crazycake

Plan ahead, people

Today a woman walked into the bakery to order a three tiered specially designed birthday cake...for tomorrow.  And when I asked her when she needed it and she told me, she didn't even tell me in a way that made me think that she knew the level of snort-worthiness of what she was asking.  This drives me CRAZY.   

I wouldn't have a problem helping this lady out if she had showed any awareness or respect for the amount of time and effort it takes to pull of a stacked decorated beribboned and flowered cake.  This is what I should see- hunched shoulders, sheepish faces, and apologetic voices.  Oh, yes, there should be begging.

I would have LOOOOOOoooooooved to tell her absolutely not. 

First of all, it's a birthday.  You can see it coming for a whole year.  HAVE A PLAN. 

Second, a stacked cake?  Really?  For a teenager's birthday party?  A cake that costs easily up to 200 dollars?  And that's at a bakery that is one of the cheapest in the area?  No no.  Spoiled much?

Third, when a person all of a sudden decides they need a cake made in the next five minutes, and doesn't really understand why she's going to be charged an insane late-notice fee and tries to argue about it?  Deserves to be told no and sent on her way.

Interestingly, she had also forgotten her wallet and was unable to pay.  Massive eye roll.

Completely off topic, I have a brand new shockingly weird name to share.  While this did not come from the bakery ( It's my step-daughter's classmate's name) it is worth sharing.

And it is....Gatlock.  Unique and bold, right?  The guy doesn't even have a nickname.  He is Gatlock always, all the time.  

So many strange people there are in the world. 

Bitter much?

Hello.

I have not posted in a while, and if there are any of you actually reading this, don't think it's because there is a sudden lack of crazy.  Oh no.  The crazy never goes away.  I've just been having an extraordinarily eventful life lately.  Just the thought of doing anything more strenuous than sprawling out on my couch and wishing someone would pass the chips makes me tear up a little bit.  Yes, it is quite pathetic.  And I choose to blame the majority of it on my workplace.  THEY ARE RUNNING ME INTO THE GROUND, PEOPLE.

My bosses have decided that they are running a business half the size of what is actually the case.  It's a pretty hectic environment in the best of circumstances, and having only half the staff that should be working is not helpful.  It's kind of a running joke among us lesser workers that once someone quits, we just spread the job around to everyone who stayed, so we're all doing about three people's jobs. 

And today, I have had it.  Not that I haven't 'had it' every other day of the past couple of months, but today was just completely over the top.  I was running the stupid store BY MYSELF, basically for about two hours today.   I have NO IDEA what the other people were doing, but I do not blame my co-workers because I have no doubt that what they were doing was absolutely necessary.  Every single thing we do is absolutely necessary because we have NO TIME to do anything remotely extra in my job.  It just so happened that today, what was absolutely necessary took ALL OF THEM off of the floor today and left me all by my lonesome, the lucky recipient of death glares, angry comments, RUDE comments, and exasperated gestures indicating that they JUST WANTED SOME PASTRIES, WHY ISN'T THIS IDIOT HELPING ME????   I don't think I can tell you just how much I hate apologizing for something that is not my fault, over and over and over.

I do not have five hands, three heads, and the ability to teleport across the room to help everyone at once.  Which is what was needed today.  BAD JOB BOSSES.  BAD JOB. 

Does every person who is promoted to upper management instantly lose the ability to understand what the people under them actually do?  That we're not just slacking off, and that not everything is our fault?  I am resenting THE CRAP out of my bosses right now.  I am a great worker, I love making pretty cakes, I go out of my way to help my co-workers because that's what you DO in a job where you depend on other people, and I take what I do seriously.  Recognize, bosses.  Maybe try some appreciation that goes beyond half hearted comments every once in a while and realize that we are not robot superhuman people and we could use some HELP.

OH YES I AM BITTER.

And it's nine thirty at night and I have to go to bed soon because yes, I am that person who goes to bed around nine every night and I HAVE TO GO BACK TOMORROW. 

Time for guilting a foot massage out of my husband. 

ApostropheSlashAsterisk

Today my favorite call was from a guy who was simultaneously having two conversations, both of them poorly.  I love when someone calls the shop and has absolutely no idea what they're doing and starts asking every single question that I ask to somebody else.  It's like when I make my husband order the pizza because I haaaaaate calling to order a pizza.  Although, I make very sure that I know exactly what I'm getting because I hate being on the phone more than anything in this world so it's really my husband's fault for not getting all the facts beforehand.  My apologies to the pizza guys. 

Anyway.

While having this particularly delightful dual conversation about a cake order, I asked the guy what message he wanted.  STUMPED! Again!  Shocker.  So far during this call, he could not tell me what size, flavor, colors, OR when he wanted to pick the stupid thing up.  All of these things you would think someone would have thought of before calling a place of business, but no.  More often than not, people are always caught off guard by the fact that they have to answer a few questions, and that the cake is not going to magically appear in front of them.

He asked his wife (I assume the wife, having had similar, albeit pizza related, conversations with my husband) what message they wanted. 

"Mumble mumblemumble...!" I hear in the background, then the guy repeats, "Happy Birthday Bobbio!"

And I spell, "B-o-b-b-i-o?"

"NO! "B-o-b-b-y-o!"

A little uncertain, I asked if they wanted a dash between the last two letters?  (At first I thought they were spelling with an i, they were trying to do a play on Daddi-o, like in the fifties or something.  West Side Story leapt to mind.)

"Uh, no! (dripping with disdain) the slash!  You know, a slash!"

"A slash?"  I was QUITE sure that that was wrong.  I heard urgent mumbling in the background, as he was simultaneously impatiently telling me, "A SLASH.  LIKE, APOSTROPHE- YOU KNOW..a SLASH!"

VERBATIM, people.  After all, aren't all the forms of punctuation pretty fluid?  I mean, what does an apostrophe really DO?  Its function is just to separate some letters, like, SLASHES do...RIGHT?!)_#-?  (More punctuation can only mean more EMPHASIS, RIGHT?)

I heard agitated mumbling on the other end, and the guy pretty quickly changed his ApostropheSlash to Bobby-o.    And hung up quite abruptly.   As they do when you are right and they are wrong, and they know they were being jerks about it. 

People are wonderful, aren't they?  

BIRTHDAY CAKE! OF COURSE!

I did not enjoy today.  Today was a day where I would walk past a co-worker and we would both heave an enormous sigh, shake our heads and trudge on.  The crazies were out in force today, obviously sensing that what I needed most out of life was a series of excrutiatingly moronic conversations with strangers.  So thanks for that, customers. 

This phone call happened at the end of a very long day, and at the end of it, I was sprawled out over the computer table, head down, giggling spastically. 

A woman called in to order a cake to be made for that day.  Which we do very often, and which bugs the crap out of me.  (You knew the birthday was coming, right?  PLAN AHEAD) She wanted a small one, with a picture of her own, (of course) to be emailed immediately so we could complete her cake on time.  I very clearly stated the email address, which she repeated back to me, and also that she was to include her name in the subject line so we could find it in the mountain of emails we receive very day.  Okay.  Done.  Cake was made, and about an hour before she was to come pick it up, I looked up her email.   And there it was...simple, easy, lovely.

HA!  Gotcha!  Of COURSE it wasn't there.  The picture is NEVER there, people!

Heaving another great sigh, I dialed the number, and shockingly, she picked up.  I asked her if she'd sent the email, and she said, QUITE impatiently that she had- RIGHT AFTER WE HAD TALKED, DUHHH.   I then asked if she had included her name anywhere so I would be able to find it, and if not, what she had typed or her email address.  And this is what she said.

"I sent it as 'birthday cake'!  It should be right there!" 

Birthday...freaking...cake.   Like it's the only birthday cake we would have ever produced.  As if we exist only to make her one cake she decided that day to order.  Like it distinguishes it in any way as this particular person's cake.  WHY DO I EVEN TRY?

I snorted, off-phone, and mildly made her aware that she was not the center of the cake universe, and she proceeded to lecture me about how it was a picure of her father and her daughter!  WHY couldn't I see that?  IT'S RIGHT THERE!

Interestingly enough, I could not find the picture.  I asked her if she had sent it to the correct email address and...no.  She hadn't.   SHOCKER.   I told her the address, and she impatiently said she'd send it again immediately. 

Thirty minutes later...no picture. 

Shortly after checking yet again for a non-existent email, I left, my shift thankfully not a closing one.

I do not work tomorrow.  All you crazies, consider yourself lucky.  I know I do. 

All you have to be is psychic!

"Hello. Can I help you?"

"Hi!  I want to order a cake!  But I want it to be exactly like the last cake I had from there."

"Well, we can try- what did you order last time?"

"Oh, I didn't order it, but I remember it was just yummy!"

"Ooohhkay.  Do you remember anything about it?"

"Can't you just look up the last cake my company got?"

"Oh, sure.  What's the name it was ordered under?"

"Ummm.   I'm not..really...suuuurrrre."

"Do you remember when it was ordered?"

"Not really.  September? Maybe?  We get cakes from you all the time!"

"Oh, I'm sure- but I need a little more information from you so I can find that cake.  Would there be a phone number you can think of or any last names that would connect to the order?"

"Well,  I didn't order it.  You really can't find it?"

Oh wait!  YES!  NOW I've found it!  In the imaginary MAGICAL crazy database! 

Lots-o-crazy

My internet has not been working and I am ready to throw my computer out the window.  Which means I have lots of little crazy tales stored up. 

A few for your consideration:

Favorite name of the past week:  Miqueen.  Pronounced my-queen.  Snort of derision hard to control during that order.

Favorite spelling of the past week:  Joe'voughny.   The last name is really REALLY the kicker, but I am rather scared about someone googling the name and coming up with this blog.  I realize you can't really help your last name.  It's just a funny one.  Anyway, this name is pronounced Giovanni.  Which is what i attempted to type and was stopped quite abruptly when I was informed that that spelling was WRONG.

Favorite story EVER:  This did not happen to me, but I cannot resist telling everyone I know about this because it is so very GOOD. -

My co-worker answered the phone recently and took an order for a cake which was very normal until they got to the message.  "I want you to write Au Revoir and Salut on the cake."   My co-worker said, "Oh sure, no problem.  I'm sorry- how do you spell au revoir again?  A-u-r..."

"NO! There's no R in the word!" This was said with MUCH contempt and impatience, I am told.  "It's O-U-V-O-U-S!"    

Co-worker: Silence. "Umm, okay...Just making sure- You wanted the french word for goodbye?"

Contemptuous Speller - "YES. The french word for GOODBYE.  ou vous."

Co-worker:  Silence. "OooKay!  No problem!"

Me- Now I'm going to have to fix the stupid thing when he comes back after he is laughed out of the party and blames us for the horrific spelling.

That's all for now.  I am exhausted after today- it was awful.  I have to go to bed now and brace myself for CRAZY SATURDAY.  Will I be yelled at for putting THAT FLOWER RIGHT THERE? Or will I lose control and show my rolling eyes to a customer, getting myself fired?   WHO CAN TELL?  Personally, I am rooting for the rude woman who comes in and insists that someone else decorate her cake because at least then I'll get a little break when I stomp off.   How sad. 

Next time I'm hiding upstairs

Today was spaz-TASTIC!  Can't even blame the customers.

I felt like half my brain was missing.  I was writing badly, having to scrape cakes because I was overlooking key instructions, and dropping everything I picked up.  It was GREAT.

At the end of my day-which felt like forEVER -I had to do my first ever wedding cake order.  Nerve wracking!  I'll take cake orders, but we have special people for ordering the wedding cakes.  I am usually on the other side, MAKING the cakes.  But now the bosses have decided that they want me to start doing wedding orders, so they trained (or rather, zipped through training process in five minutes or less) and threw me into the deep end because it's "EASY!"  And I think anyone that knows me and my deep and abiding fear of pool water in general sees this as a mistake.

For most normal, functioning people, it's probably simple.  However.  As I demonstrated AMPLY throughout the day, I was not functioning.  And I don't handle payment processes and pricing well under any circumstances-being very VERY bad at doing on the spot mental sums.   You should have witnessed the horror that was me at the Starbucks cash register.  Just the WORST.  And it does the math FOR you.

Luckily, I had the best customer ever.  She was by herself, very much interested in saving money, knew pretty much what she wanted but was willing to be flexible, and willing to listen to my opinion.  Pretty normal and not crazycakes.  And forgiving.  Which was necessary. 

I was dropping papers, flipping back and forth through the design and price book like a psycho, BORROWING a pen from HER because mine ran out of ink, and so much more.  I am wincing just thinking about it.

In my defense, I think I sold her on the best designs she was willing to pay for, convinced her not to do certain things that always turn out poorly because of our soft frosting, and was genuinely talking to her about her wants and concerns.  Which she appreciated because it's rather overwhelming ordering a cake like that for your wedding when there's no one to give moral support.

But then we had to deal with pricing and figuring out what the new designs (which hadn't been priced because of COURSE the bosses hadn't gotten around to that yet) cost and what she could mix and match for her budget.  I felt SO BAD.  I kept running to my boss (who was way busy and slightly irritated about it) and asking questions and looking like a MORON because I should KNOW this stuff. 

We FINALLY figured it out and she whipped out her credit card and I was all like, "YAY!  TRIUMPH!"

Not quite.

I came back from banging on the copy machine (because it WOULDN'T WORK.  It was also NOT FUNCTIONING) to realize that I had misquoted the price and she owed 80 extra dollars. 

It. Was. Awful.  I briefly thought about making a run for it.

But she was so very nice about it, basically ignored my idiocy and just picked another style.  She said thank you, asked my opinion again (which, would YOU have done that?) agreed with me, paid a few extra dollars, and went on her way.

I wanted to die.  I should not be allowed to interact with people.  ARGHUNNNLLLN##$%!

So all in all, not the best day.  It's so much nicer when it's other people being idiotic and not you.

Snowww, snow, snow, snow SNOWWWWW!!

Oh my goodness the snow. 

The snow forced my place of business to shut down for a couple of days, which shocked me TO THE CORE.  These are not the type of people who let some snow and ice shut them down.  So when I attempted to go to work, got stuck in my car going up a hill and feared for my life picturing the car rolling backwards into a deathtrap intersection, gave up and finally called my boss to tell him there was no freaking way I was leaving my house again, and he told me that they had CLOSED (whoops-forgot to call me!) I nearly fainted.  I then did a little dance in my seat because of the gift snow had given me.

And then I stayed in my house for two days, slept nearly half the time, and was so very very bored, that I didn't mind going back today.  All that much.

It actually was fine.  Not very busy, not many crazies

ALTHOUGH.

If YOU were to start looking for a business to make your wedding cake, would YOU wait until the day before to order it?  You'd be surprised how often this happens. 

This couple came in and asked if it was possible to get a wedding cake tomorrow, and since we were QUITE slow and we always have some extra cake, the manager was all over it.  She sent me over to help them and I ran through the spiel, adding that since this was so last minute we would of course be charging the CRAP out of them for coming in so late.  But phrased more delicately. 

The nodded and agreed that it was very last minute.  I let them know about their basic options for flavors and they began to sneak uh-oh looks at each other.  I asked them if there was a problem, and the lady asked if we had cakes without milk in them. 

"Uh, no.  Sorry, most of our products have milk in them," I replied. 

They inhaled with dismay.  "None?  All the cakes have milk in them?"

And that was that!  They were done.  It turns out a large portion of their guests have milk allergies.

Why wouldn't you lead with that?  When you're looking for a last minute cake for a substantial amount of people, wouldn't you scramble to find a bakery that specialized in serving those with food allergies?  Or call first?  Or prepare at all?  Maybe order a small show cake and then order some pastries that don't require milk? Or SOMETHING?

Also, milk is an extemely common ingredient in cakes.  Almost all recipes I would say, have some form of milk product in them.  Being surprised when a bakery doesn't offer special milk-free cakes is kind of silly.  

PLAN AHEAD PEOPLE. 

OH.  Also, a couple of days ago, I wrote Happy Birthday Lyrrehc on a cake.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!  Have fun explaining that one for the rest of your life, Lyrr!  No...Ehc!  No...Rech!   Surprisingly, I am having some troubles nick-naming that one.  (For you confused ones... Lyric.  Like song lyrics.  Even spelled correctly it's a horrid name) 

Angry Quilt Man

Well, if there's anything I've learned at my current job, it is to never expect a solution to a simple problem.

I give you...Angry Quilt Customer.

As I was finishing up the last of the cakes the other day,  I came across this oddball order for a cake that was to be shaped like a bed, with TWO pillows.  TWO.  This was stressed quite a lot.  It doesn't have anything to do with my story, but still.  Odd to be so firm on the number of pillows, yes?

We do this new-fangled thing at the bakery with printing somebody's personal picture onto rice paper and then putting that on the cake.  Lots of places do it, actually.  It is the new thing, I guess.  I don't especially like it because I think it's more fun to make something cool out of frosting.  However, it does make things easier for me-slap on the picure and BAM. Done. 

The whole point of this cake was that the picture was a quilt, and it was to cover the top like a blanket and then I would decorate the rest of the cake like a bed with the TWO pillows and all.  The PROBLEM was that I couldn't find the email with the picture on our computer.  Sighhhhhh.

I checked and double checked and then got someone else to look and the picture was not to be found.  Which meant I had to call the person and tell them that there was a problem, which is just the MOST fun thing to do. 

I called, and a doddering old man's voice answered, which made my heart sink a little.  Older people are not fun on the phone. 

I told him the problem, and asked him if he could tell me what he put in the subject line of the email or the address or anything that would identify it other than the last name of Brown, which is what we had been looking for.  And...

Quilt Man: "Welll, ahh, the cake is for Emily!" 

Me: ? "Okay!  Well, let me just check that name...Oh. No.  Do you know what the email address is?"

Quilt Man: "Uh, I didn't do that part- Wayne sent the picture from his...iPhone?  It's for Emily."

Me: "Wayne doesn't seem to be popping up either.  Is there another last name that might work?"

Quilt Man: "I just don't know what else to tell you! It's there!  I know it!"

Me: Is there any way you could send us the picture again?  Maybe there was a problem when you sent it."

Quilt Man: Angrily, "We sent it! I called the Bakery the other day and a man said that he had it and the picture was fine!  I don't know what's going on now!"

Me: "Oh, sir, I'm so sorry about this, it's just that I can't find it with the information I have.  If there's any other name or fact you could tell me that would help me find this email I could try again, but I just don't find anything from an iPhone, or from Emily or Wayne or under Brown.  Can you tell me anything else?"

No.  He could not tell me anything else, and was completely unwilling to work with me to solve the problem.  If I can't find the picture, I can't find the picture.  I can't magic it up because you told me that the cake is for Emily.  HELP ME HELP YOU.  Eventually I hung up the phone because when my head sinks to the table from frustration and there is no hope for the future, what are you gonna do?  I told him I was going to try a couple more things (ask my boss to save me) and I'd get back to him.

I called the guy who took the order.  Nothing.  I begain opening up random emails-of which there are MANY.  Nothing.  I called the customer again and got his voicemail.  I gave up and handed it off to my manager as I actually had other work to do besides The Case of the Missing Picture.

About a half hour later,  I heard a different boss answer the phone and begin to have what sounded like a MOST frustrating conversation with somebody who needed an email found.  She went through the whole spiel like I had done and her voice got louder and LOUDER as she came up with a whole lot of nothing in the search for his picture. 

I got distracted by another customer for about another half hour, and when I saw my boss again, she was printing something.  I ran up to her and was all, "Do NOT tell me you found that PICTURE!  How did you find it?"  She rolled her eyes and told me about how she had looked through EVERY email from the past week (believe me.  MANY EMAILS) while the guy was yelling at her and read off the name of the person who sent it and asked him if any of them sound familiar, because she didn't know what else to do.

It ended up being under Taylor.  The last name of the guy who sent it.  SHOCK AND AWE.

I asked her if the guy had apologized for being so unpleasant to her.  She looked at me disbelievingly, laughed, and said no, of course not!  They never apologize!

They never apologize.  It's true.  And why would they?  We should have KNOWN, right?  We're just too dumb to find a simple email! 

small talk. Big mistake.

My first serious job was at a catering company where I worked for quite a few years.  It was there that my education concerning food freaks began.  (If you have never looked around and observed your fellow buffet-goers at a fancy function, than you are missing out BIG)  There were parts of this job that I loved, and of course, many that made me want to go hide in the mountains away from all people.  The best part of that job, though, by FAR, were my co-workers and the best boss that I have ever had and, actually, ever hope to have.  It's where I found my current focus for desserts, and where I got the idea to go to pastry school.

Incidentally, it's also where I met my husband.  He still works there, and from time to time, I will meet up with him at his work and have a chat with a few of the people that I knew way back when.  I usually love doing this, and they are usually happy to see me as well.   

My fondness for this place and my old co-workers kind of softens my social awkwardness so when I run into people that even then I sort of avoided (some people you just can't talk to, you know?) I force myself to make small talk.  Which I am awful at, which is why I avoid it.  Anyway. 

I recently came across such a person while meeting up with my husband after yet another horrific day at work.  When he saw me his face lit up and he told me it was so good to see me again after so long!  How was I doing?  Which of course made me feel bad for not being quite so happy about seeing him, which made me more open to sticking around and having polite small talk.

And then the inevitable question..."What are you doing now?"  Which would be fine because I like my career but LOATHE my current job, so I try to avoid talking about it.   So I just told him that I was decorating cakes, and smiled.  And he said...

"Ah! Well.  Is there something else you're planning?  Something more?  For the future?"  with a kind of disappointed, disapproving, eyebrow raise.

It just made me feel so GOOD.  Like it's not enough that I'm forced to actually serve the most idiotic customers on the planet and keep a smile on my face while I'm doing it, now I get to be JUDGED about the one thing that I don't despise about my job.  THANKS FOR THAT.  And thanks for being a jerk that I let myself talk to outside of my job, where it is not forced upon me. 

DECORATING CAKES IS A REAL JOB.  REALLY.