My Alba Work Story: Finishing work in the mornings |
By Yun Ga-hyeon
Published June 7, 2017
Translated by Marilyn Hook
※ In this series, “My Alba Work Story”, Ilda is recording the real experiences of young
women doing alba [part-time,
temporary, or side work]. The series receives funding from the Korea Press
Foundation’s Press Promotion Fund.
# I see an
ad for night alba at McDonalds
My walk to work, with its same street and same sights
that I quickly tired of, always took place at night. With my hair still not dry
after showering, I walked down a Sinchon alley lined with flashing neon signs.
Unlike me, with my hastily thrown-on jacket, McDonalds uniform pants, and bare
face, people of a similar age to me that were spiffed up in every way seemed to
be drunk and enjoying themselves. At the time - four years ago - I was an alba worker at McDonalds working from 10
p.m. to 6 a.m.
At 26, I’ve now had many alba jobs over the last ten years. I started at an age when I had
to pay for reference books and singing room visits with money called “an
allowance”. As someone who couldn’t get a regular allowance, I signed the
parental permission slip in my second year of high school without telling my
mom and went to earn money. Having worked at a bar, a clothes store, an
Internet café, a fancy restaurant, a pizza place, a call center, a department
store, and other places, I can say that my favorites were corporate chains. In
my experience, that’s the only type of alba
employer that promptly issues paychecks and reliably pays extra - as it should
- for weekend, holiday, and nighttime work. And that’s only when it’s a branch
managed directly by the company, not a franchise.
And they’ve been the only places that have kindly
recognized my alba experiences as
work experience. To be honest, no white-collar employers have so far given me
credit for my high school diploma or my numerous alba jobs. So naturally, even if it’s just an alba job, I prefer directly-managed branches of corporate chains.
It has been stressful and annoying when, at small independent businesses, I
haven’t been paid on time and knew that the owner didn’t have the money to do
so, or I’ve had to go to the Ministry of Labor red-faced after the job finished
and report the employer so that I could receive all the paychecks they owed me.
About five years ago, in the autumn of my twenty-first
year, I was about to begin living on my own in the Sinchon district of Seoul. I
had to earn money so that I could enjoy my university life, which was getting
off to a late start. After I had been studying for a year and fall was turning
into winter, I was doing alba work
four to five times per week in order to pay for the next semester’s tuition and
living costs. It was three or four shifts at a bar, and then on the weekends I
worked at the customer service desk of a department store.
Then, when I suddenly noticed the ad for alba openings at McDonalds, I thought, “Here’s
an alba environment that can give me
a new kind of satisfaction.” I was bewitched by this strange ad that promised a
discount on conversation classes at a nearby English institute, eventual
chances for promotion, close relationships with coworkers, the special
atmosphere of the Sinchon branch, etc. At that time, the work seemed not like
mere alba but alba that offered benefits and would improve my welfare. And since
the ad was for the night shift, I thought there wouldn’t be many customers, so
the work would be easy.
What most drew me, though, was the high hourly pay. It
was 1.5 times the minimum wage. I thought that this would allow me to cut the
days I worked from 4-5 times a week down to 2-3 times a week, making me less
tired. This plan even made me glad that the school break was approaching. Of
course, at that time it was still the semester, so I sometimes had to go to
school the next day, but the thought that I wouldn’t be afraid to work
nights when the break came made me look forward to it. Naturally, none of this
worked out like I planned, but I did begin my time on the McDonalds night shift
with expectations that it would be different from my other alba jobs.
 |
I began alba
work at McDonalds as a part-time night worker with high hourly pay.
|
# Working
from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m.
I was the only female alba worker on the night shift. When a female manager was on duty,
the number of women climbed to two, but otherwise I never saw a female worker
at night. When I would cross the kitchen, greeting the “crew” (that’s what
McDonalds calls its workers) that were working, and enter the “crew room”, the oppa that worked with me would be
changing their clothes, sitting at the table watching videos on their phone,
and giggling.
I lived in Sinchon, so I could walk to the restaurant
in 15 minutes, but the oppa came from
farther away. Most had been brought along, by transferred managers who liked
them, from other branches. Strangely, they had all worked at McDonalds for more
than two years. Some of them were university students or had day jobs in
addition to this one, while the motorcycle delivery oppa were older men who had three
jobs. The reason that there were a lot
of men on the night shift was that they had to clean the restaurant and move
heavy food items for the next day. The reason that I was necessary was because
they needed a female worker to work at the counter.
Male crew members could just change their clothes and
put on a hat, but I had to put on a hair net, and I put on lipstick to hide my
otherwise-makeup-free face. It was annoying, but a fairly mild demand compared
to other jobs in the service industry. The oppa
would say, “Put on some makeup!”, but even if I did, it was erased only too
easily by sweat and grease. After I finished these preparations, we would talk generally
about who would take a break when that day, and then go out into the kitchen.
In order to let the crew that worked before us get
home quickly, I always arrived about 20 minutes early and helped them finish
up. Our branch had a lot of university students who had classes in the morning,
and I wanted to make their lives easier. Also during the shift change, if there
was a sales event or a new menu item, I would have to be told about it and
practice on the cash register. When expressions that had turned dour from
fatigue at the end of the shift would light up on seeing me, it made me happy.
My workday started with joy that someone else could go home and with words of
thanks for coming out quickly.
Sinchon is in full swing at 10 p.m. There are people
who come to McDonalds to satisfy their hunger after drinking and people who get
a burger to go on their way home after finishing the day late. There were so
many customers that I would wonder, “How can this many people eat burgers?”
Things would usually calm down when the subway stopped running for the night –
except on the weekends. Then, crew members who had been scheduled to finish at
11 p.m. sometimes had to stay on until 2 a.m. (because the number of customers
was too large for me to handle alone).
 |
In contrast to my expectation that the work
would be easy, Sinchon’s McDonald’s was full of customers at night.
|
Anyway, my main tasks weren’t just taking customers’
orders and calling out, “Your food is ready” like the day workers do. They were
things that were necessary for business to run smoothly in the mornings and
afternoons. I cleaned and filled things - I would clean the deep fryer that
made our French fries, disinfect the soda dispenser, clean the coffee machine
and ice cream machine, or fill up empty sauce dispensers.
I moved heavy things, cleaned, tidied, and then cleaned
grease-smeared things some more, and waited for morning. It was simple work,
and there was an order to it. Like an assembly line at a factory, once this
task was finished that one had to be done, and then the next thing. I could
feel the end of the shift getting a little bit nearer as I finished each part,
and it made me happy.
But that joy didn’t come easily. McDonalds’ food is full
of grease, so there is grease everywhere. The floor, the ceiling, the trays, the
deep fryer, the belts the burgers travel on, etc. It’s so bad that McDonalds has
a special cleaning fluid to remove it. It is toxic to even sniff this fluid. I
would move the deep fryer full of grease into the sink, and release the cleaner
into the hot water. I tried to keep my hands from coming into contact with the
water, but it was unavoidable, and I would get blisters or even mysterious red
spots on them.
When I was first learning how to do this work, the
crew member training me said, “This cleaner is very strong, so don’t get it on
your hands. All of the cleaning fluids we use are exclusive to McDonalds’, and
they’re totally different from the soapy stuff we use.” I also used different
types (I think there were four or five) of nameless cleaners to wipe down the
tables and the beverage dispensers. And the trays, and the floors.
# Many alba workers’ meal, the burger
Night alba work didn’t make me as tired as I’d expected. Actually, there was no time to be
tired. The work was definitely enough to make me tired, as it involved lifting
heavy things and continuous movement, but there was no time to be sleepy. The
anxiety of having to finish my work quickly, and impatience to finish it, made
me work diligently. That was the only way I could greet the morning sun with a
light heart.
But among all this, the hardest part was – of course –
dealing with customers. In addition to
those who always came at the same time, there were those who drunkenly demanded
food we didn’t sell and, once, a foreigner who stumbled in and then spent two
hours talking to himself before leaving.
One interesting thing was that the regular customers
were mostly night alba workers like
me. Once I realized they were regulars, we began to chat a little, and that’s
how I learned what they did. One of them was the owner of a fried chicken
restaurant that I often went to. When he first saw me at McDonalds, he said I
looked familiar, so I said, “I often go to XX restaurant. You’re the owner,
right?” He said he hadn’t recognized me in my uniform, and greeted me. I
eventually learned that all sorts of night workers - him, the alba workers at the ox bone soup place
behind the McDonalds and even at the chicken feet restaurant next door to it –
ate burgers. This cheap and quickly-prepared food was both snack and meal to alba workers.
 |
| A chart of the menu items offered for free to McDonalds workers, divided by job type and shift length. |
When I think about it, I also had no choice but to eat
a burger once a day while working at McDonalds. They called it a “crew meal”,
and provided it instead of Korean food. We could have it during our break
times, which we didn’t always get, when the restaurant wasn’t busy and before
we began selling the morning menu items. (From 4 a.m., McDonalds begins “McMorning”
and sells breakfast sandwiches like the McMuffin instead of burgers.) When I
had finished most of my tasks (or when I couldn’t) I would go into the crew
room with a burger, fries, and a drink, and eat my lunch-like breakfast.
I would eat a different type of burger every day, but
it was no use – they were all the same. They were both tasty and gross. I would
eat one for 30 minutes while watching a boring entertainment show that had been
downloaded to the crew room computer. Since then, I’ve been the best consumer
of hamburgers, able to explain and judge the taste of any of them. I’ve
continued eating them regularly since quitting, even though I didn’t before I
started working there. Since I had been totally envious of the drunk customers
that would come in, I now seek out McDonalds habitually when I drink.
# Letting go
of the reliable routine and high pay of night alba
It’s hard to clearly explain the reason why I quit my
night alba job at McDonalds. In order
to endure that work, I had to get along well with the rest of the crew, and in
order to do that, I had to go for a drink with them every morning after
finishing. They would always say it would just be a meal, but there was always
alcohol. The “close relationships” that the job ad had promised were made after
the sun came up and we finished work. I was tired and wanted to go home and
rest, or had to go straight to school, but instead I soothed my fatigue with
alcohol. I wouldn’t say that I liked drinking with my coworkers, but that we
all considered it compensation for a difficult workday. We consoled each other
with alcohol while others were just beginning their day. The mess that this habit
made of my day forced me to quit McDonalds before I had even been there six
months.
Now that I think about it, I was quite lonely then. I
was always working, but my bank account was always empty, and so I could never
meet up with friends. When I wanted to make plans to see them, I would think
first not of the faces of those I wanted to see, but of my bank balance, and
the thought of going to work the next day made me tired. Even though I lived in
Sinchon, near the “Street of Youth”, I couldn’t have any real fun. I don’t
remember Sinchon’s warm, bright days as much as I do its debauched and
alcohol-soaked nights - and I was so sorry for myself for missing out on even
the latter that I would drink in the mornings to try to forget the daytime that
I was missing out on.
But when I quit, it was difficult to readjust my
internal clock. I tried to go to bed early but would lay there wide awake - and
then fall asleep around dawn and dream about fighting with customers who wanted
burgers. I still worried that my manager would call me in for an emergency
shift.
In the end, I had no choice but to keep doing night alba, working for short times at
different place like Lotteria [another fast food restaurant] or bars. I ended
up choosing night over day, and after living like that for a while, I quit
school, too. To make a living, I haven’t been able to let go of the living
pattern and pay rate of nighttime alba,
the work I thought I would do for just a short time. My struggle to greet the
morning with a sound mind is also ongoing.
Who named Sinchon’s main street the “Street of Youth”?
In my memories, there was no youth in Sinchon, just dark and depressing nights.
Even now when I go there, I am overwhelmed with memories of those days. Even
now, Sinchon’s streets at night have flashing street signs and alba workers who toil below them, young
people throwing up in alleys and fast, cheap burgers that fill their empty
stomachs. And the McDonalds workers who make those burgers are standing there
instead of me.
* Original article: http://www.ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7898
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