Change Amidst the Rough Time

Change is a way of life (Pic source: Google.com)

"When I  did no go to work, I had a walk from my home to the TV Station in the morning. The wind was big, so nice and comfortable."

One of the elder workers from my previous job kept uttering the same sentences over and over again after she came back from her medical leave. I guessed, that was the syndrome that happened to human once we got old.

As I walked out from my new working place last night, the place was really windy that required me to put on my wind breaker.

It happened that my new working place was located just around that local TV Station area (what a coincidence!). It was very far from my house (it took me 1 hour and 15 minutes to reach there one way).

"Since you walked there, did you see any (local) movie stars?" 

That was another question raised by another auntie to that elder worker. And she said, unfortunately no. 

However, in the morning on my first day to work, as I passed by the campus (I did not even know there was such campus available for acting!), I saw one famous local actor walking on my opposite direction. With his white hair, he greeted the Chinese New Year wishes to the man who walked in front of me. He even removed his mask a while to ensure the person knew who he was. 

Some of Mark Lee movies (Pic source: Google.com)

I knew him, but forgot his name. Therefore I was keeping quiet as I walked and did not do anything (like waving hands or asking to take photo etc.) Then I quickly searched for his name in Google and found out. He was Mark Lee (known as Lee Kwok Huang), a Singaporean comedian, actor, television host and film director. He had produced and starred many local movies in Singapore and I has watched many of them too. 

Wow!!! What a day! The Aunty walked for so many days and did not see any stars even once, but I met one on my first working day! Hahaha... Maybe it was a good sign for a new beginning *grin *grin

So yes, I had started yet another chapter of working life since yesterday. The kueh lapis job had just over last Friday and was ended with dinner. I felt getting better at doing it by now (maybe the increasing number of years and experiences made my confidence level grew higher).

As I mentioned before, I wanted to share with you about my new working place. First, the location was in One-North area. It was a subzone and business park, developed by JTC Corporation for the R&D and high technology cluster, comprising biomedical sciences, infocomm technology (ICT) and media industries (Source: Wikipedia).

Info on Mediapolis (Pic source: Wikipedia)

And the exact location of my working place was at building called Alice@Mediapolis. 

"Right in the heart of Mediapolis, ALICE@MEDIAPOLIS is a business park created for startups and as a base for established organisations. It offers startup spaces, shared media facilities, flexible work-live-play-learn spaces, a childcare centre, and retail outlets. 

The Deliveroo Food Market is also housed in the building, featuring 10 kitchens and a 40-seater dining space, all based on a fully automated ordering system."

(Source: Wikipedia)

Deliveroo Food Market at Alice@Mediapolis

This was how the 40-seater dining place looked like. And the 10 kitchens mentioned was located just behind the area. 

"Deliveroo (legally incorporated as Roofoods Ltd.) is an online food delivery company founded by William Shu in 2013 in London, England.

It operates in over two hundred locations across the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

Its subsidiary operation, Deliveroo Editions, focuses on growing a network of ghost kitchens—kitchens located off-site from restaurants for the preparation of delivery-only meals."

(Source: Wikipedia)

So, I worked in one of those 10 ghost kitchens located behind. 

List of kitchens and brands participating at Deliveroo Food Market

As mentioned above, the ghost kitchen was there to prepare food for delivery only meals. And ordering system was all fully automated, meaning that it was ordered through online (Deliveroo website or apps). No service staff taking order at the counter and to serve the food for you. It would be delivered by the Deliveroo food delivery rider to your home or office, or you can pick up at Deliveroo Food Market like the place above. 

Where you pick up your meals :)

When Covid-19 struck in Singapore since March last year, many F&B establishments were suffering as less people dined in. They were struggling with the restaurant's high rent cost, high labour cost, and so on. 

Food delivery had become trends as it encouraged less interaction between humans (as ordering, payment etc. were fully automated). People would not mind to pay more to get the taste of food that they wanted without having to move their butts and queue up. 

The GM of the restaurant that I worked saw this as a very good opportunity and time to strike this type of business. What they needed was to rent a small kitchen and hired few kitchen staffs (3 full-time staffs and 3 to 4 part-time staffs) to operate in their daily basis. 

They showed their food menu on the Deliveroo apps and to widen the market, he was creating the business Instagram accounts to introduce, show, and market what they sold. 

With premium ingredients used, well cooking skills and creativity, it could produce a delicious, healthy, and eye-catching food and many people who were health-conscious and loved high quality food, would not mind paying a high price to get the products. 

I was sometimes amazed with it because even in difficult times like this, people were still buying and spending their money on these types of food unhesitatingly.

Well, Covid or not Covid, people would still have to eat. You just had to change the way you run your business to maximise your profit. I loved this idea though. 

Delivery wise, you did not have to headache because Deliveroo would manage. You just had to focus on your food and beverage operations. 

All the prepared food was just put on the kitchen window and the staffs from Deliveroo would transfer it to the collection point, ready to be picked up by the rider or customer. 

The food had to be prepared in short time (as short as 7 minutes) so that it could preserve the heat, quality, and freshness by the time it reached the recipient's hands. So we had to work fast and good teamwork was necessary. 

Well, that was only the beginning. I hope it would go well and smoothly. I did not say it was easy but I would do my best to learn and be a good team player. Wish me all the best!!! :D