2. Reply (many) mails
3. Answer phones (Manager answered the phone most of the time because I couldn't speak!)
4. Running upstair to ask our elderly cleaner aunty what she wants for lunch today
    (before we can order)
5. Provide tourist information
6. Taxi tour translation
7. Handling all kind of guest's issues that you can and can't think about it!
8. Do room control and guest list




Bread, Coffee and Tea!

Our Pantry

 

During afternoon shift (2:30pm to 10pm) I need to:
1. Do room check after cleaning
2. Make sure everything is organized in kitchen
3. Reply (many) mails
4. Check in for guests
5. Going to buy breads, jam and etc for next day breakfast at nearby e-mart supermarket at 5:10pm every evening
6. Brain storming what to eat for dinner
7. Handling all kind of guest's issues that you can and can't think about it!   
8. Provide tourist information for their next day plan
9. Do room control and guest list
10. Waiting for check in guest (forever waiting till midnight sometimes)
11. Never end social and drinking session with guests at the pantry nearly everynight!!!






Room Check

Make sure everything is ready in the room 

Social time, after 10!

I'm really exhausted during that one month when only two of us doing EVERYTHING without break or off in between from morning till night. I've to admit my manager is really a Superman because he is the bell boy, technician, room cleaner, driver, front desk manager and also comedian! Frequently, when he get too tired but couldn't rest, he tends to become extra hyper and starts to demonstrate me all kind of sport action which looks SO SILLY YET HILLARIOUS that I couldn't stop laughing. I guess that's how the way we survived through those hard time together, and that also the moment we built trust and get to know each other better. In fact, he wasn't really that scary tho!



my first polaroid with guests from Hong Kong

my first photo with manager and petit guest from China :)