It was actually located near the design firm where I used to work at, like a walking distance away but the design firm has moved to a new office the last time I checked their website, think it's located at some industrial area now.
So anyway, since I have went there multiple times before to get to work like half a year ago, that short three weeks that always made me feel a tinge of regret and bitterness, I thought I would know the place pretty well and be able to get to the bakery on time for my interview, I was wrong. Turns out the bus stop I was planning to get off at wasn't a bus stop the bus I was riding on was able to stop at, I had to back track half a kilometer yesterday to get to the bakery... according to Google Maps, it was 600 meters, it didn't feel very far but the afternoon Sun made the walk a real bitch.
As I reached the bakery, I receive a text from the lady boss asking me if I was on the way because I was like 4 minutes late, she was really friendly and the bakery was a really small shop located at some really hidden area facing a basketball court or something, which I actually liked because I really don't enjoy too much human contact, but no bakery's interior is able to beat the one at Plain Vanilla Bakery in my humble opinion, really wish I could work there but they aren't hiring, I tried to apply when they were actually hiring but my qualifications weren't up to standard, they have really high standards.
When she started the interview, she decided to bring along the two co-founders , both of whom I assume are the main bakers of the bakery, into the interview as well, to sit in and I guess just listen and judge me silently like I do with everyone I meet in real life, be it the Aunty on the bus who is giving up the empty seat on her right to her handbag or the dumb sisters in the cinema who won't shut the fuck up when they thought that "Princess Fiona is SHREK!" after she transformed into an ogress for the first time on screen... and they kept shouting out loud that Fiona is Shrek.
Kids.... so innocent, so stupid, so fucking noisy. They must really feel like fools now.
Now I know how the clients feel when I was sitting in on a meeting with them and the senior designer during my 3 week stint at the design firm. The boss wanted the newbies to learn the ropes, so she made us sit in during client meetings with the senior designer where all we do as newbies is just listen, learn and not talk... at all, we are introduced to the clients as workers of the companies but other than that, they don't really know who we are or why we are even there. Even I felt uncomfortable just sitting there and it's even more awkward when the senior designers have to leave to grab some material samples to show the client, that awkward few minutes when everyone tries to avoid any sort of eye contact until the senior designer comes back is gold... look anywhere but in each other's general direction, I like to look at my phone and pretend I am checking my busy schedules by scrolling through my empty calender.
I digress, so then, the lady boss of the bakery asked me the few common questions a boss of a bakery would ask a potential employee.... "why do you like baking" and "what is it about baking that you like", questions that I can answer because I actually have answers for them. During my interviews at the various interior design firms and furniture shops, I had to think a lot and make shit up as I went along because I really didn't have any answers to any of the questions they asked me that was interior design related, I wish I could just stick my Diploma Certificate in their face and ask them to hire me because I am paper qualified-ish... but I couldn't, so I gave them very unconvincing answers. probably why I didn't hear back from a majority of them... by majority I mean all except one whose offer I later rejected because as it turns out, I didn't really want to be an interior designer and wasted the boss's time, 2 months of my own time job hunting and finally the save the best for last, 3 years of my life studying to get a diploma for it.
After the routine questions, she started asking me the "Strength and Weakness" question, which I hated so much because I always don't prepare for it and I know it's going to sound super cliche when I say "I think my strength is in my seek for perfection." , and then when they see me actually working, they will realize that my definition of being a "perfectionist" isn't their definition of being a "perfectionist"... and I will probably get scolded for messing things up, which will probably give me more stuff to blog about... so anyways I tried to avoid using the word perfectionist, but instead gave them an example of how I would work...
"When I bake at home and my bake goods don't come out the way I want them to, I will throw the whole lot away and keep doing new batches until it's up to my standard."
Now that I read that through, I probably made myself sound like someone who have no qualms about wasting ingredients, someone who might be incurring monetary losses to the company if hired. Crap, should have just said I have a very high standard for myself in the baking of cakes and the way they taste, that sounds so much better.
And then they asked me to describe myself, so I said I was a quiet and reserve person, an introvert who doesn't enjoy going out during his free time and won't get close to people easily... all that fun stuff that makes employers want to hire me straight away. When I said I was an introvert, I felt like one of those people online who feel the need to suddenly share an article about...
"10 Signs you are an introvert" or " 5 Things your Introvert Friends won't tell you"
... on their Facebook wall and then update their statues with things like...
"It's because I need to recharge my social energy, that's why I only go clubbing once a week instead of the usual 4 times a week with my girlfriends. Understand my predicament my friends and know my pain !"
or just put numbers like...
"6 & 10!" .... because they can relate to those 2 points so much.
I call bullshit on those people who share such articles online on Facebook or Twitter and claim that they are introverts, I think an introvert would just agree with the articles silently and then get on with the next thing on their list, which probably doesn't include clubbing.... ever in their lifetime, not share it on Facebook in hopes of people agreeing and liking their status.
Personally I don't think I am an introvert, I'm just a really shy person who also happens to be extremely lazy... but since I can't tell that to the lady boss, I had to portray myself as an introvert because I know I have screwed myself over when I tried to pass myself of as a perfectionist in a discreet manner.
The pay for the job was shit though. I was asked about my expected salary and gave them what I thought was a decent figure, which was $1500 - $1600 per month, for a 6 day work week schedule... full time position. Apparently that was too high and what they had in mind was in the range of $1300 per month. knew it was gonna be shit but just decided to try my luck.
Good thing though is the working hours aren't as long as I thought they would be... when I was working in the restaurant, a full timer's work time is on average 12 hours a day, granted they are being paid more but still 12 hours is really crazy hours, and it's a 6 day work week, the thought of ending work that night and knowing that you have to go through the same 12 hour cycle the next day and day after is just insanity, even the pastry shop central kitchen also follows the 12 hours a day, 6 days a week work cycle, that's like spending every almost every waking hour working in a kitchen... so when I heard that the bakery works operates on a 8 hour work cycle, I was really glad about it because that would mean when I get home, I might actually have time to go for a jog in the evening. .. which I have currently put on hold because I am procrastinating.
Have another interview tomorrow at another bakery. I don't really like the company's name though, sound like something a little girl would name her imaginary kingdom where she is the princess.... it just doesn't sound very professional when friends and relatives start asking me of the name of the bakery I am working at.... although right now, I don't really have much of a choice since I haven't gotten any good news from the bakery I went to yesterday regarding the interview... she said she will get back to me in a day or two if she decides to hire me, usually if they don't get back to me at their earliest possible date, I will assume they are no longer considering me... that being said though, the last Interior Design job interview I went for took a month to get back to me regarding my application... who knows? IKEA might call me tomorrow to ask me to head down for an Interview.
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