Before Every Shift, I Sat Outside the Kopitiam for Five Minutes

Every morning at 6:45 AM, I would sit on the concrete ledge just outside the kopitiam. Five minutes. That was all the time I had left. I’d stare at my phone, pretending to scroll, but my eyes couldn’t focus. Inside my chest, my heart would start to pound, hard and fast, like my body already knew what was waiting for me inside.

Five minutes more, then the 12-hour shift begins.

I was just helping at a noodle stall. Take orders. Cook noodles. Remember who ordered dry mee pok, who wanted extra chili, who didn’t want bean sprouts.

Nothing glamorous lah.

But after a few months, those five minutes on the ledge became my oxygen before diving back in. Once I stepped across that threshold, the noise started pressing into my head.

“Faster can or not?”
“Wrong order again.”
“Aiyo, I just taught you yesterday.”

Sometimes the comments were not even shouted. They were muttered under the breath, sighed out with a shake of the head. Somehow, that quiet disappointment cut deeper than a scream.

By the time the lunch crowd hit, it was pure survival. Twelve hours on your feet means by hour eight, your lower back becomes a dull ache and your brain starts to jam. Office workers rushing, eyes glued to their watches. Uncle auntie impatient, drumming their fingers on the counter. Delivery riders shoving phones in your face.

Fishball noodles. Kway teow dry. Mee kia soup. No spring onion.

The orders blurred into a wall of sound. The clanging of aluminum ladles against the boiling vats sounded like alarms. I started making stupid mistakes. I gave soup to a dry order. I forgot the extra chili.

That night, I couldn’t sleep properly. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw impatient faces staring at me across the glass counter. Even on my off days, I didn’t want to go out anymore. I would just lie on my bed in the dark, scrolling TikTok until evening.

My body was resting, but my mind was still standing at the noodle vat.

Then the phone would buzz.

Ping.

A message in the work group chat.

Even on a Tuesday off, that simple sound made my stomach drop instantly. My chest would tighten before I even opened the message.

One afternoon after the lunch rush, the stall owner asked me to step outside for a talk. We stood beside the tray return station, the smell of leftover gravy and stale kopi hanging in the air.

She lit a cigarette and said business was getting busier. She needed people who could cope better during the rush. Then she looked at me quietly and asked, “You okay or not?”

My throat tightened so hard it hurt. I almost cried right there beside the tray return rack. Not because she scolded me. Actually, she didn’t.

Maybe because it was the first time in months somebody noticed I was struggling.

I wanted to explain that I was trying very hard. That every single 12-hour shift felt like a final exam I was failing in slow motion.

But in the end, I just nodded and said, “I’ll improve.”

The next week, my shifts were cut.

I went from being overwhelmed by work to being overwhelmed by the silence of my bank account. Now the fear is different. Instead of fearing the crowd, I fear the bills.

Behind many counters in this city, there are tired people quietly taking deep breaths, fighting racing thoughts, just trying to survive their next five minutes.

They are just trying very hard to survive quietly.

You just don’t see it.”