Working with Marblaze

Marblaze is a small drafting and drawings business that originated from my father, Ariel Bilangel, a civil engineer. The business was formally run by him when he was still a freelancer, but now he has a full-time job and needs assistance in running it. Some months ago, he let me work for him and let me do admin duties. You can read more about it on the official website and on LinkedIn.I have been a part of this since May of this year.

Completed Barista Training

Just recently, I completed a barista training course! I booked myself in for two tutorial: a 3 hour class on Sunday and an additional 2 hour class on Tuesday. 

The first tutorial was all the basics of being a barista: all the aspects in order to make a coffee, as well as basic information about how to care for the machine and about basic food safety. The second class was where I learned how to make basic coffee art and more in-depth food safety.

Learning how to make coffee was actually much easier than I expected. I remember when I would watch people make coffee and feel kind of intimidated by how complicated everything looked. It just seemed so "sophisticated" from my point of view and made me consider, "maybe I won't be able to do it." Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

Overall, I performed pretty well in the tutorials. The tutor even told me that I was one of the "better" students that he's had in the past month(s), which was a major confidence booster for me. But, that's not to say that I didn't have any trouble in some aspects.

Of all the basics, frothing the milk was one of my biggest struggles. Sometimes I would froth it too much and on other times, too little. This struggle shouldn't be too hard to fix since all it takes is more experience, trial and error. 

Doing coffee art was also a major struggle for me. I learned three types of common coffee art: etching, fudge art, and free-pour (this is also my order of easiest to hardest). What's kind of funny is that one of my main hobbies in my spare time is drawing, and seeing my performance in this tutorial was really doing me little justice. 

In order to get better at coffee art, I will need to practice as much as I can. Obviously my coffee art won't look that good to begin with, which is why my tutor gave me a tip: practice on take-away cups where the art will get covered with a lid, anyway. And then, once I get better, I can move on to doing art on dine-in mugs. 

I can more confidently go job hunting now that I've got my certificates, especially since I have no prior work experience as an adult. I hope I find a job soon - hopefully a coffee-making job.

An interview!

 Just yesterday I had an interview for a job at a grocery store. It was my first interview after a couple of years. And the first interview that I managed to get all on my own since 2019-20. Because of how long I've been job-hunting (since the beginning of May), this is a major achievement for me.

Of course, I was very nervous. And this is even though I've working on my shyness and my social anxiety, so my case of nervousness may have been to some degree more intense than an average peer of mine. Before the interview I was worried just waiting for the manager to get over to where I was waiting. Even before that, I was worried that I was a bit over-dressed. All of those worries went away slowly and the interview was successful anyway. 

If there is anything positive that I can take from how nervous and shy I was, it's that whatever level of nervousness I was feeling at the time was nothing compared to how I felt before. When I get nervous talking to people, I used to stutter on my words a lot, especially to the point where I'd feel overwhelmed and want to run away. 

I even remember my mum telling me that when she came with me to my very first interview at a pizza shop, she was so worried that I wouldn't make it. I can recall her saying that I could've even passed out. Thankfully, that was never the case then, and will hopefully never be the case in the future. 

Actually, before the interview I did find some ways to cope with my feelings of nervousness. First, I did end up bringing a fidget toy to keep my hands busy because I tend to fidget a lot when I'm anxious. But when that wasn't enough, I'd seek assistance from my imagination: I thought of one of my favourite characters in fiction and imagined them in the exact scenario as me and tried to simulate how they'd cope. It's geeky, but it worked.

Half of the questions I was expecting to be asked; the other half caught me a little off guard. That's not to say that the unexpected questions were all that difficult to answer, though (I was actually kind of surprised as to how quickly I recovered after freezing during some moments). I just needed to keep this point in mind: customers are the number one priority and ensuring that their experience is more than satisfactory is the goal. 

It was especially the questions that asked why I would be the "best" candidate for the position that bugged me. I kind of have a low self-esteem, so thinking of myself in any association with the word "best" feels a little wrong to say. But I had to suck it up and push through.

At the end of the interview, I'll admit I felt *quite* relieved that it was over because I was still feeling nervous. But despite that, I was actually pretty happy that I finally got to do an interview and it ended in a neutral-positive note. I'm going to expect an email by the end of this week or early next week. I do hope I get this position...!