F1 Sepang ’06: Day 1

Waking up at 5.30am is unbelievable, but I did it without feeling overtly lazy. My dad fetched Ding and I to Hilton PJ, and settled by at the nearby mamak at about 6am to pass the time to wait for 7.15am, which is when the bus is scheduled to arrive.

We hopped on it, and we reached the F1 Sepang Circuit an hour later, which gave us ample time to doze off and recharge our batteries.

The usual delegation of the hideous green-and-white shirts, bags, and other “Official Programme” merchandise started. I’m already wearing an ugly fluorescent pink wrist-tag, and a nice yellow identification pass that Ding gave me the night before (when we went to Angie’s house for a chat), that he obtained from the F1 briefing the night before that. >_>

After we changed into our uniform which is a complete sore to the eye, we were supposed to gather around the van near our two bosses (another one we loathed, Nacho, wasn’t there, thank god).

Being the smart arse that I am with experience from last year, I knew they will start giving out our tasks from Booth 1 up to Booth 6. We were supposed to group in 3s or 4s, and the first group went to our bosses who then gave them the rather uncoveted Booth 1, which is near the parking lot and is fucking hot in the afternoon Sepang sun. There are two ‘taboo’ booths in all, Booth 1, and Booth 6 which is situated inside the circuit itself, and those who was with me (Heng, Jon, Kean Leong, me) can attest to the suffering, physical and mental torture we endured.

I led Ding and I, together with two other relatively unknown strangers who looked pretty fierce and the samseng-type at first, to be grouped together at Booth 4. Both Booths 4 and 5 are directly beneath the skirt of the building’s roof, so we were completely shaded in the afternoon. Fucking joy. :)

Not too badlah, it’s 100 times easier than last year, and I got to laze around. Our bosses from last year, particularly Nicolas, understand that we can get tired and allowed us to rest, but “not in the booth, do it behind on the grass or someplace else”. Yay.

Several highlights and random stuffs of today:

- there are three aquas working on a Petronas/Sepang booth metres away from us. I try not to be prejudiced but it gives me the creeps. And wtf is in the right mind of the management anyway. -___-My colleague of the same booth, Kenny, told us that whenever we feel sleepy, simply walk to that particular booth and stare at the aquas and we’ll feel refreshed instantly.

Further down the road underneath the weird-looking exhibition on the right is where the aquas are.

- a Japanese dude in his 30s or 40s asked us in what sounded like rehearsed English, “Excuse me, where is the lavatory?” Who on earth uses ‘lavatory’ these days?? <_<

- about 50% of our customers are Japanese.

- there’s an equal share between polite foreigners and plain asshats.

- we were competing against a rival booth opposite us (Booth 5). This young kid was annoying us with “we almost sell finish wor!” like we freaking care.

The booth at the opposite of us.

- Today was mostly cloudy up to 2-3pm, so it was a complete joy.

The guy and his waving Renault flag.

Ding curi tulang by constantly SMSing to a certain someone *cough*. Must show boss this picture or blackmail him.

We were tired of standing (and walking around, we took a shifts of two people) so we sat on the table in the end. People still come to our booth to buy.

Some Malay couple buying. Malaysians make up only 0.1% of the demography of people who buy the RM40 Official Programme magazines from us.

The annoying kid as aforementioned.

One of the chun Marlboro girls. Too lazy to snap more.

The Marlboro stand very near to us.

Lepak around mostly. Our bosses didn’t care that we sat on the tables either.

The noises of the F1 cars blasting around is to be expected, and it was kinda lively in a way. We can’t use the ‘authorised personnel only’ toilet anymore, so had to use this portable toilet which is actually quite funky, despite the small space. I even took a break there by sitting in it for several minutes before leaving, although it could get hot and stuffy under the cursed Sepang sun.

My only lunch was the two buns I bought earlier from 7-Eleven from behind my house at 6am. Ding bought only one. So you can only imagine we are starved since a lunch set at the circuit costs about RM19.90 and the less-than-500ml drinks are priced at RM5. Even ice-creams are RM5 too wtf.

Our work stopped at 4pm (surprisingly, but goodlah), but in the end we had to wait for 2 freaking hours for our bus to arrive. That spells 6pm. -__- Since the bus used the highway to go to PJ Hilton, I asked for it to stop somewhere along the highway near Pyramid. Dad picked us up home from there.. at about 7.20pm.

Only two days to endure. I’m slightly sunburnt now, despite the small exposure to the accursed sun.