Sunday, November 26, 2006

No Cake today! Or any day.

On Sundays I work alone from 6:00 am to 10:00 am. The doors open at 9:00 am.

The following is a letter I faxed to the store owner. It is self explanatory.
It may make or break my job. Time will tell. The confrontation was with the Bakery Manager. Whatever the outcome it is probably for the best as God has a plan. I've spent most of the day repeating the Lords Prayer. The tough part is; we forgive those who trespass against us.

Nov. 26, 2006 Sunday.

This is only my opinion and experience - Without prejudice.

Dear Dave,

In the past I have been able to handle my own confrontations. Today was a little more than what I could handle.

What we have here is a “failure to communicate”.

The following will be my routine, thoughts and feels on how I handled the day. You may receive other versions.

Arriving early as usual, always trying to be prepared for any unplanned emergencies, I find a very large cake order for Sunday at 9 am. (Sale price $80.00) The first question to myself is; why would they do this on such short notice? I read it over and over again. It does say Sunday at 9 am. (When I left on Saturday at 1:15 pm we had no cake orders)

Flying into action, I know I have to get the bread and bun bin filled by 8:00 am. I will worry about the packaged buns later. (From experience people will ask about the packaged buns and I figured I would package as needed.) This now gives me one hour to decorate these cakes. (2 full slab cakes) Ok, my decorating experience is limited but I try my best at whatever I do and being out of practice this takes longer as in after 9, doors are open. (Not sure when I finished had customers in between everything else.)

It is now 10:00 am. The cake customer has not arrived yet. I am cleaning up the decorating tools and waiting on customers, this must have been another mistake I made.

10:05 am. Sue arrives asking, “why aren’t the buns out?” I try to explain. I get cut short. “You don’t do cakes!” Ok. That is fine but what am I suppose to do when I see a cake order for Sunday for 9:00 am. (I am getting loud now) I was told; “don’t you take that tone with me”. I never did get an answer to my question.

I was told there are customers who need buns, as she pointed to her grocery-buggy. Again, I try to explain; I thought it was more important to get an $80.00. cake order done which was a greater $ value than all the packaged buns put on the shelf. Besides we were in the process of packaging when Sue arrived.

I guess my priorities were wrong and I apologize for that. It won’t happen again. I will not decorate again and I will not come up with any ideas again.

Some of my co-workers have asked me why I’m so happy? I love life. I like my job. I enjoy working. I enjoy sharing ideas but I found that is not acceptable here. I will try to fit in.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Anne Marie,
I think that you handed the situation lovely. If you had done it the other way around and not done the cake, you still would have got the same grief from her. It's not something that you are going to get used to, beleive me, it will tear you apart inside and you will hate your job that you already so dearly love. I am very proud that you wrote this letter. I am sure that it will go in a stack of many letters already sent in by others.
Good Luck

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