Design again.... Soon

Tomorrow will mark the last day of my work at the bakery and the following day would be my interview at the design firm.



The design institute actually got back to me last week, informing me that I have been shortlisted by 2 companies who are willing to pay for the fees of the course I will be attending, both companies I have never heard before, so initially when I was told about the news, I was very happy about it because working in the bakery at this point is really mentally exhausting for me.



I had actually officially quit my job at the bakery about 2 weeks ago, and at that point I was already fuck all about baking professionally, the past 5 months or so were great, I got to learn a lot of things from the sous chef and head chef and had great colleagues, but work started to get repetitive and it felt like I was just zoning out most of the time, mindlessly doing the recipes I have done probably hundreds of time, there was no creative outlet for me whatsoever because I was the baker, my job was just to bake the cakes and that's it... all the designing of the cakes were done by the decorators.




I have a really short attention span, so I really need to be doing something different everyday, that's why I can never play an MMO and hit max level because grinding starts to get really boring after the 7000th mob, the only MMO that I was able to hit max level was Guild Wars 2 because that was a really good story driven game that doesn't require hours upon hours of mindless grinding to level up, and that's the same with the work at the bakery, it was just a mindless grind everyday and even though I say I have great colleagues, we don't really speak at all when we are working, so it's helluva boring at work. But I needed to have some income, that's why I helped out at the bakery part time, plus they were low on manpower and I felt bad about leaving them in the lurch.




So when I actually got a call from the institute, I was extremely happy. The lady actually told me there were 2 design companies that shortlisted me, and that she would email me their information, in the end I only received the information of one of the two company. Being in the state of happiness that I was in, I just agreed with the confirmation of the interview, which will be on this Wednesday.



Of course now I am starting to regret not asking the lady about the other company because the company that I am about to go for an interview this Wednesday is located all the way at Paya Lebar. That's at the other end of Singapore, the last time I had to travel to the other end of Singapore regularly was when I was enlisted in the army, but that wasn't so bad because I didn't have to come home everyday,  travelling from Changi to Bukit Timah once or twice a week isn't so bad, but travelling from almost Changi to Bukit Timah TWICE EVERYDAY is fucking insane.



I checked Google Maps to see the travel time, it states that it takes about an hour but you can't really take the bus travel time at face value because unlike the MRTs, buses have to deal with road traffics and peak hour rush, and the waiting time for the bus could range anywhere from 5 mins to 40 mins, whereas the longest it will take for an MRT to arrive is 6 minutes  which is why I can never understand why people would prefer to take the bus over the MRT, plus I don't get motion sickness in the train, so I can actually watch a movie as I am heading towards my station, can't wait for the train station to finally be completed at my area. So anyways, Wednesday, I will probably know how long the journey to the design company will really take.... and afterwards probably call the design institute and ask about the other company.




The design company I am to go for my interview this Wednesday sadly did not put their real address on their website, it was their headquarters and even though the travel time is about the same, or so it states on Google Maps, I think the travel time is actually slightly shorter. Now I am hoping that the company actually has many different offices around Singapore, and the place I am going to on Wednesday is only for the interview, hopefully when I do get into the company, they will assign me to their office in the west.



One can hope.... because I really don't want to take a fucking 2 hour trip back and forth everyday from work for a year at least. I have a bond to serve if I do get accepted into the company and the company does pay for my fee, a one year bond, so I really have to make a proper decision.

CAKE!

Despite having been baking almost everyday at the bakery, I do still enjoy baking at home, the equipment I have at my disposal are definitely worse, the conditions are pretty much always against me and the space is borderline claustrophobic compared to the bakery.

But there's a difference between baking at home and baking at the bakery, and that is that the former actually allows me to reap the seeds I have sowed, the whole reason why I bake in the first place is because I love eating cake, fucking love cake, speaking of which, I went to PasarBella last Saturday, finally, after being opened for so long, and I came across this little shop tucked away at the corner selling all these really rustic looking cakes, my favorite kind of cakes, cake that actually look like cake... not those pretentious looking ones that looks good but taste like crap. 

So I bought one because it looked way too delicious to be given a miss, the Russian lady at the counter didn't look very friendly though, she looked like she wanted me to piss off, it's like in her mind, she's thinking....

"Fuck off kid, it's only 12 pm, we still have 8 more hours before closing, I don't want to sell the last slice to you because I have had it baking another batch."

That's what I think when I see customers walking into the restaurant I was working at before after lunch hour and before dinner time, because you know they are going to want to order fucking desserts and I am in no mood to bake after having to deal with 2 hours of non-stop baking during the lunch crowd.

Anyways, I bought what I thought looked the most appetizing... 

It's HUGE, and it's $12. I don't even know the name because it's a Russian cake. It's the same as me trying to remember Chinese name, I am not going to be able to remember a person who only have a Chinese name, unless your name is Xiao Ming, I am probably only going to remember your face like 5 years down the road.

Prior to that, I actually went to buy Twelve Cupcakes, wanted to see how it would fare against the one I make at the bakery, it's been a while since I have eaten their cupcakes, needless to say, after getting that ginormous cake, getting 3 cupcakes suddenly felt like a waste of money. I just chucked the cupcakes in the fridge and proceeded to gobble the Russian cake... when I did get back to the cupcakes though, I was too impatient and just ate it when it was still hard, so I couldn't come to any conclusion as to which cupcake was better, Twelve Cupcakes or the one sold by my bakery, although I'm sure my bakery one will win hands down, I mean we have a real pastry chef with years of experience coming up with the recipes... That's all I am going to say.

Buttercream (or Whipped Cream I'm not really sure), Chocolate Cake, Caramel Sauce with Caramelised Walnuts, repeat 3 times. The last time I actually had a mouthgasm was when I ate the Red Velvet from Lady M. It was AWESOME! But got a bit sick of it after a while because it was so big, couldn't finish it all at one go, which has never happened to me before with sliced cake, but I had to store this away to consume later because that was how big it was and how jelat it got.

It really tasted like IKEA Daim Cake.... but supersized, in fact I think it's the same kind of cake, except instead of Daim candy, it's caramelized walnuts.... with the skin and everything, because I had a few mouthful of bitterness, I had initially thought, in my paranoid mind, that the mixer they were using was rusty and the metal from the beater blade they had used to make the cake batter was slowly chipping off and mixing itself with the cake batter. It wasn't though, it was the walnut skins, they didn't peel them I guess, or maybe it's really chipped off metal from the beater blades.

I actually did some research when I bought the cake and realize the shop used to sell them to $10... and after more research, realized it was originally priced at $8. What the fuck, I didn't know cakes also went through inflation. It was a good cake nonetheless, the only gripe I have, apart from the rising price tag, would be the their choice of chocolate curls, from the moment I bit into one, I knew it was lousy chocolate, my taste bud has grown since entering the F&B industry... even if it was only for a year. Your whole cake taste awesome, why cut cost and get some shitty chocolate curls to bring down the whole thing.

A few weeks back, I came across a bottle of cookie butter at Cocoa Tree at Raffles Place.

I've tried it once at the bakery when the supplier brought one sample bottle for us to try, different brand but same taste, and it was really good so I decided to get a bottle.

One small bottle cost $9. My sister bought it for me and in return, I had to help her bake some brownies, and baked brownies I did. I took the recipe from the bakery and added the cookie butter, also made a biscuit base.

It looked really good, but sadly, the cookie butter's taste wasn't as strong as regular peanut butter, so the whole thing lacked flavor and was just very dry tasting, eating it kinda makes your tongue feels dry because of the biscuit base and the cookie butter spread, it wasn't necessarily a bad combination, but it was just way below my expectations.

So I just smothered a shit load of cookie butter spread on the top and it did taste closer to my expectations , but that was a lot of cookie butter spread to achieve that taste, and for $9 a bottle, slapping that large amount on a small piece of brownie was just not worth it. Wanted to post the brownie pictures on Instagram, but for some reason, brownies just aren't as popular as cupcakes when it comes to receiving likes from other people, that's why the brownie pics look better than the Russian cake pictures.

Part Timer

So I went back to the Driving Center yesterday, decided it was time to continue on my quest to obtain a driving license, the main reason why I stopped in the first place was because of work.

I used to work 6 days a week at the bakery when I was a full timer there and I think that it's a ridiculous schedule because it sucks to have spend the entire week looking forward to that day off, and when that day actually comes, realize that you will have to report back to work the very next day. Who ever decided it was a good idea to implement a 6 day work week deserves a special spot in hell right next to the person who thought it would be a good idea to bake a cake that requires you to portion out 6 batter dyed with a different color, stack'em all up together when you have baked them, frost that shit up and call it a rainbow cake, I would like to shove my middle finger up that person's butt hole 6 times, each time dipping my finger in a different food coloring, see how you'd like pooping out a rainbow chocolate cake.

So now I have been converted to a part timer with a 4 day work week, the pay's still pretty shit but I need to earn some income to tide me over the next few weeks or month depending on how long it will take for the bloody design institute to get back to me regarding my application to join their internship program. 

I had decided about a month back to try and apply for this design internship program with this particular institute, hoping it would allow me to enter the design industry once again as a  rookie designer, because I have spend the past 3 years being away from Interior Design, the 3 week stint at that design firm doesn't count because it was just a waste of time, working in the F&B was not a waste of time because I needed to experience what it felt like working as a baker to know that it wasn't my calling, working in that firm though was just a pure waste of time, you know it's not a good company to work at when the boss starts asking you to lie about your work experience and your senior colleague start telling you it's alright to plagiarize other people's work.... zero design integrity and she dares to refer to herself as a designer, although last time I checked, she was no longer working at the company anymore. 

Good riddance to her, shouldn't have praised her when she brought me to see one of her works that she very likely copied from someone, probably made her arrogant and gave her the impression that she could lecture me about how I should live my life telling me I live a life with no direction, that I need my parents to plan my path for me. You stupid fucking cunt, I spend the last 2 years of my life in the army and when I came out it only took me a month to get the job, so yeah, sure, lecture me and teach me your ways, let me follow your lifestyle choices by partying every night for a few years because who needs a job when you can spend your parent's money partying at nightclubs, but when I finally do decide to get a job,let it to be too late to repair the relationship I have with my parents. I would like to stuff that rainbow chocolate cake up her ass and put a cork in it so she will finally become the very thing she was born to be, a big bag of shit. 

I digress...

Anyways, the institute's admin actually called me up about 3 weeks ago whilst I was at work, telling me I was eligible for the program and that she would send my resumes out to the companies, asking me when I could start, naturally I thought it would mean that I was set, so I told her I needed a one month notice, she tells me that she will include my availability date in my resume and send it out to the companies anyways.

About a week later I got a bit worried when no one got back to me, I have already told my boss I was leaving at that point, so I emailed the lady, she replied back telling me the companies were still in the selection process and it would take a while before I got a response but she would help me do a follow up if I wanted to, of course I asked her to help me do a follow up and felt a bit relieved that not all hope was lost yet. Fast forward to today, no reply from any companies yet, this feels like the time I went to apply for a job at Lady M, signed a contract with them, only to have them not get back to me at all afterwards, telling me a few weeks later that I was no longer needed. I left my job for this and they tell me they no longer need my services because they have sufficient man power.... ummm.... Fuck you very much.

Now I am worried that this will be a repeat of that experience, only difference is now I still have a part time job instead of being completely jobless.

And back to the subject of the driving lessons.

So I actually went for 2 back to back theory lessons yesterday, decided it would be a good idea to get the compulsory lessons over and done with... all 200 minutes of boring car stuff. I really have no interest in how a car works, as long as it can get me from point A to point B. 

When people start talking about cars, my mind just switches off, so the 200 minutes was a very mind numbing experience for me. In the middle though, I had a 10 to 20 minutes break, so I decided to spend that time getting my Provisional Driving License done, just had to fill up a form, do some eye test and pay $25, it being a weekday, I thought it will be a relatively quick process... I was wrong.

Whenever the lady at the counter weren't pressing the button to assist the next person, all I could think was how incompetent they were, because I was rushing for time, I only had 20 minutes to get this done, stop sharing discussing which one of you has the sickest looking corn of their feet and assist me now. I think the corn discussion was more interesting so I just gave up and went back to the classroom... they weren't really talking about corn but being in the tight time frame I was in, any conversation they were having that was delaying my license registration just automatically becomes unnecessary chit chat.  

I decided to go get it done after the class was over though, and the wait was longer because in the middle of waiting, a shit load of people suddenly came up and handed in some papers which I assume is their test results for their practical test because they have passed. Good for them but I have already been waiting for 20 minutes so I really wanted to get this over and done with... they were served first while everyone who was waiting was pushed back so that was not fun. They just passed their driving test, the joy that they have from passing  is still flowing through them, they wouldn't mind waiting.

So after getting my PDL done, I got home and tried to apply for practical lessons, only to get a message telling me I had to update my PDL expiry date at the counter. I had initially thought there was some error or the database will be updated later... No... apparently I had to update my expiry date at a separate counter after getting my PDL, the fucking counter lady didn't even bother to tell me anything... What the fuck counter woman, it's really not that hard to say...

"Please go to the counter downstairs to update your PDL expiry date."

... at the end, your kid isn't going to die because you said those 12 magic words.

So now I have to go back again to update my PDL expiry date because somebody decided to leave out that small detail as she was typing out my information into my PDL.

Not a happy baker anymore.

My drive to blog about my life lately has started to dwindle a little mainly because there's really nothing in my life to blog about that's really interesting.




Work life has started to take a turn for the worst, that urge to quit has finally reached it's boiling point, I have finally thrown in the towel and gave the boss my resignation letter, much to her dismay, and I honestly felt really bad quitting because she has been really nice to me every time she dropped by the bakery to see how her workers were doing.



I have given her the my resignation letter, only problem now is that she has yet to confirm with me about my employment status at the bakery, does my contract end 2 weeks after I send her the resignation letter or 2 weeks after she has confirmed with me about my resignation....the talk that she had supposedly wanted to have with me this Saturday never happened, I assumed it was going to be her attempt at persuading me to stay. She did drop by the bakery to grab a custom cake order but left without even checking up on how I was doing or have that supposed talk with me.



One of my colleague who had already send in her resignation letter told me the boss does that to her employees who are quitting, that she doesn't really bother to talk to them anymore after they have send in their letters, and initially I thought maybe she was just being a bit sensitive  about it because the boss has been nothing but nice during the few meetings I had with her, there's no way she would be that nice vibe I ger from her was just a facade, but I guess I was wrong because the last fuck she gave about me has flown away like how working for her in the bakery has taken away my zeal and passion for baking for a living.




The real reason why I had actually wanted to leave the job earlier than I had planned was because of the fellow baker who was quitting as well, if she left while I was still around, that would mean I would have to take over her workload, and as of right now, I already have a lot on my plate, adding more would only make me want to not give a shit about using the weighing machine properly and instead just eyeball all the ingredient measurements because fuck the extra 10 grams of baking soda, I don't have time for accuracy if I have to make a thousand more recipes that day.



Settle for that flat cupcake because I'm not getting paid enough for making your moist and rich red velvet cupcakes with smooth creamy cream cheese that I probably sneezed in by accident for that extra salty kick.




The reasons why I quit though are because...




1. The pay is pretty shit for the hours I put into the job. I work 8 hours a day, 6 days a week and I get paid $1400. It sucks to have to work 6 days a week because at the start of the week, I will always look forward to that one day I get to wake up because sleeping any longer would make me feel like a pig, but when that day arrives, the dread of having to go back to work the next day just ruins everything.... like now, knowing my alarm will ring at 5 am tomorrow morning and I will be snoozing it till 6 am.





2. Monotonous work, I go to work everyday baking the same things over and over and over again, I hardly do any creative work there, it's just this endless cycle of mixing the batter, pouring it into the baking trays, baking it, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. 4 months of this monotonous work,I feel like a machine sometimes, just mixing batter and plopping it into cupcake liners, and I have been doing this so many times I no longer have to refer to the recipe book anymore because the measurements are now seared into my mind.




I enjoy the process of making a cake, and that not only mean baking a cake, I would like to cream a cake as well, design it and make it look good, but that's not what I am doing in the bakery ... instead, I am baking the cakes so the decorators can do the fun stuff. So all I am seeing everyday aren't things like this...

but more like a hundreds of this....

Just dozens upon dozens of unfrosted cupcakes or wholes cake layers. This is not food porn, my eyes don't get an orgasm from looking at that, my nose probably enjoys the smell but after a while when you work there long enough, you kinda get desensitized to the smell, like when this dude on the bus sat next to me a few weeks back who looked like he smells and smells like he looks, after like 3 minutes of sitting next to him and being worried people might think the odour is coming from me, my nose got used to the "did not bother to wash up after getting out of bed" smell that was coming from him and it didn't really bother me much afterwards.... because he left... Thank god.

3. A assistant manager who doesn't really care how the kitchen works.


So at my workplace, we have 2 locations, one is the central kitchen where me and all the other underpaid workers work in, and then we have the actual store which is located in the town area where the service staff works. Bakers job scope are pretty straightforward, we bake the shit to sell at the actual store and come up with new recipes for the boss every month, or the senior baker does that because as I have pointed out, I only bake the same shit everyday.



The service side at the actual store on the other hand deals with the customers, so they will do the sales and promote our baked goods to the customers as well as doing the normal cashier duties. What they also do is take custom cake orders and this is the part that really pisses me off sometimes about the assistant manager's order taking, she doesn't really give a shit whether or not the workload the kitchen team has that week is "There are only 4 bakers working here" crazy or "OH MY GOD THERE ARE ONLY 4 BAKERS WORKING HERE FOR FUCK SAKE" insane , she just takes orders like guppies eat food, until it explodes, except the one who's exploding is not her but the kitchen team because we are the one who has the complete the fucking order.



I got so pissed when she took a custom cake order for a 10 inch square rainbow cake, the bakery only has one 10 inch square baking tray, I had to bake the fucking layers individually because of her. Of course I brought that up to the boss and she decided to stop with custom rainbow cake orders knowing how time consuming it is... but a few days later, Another service staff took a 10 inch round rainbow cake order and we only have one 10" round baking tray, and the only reason why that happened was because the assistant manager didn't relay the fucking message to her staff.




In fact, a few weeks ago, she took another custom rainbow cake order again, this time in a shape of a car. LIKE WHAT THE FUCK LADY? STAHP ! FUCK STAHP TAKING SUCH WEIRD ORDERS MONTHS AFTER WE HAVE AGREED TO STOP WITH THIS RAINBOW CAKE NONSESNE!. Even the manager herself was shock when she came back from her leave and saw the custom order and needless to say, we the bakers were also taken not please it, more so for me cause I am the one who has to bake it. We managed to find a way around this though but I was still a bit upset about it.




Brought this issue about the insane custom cake orders up to the boss once and all she had to say was...



"It's her job to take this orders and if we have more orders then everyone will become happier, the bakers will be happier because more order equals to more sales."



I think she is forgetting about the part where we still get paid the same amount no matter how good sales are. If I am getting paid the same amount to do less work, why the hell would I be happier to do more.







Last I checked, she has put up a job ad to look for new bakers and I do feel sorry for the new bakers who are about to get hired because they have no idea the mountain of workload that will be piled up on them after they get hired, especially during the festive seasons, they can say goodbye to taking a public bus home during that period because by the time they knock off work by then.




After blogging about this, the thought of having to go to work tomorrow suddenly feels that much more dreadful.

IPPT Failure.

Went for my first IPPT as an NSMen yesterday at Maju Camp, and needless to say from the lack of training, I did not mange to get a pass.




It was something I had foreseen before I went, really the only reason why I went in the first place was because I had already made a promise with my friend to take the IPPT with him, otherwise I would have just procrastinated, stayed at home and have a much needed sleep.


Because of this IPPT session , I had to give up the only day in my week I could sleep in, and having to wake up to go take a fitness test I know I am going to fail sucked. It was a good way to gauge my current fitness level but it still sucked nonetheless to have to wake up so early.





During the IPPT session, I was most excited to take the standing broad jump, that was the only station I could attain a gold without even trying, and I managed to get a gold so that felt good, the stations that I weren't looking forward to were the shuttle run and the 2.4km run. The former I grazed my hands and the latter was just pure torture.




I actually was able to take the shuttle run 4 times, because I had faulted twice and really after failing the first try, you are pretty much screwed. There's no way your second try right after would be better than the first, and the reason why I screwed up my first try was because I did not tap the sensor strips at the end of the shuttle run, I underestimated the distance and ended up just slapping the floor with my hands and in the process, tore the skin on my palm, so I went for a second try right after and obviously failed that one.



So my friend and I decided to just try the other stations and go back to the shuttle run right after. Did the standing broad jump, got a gold for that one because of my amazing technique which I used to credit my continuous usage of the squat toilet to do a No.2 in Tekong every morning after breakfast,but after that, I found out it wasn't really the reason because right after Tekong, I stopped using squat toilets and was still able to get a gold for SBJ every time.



Did sit ups right after and when it came to my friends turn to use the machine, after almost 15 minutes of queuing up, the machine decides to malfunction, so he ended up doing probably 20 sets for naught and we had to join another queue and waited another 15 minutes for our turn.




After passing those stations, and the pull ups which we did first, I decided to go back to re-run the shuttle run again. So I was really pumped up and excited to give it another try after having given my legs sufficient rest, ran the first stretch, touched the sensor strips successfully, and as I was running, I could hear the Fitness Instructor saying something to me, which up to now, I still have no idea what he said, but I just ignored them and assumed they were words of encouragement, ran the second round, touched the strip, and as I was sprinting back in full force, I hear my friend going..

"STOP! STOP! STOP!"

So naturally, I slowed down and stopped, thinking the machine had malfunctioned and he's probably asking me to stop so I could conserve my energy for the next attempt, and for that split second as I was slowing down, both my friend and the fitness instructor just looked at me, confused... and that was when I knew I had fucked up, and my friend says to me...

"Why you stop? I am asking you to chiong! (speed up)"

My heart sank when he told me that, that pass that I could have gotten just slipped away from me because I heard "chiong" as "stop".



The fitness instructor was nice enough to reset my attempts and allowed me to try again, of course I failed the attempt the FOURTH time, was even worse than my very first attempt. I did not feel good after that and my friend felt apologetic for confusing me. Right after that, we headed to the 2.4km run, so when we got into the 2.4km run area, we went to join the very next batch that was about to run.




I thought this was going to be fine, I will just pace with my friend and then sprint during the last stretch. It was when the whistle was blown and I saw my friend dashing forward and leaving a huge distance between us did I realize how fucked I was.



It was only the first round and I already felt the shortness of breath and the strain in my legs, the fact that I had to run around the track another 5 rounds after that made it even worst, and I knew something was wrong because that level of exhaustion and strain doesn't happen that early on, I will only feel like death was the better option after covering slightly over half that distance.




So I just tried to knock that mentality out of my head and tried to just zone out and  pace with this middle aged Indian guy who looked like he could pass the test, halfway through the run, I ended up running almost  20 meters behind him and at this point, all I wanted to do was stop and walk the entire journey, but when I realized no one was actually stopping, I just continued running the entire way, it was hell the entire way and also I failed by 40 seconds, my final timing was 13 minutes on the dot, which was a big improvement on my record in the past year.





Failed 2 stations, passed 1 station, got silver for 1 station and gold for 1 station. Add that all up and I got a total of "FAIL".




I was aware I was going to fail when I went into the camp, but what I wasn't expecting was being so close to passing had I actually given myself sufficient time to actually sit down and rest before the 2.4km run, or just ran straight through the shuttle run without stopping because I misheard my friends encouragement for something else.




Gawd it sucks.

Long Rant

So I've spoken to my co-bakers and gotten to know them a bit over the past 3 months of working together in a bakery, listening to the radio as we went about our daily baking activities.



One thing I have found out from the 2 bakers that I speak to normally was that they both at one point had nightmares about working in the bakery.



One had nightmares about fondant cakes because that is all he does in the bakery, making fondant models or covering cakes in fondant, and I don't really like fondant, when I see a cake covered in fondant, it doesn't scream "Eat Me", plus it's really a waste of money because it's not cheap, I mean what the hell are you gonna do with the huge ass fondant model of Princess Elsa once you are done eating the cake, leave her in the freezer? Pluck her eyes out and eat them and leave her limbs and hair for other days when you are having a sweet tooth? Fondant is also not the best tasting frosting to have on a cake, so it does nothing in terms of flavor, they do have different flavorings but ultimately, all it taste like is sugar.






Another had nightmares of cake-pops because she makes cake-pops almost every other day, and seeing her having to hand roll hundreds of cake pops every other day, I can somehow feel her pain and also her displeasure in that horrible repetition. Her cake pop is like my rainbow cake, I don't really know if she hates making cake pops the way I hate making rainbow cakes, but she definitely hate it enough to start getting nightmares about it.


The cake pops in our bakery aren't really cake pops as well because instead of using butter cream, we use melted chocolate, which is by no means a good substitution as it just makes the whole thing really sweet and not as soft and yummy as it was originally intended to be because chocolate sets hard at room temperature.







I always thought when I first started working in that bakery, my nightmare would be of making multiple rainbow cakes, that isn't true though because if that was the case, than I am already living that nightmare because the boss actually asked the kitchen team to deliver at least 15 sets per delivery from the original 6 sets, and when I say kitchen team, I mean me, myself and I because I am the only one who's making the fucking rainbow cake for sales at the bakery. I will get to that problem later on.




As it turns out though, my real fear now is  of receiving new orders at the end of every week by the manager of the bakery, her job is essentially to collate all the orders she receive for the entire week, snap a photo of all the forms and just "Sent Image" the entire chunk of orders through our whats-app chat group, she doesn't tell us how many orders there are in that week before she starts flooding the chat group with the images, so my phone will just keep buzzing for probably 3 minutes straight as she looks through the order form on her side, snaps a picture of it and sends it over while, it's a constant barrage of orders that never seem to end and I will always be on my phone waiting for it to end before tapping all the images to download them, and just as I am about to download the last order form, , I will be greeted with another 10 pictures of new order forms.




It's extremely stressful because being the only one who handles all the baking of the cakes, I have to deal with every single order, and I always bake them as soon I possible so I could free the rest of the week for doing other things like topping up the different flavors of cupcakes, the buttercream, rainbow cakes and whatever else that needs to be topped up everyday, and it really grates on my nerves when a customer decides to change their order and the people who are working in the front of house who are dealing with these orders just accepts the changes and expects the kitchen team to do it.



And sadly, because my sous chef isn't a very firm person, instead of reprimanding the people at the front of house for accepting such last minute changes and screwing the kitchen team over, he just accepts it, discards the cake he has already crumb coated and covered with a layer of fondant and ask me to bake a new cake, I feel kinda bad for him sometimes when that happens but I also can't help but feel a bit angry when he doesn't try to protect the kitchen team.







So regarding my boss as well, the one issue I have with her is her lack of understanding about how the kitchen works. She's someone who doesn't bake so she doesn't know exactly how long it takes or how hard it would be to bake so many cakes in one sitting and she's a very ambitious person, so she will always want the team to come up with new ideas almost every week, new flavors to sell, new items to create, new designs for the cakes. It's fucking nuts because at this point, the bakery is selling so many different items there's no longer any focal point, I don't even know what the bakery specializes in now.




So recently, the boss decided it would be a good idea to promote a particular cake that has been selling exceptionally well, her idea was to have a 3 months long promotion with that cake, and the end goal was to have more people buy that particular cake. We have many other cakes as well that aren't selling as well but for some reason, she decides to push the one that's the supposed best seller.... it's none other than the fucking rainbow cake.



When the boss first told the kitchen team about this promotion, I got a bit taken aback because at that point, I was already having trouble making enough rainbow cakes to send over every week, she's also very well aware of how time consuming it was to make the rainbow cakes.



One day I decided to know what my sous chef thought about the promotion when we were out for lunch and he also found her promotion tactic to be a bit odd because why are you trying to promote a cake that's already selling so well when you can promote the other items that aren't selling as well, and also wasn't so time consuming to make.




When I say time consuming to make, I don't mean just to bake them but also to decorate because the poor decorate has to pipe it like this...

I'm not the one who's decorating the cake but one can only imagine how time consuming it is to not just decorate one cake but 15 of them at one go. When the decorator told me I had to bake more rainbow cakes to sell because it was already sold out at the store, I send her an emoticon of a gun shooting a crying emoji and then she replied saying that she also wanted to die, at that time I didn't know why but now I know why. That is a very time consuming method of cake decorating.

Another issue with the boss that comes about because of her lack of understanding how our kitchen works is that she doesn't regulate the orders that comes in. It doesn't matter if there are only less than 5 people in the bakery working, no amount of order was considered too much, she just ask the front of house to accept them whether the kitchen can handle it or not, I was told that at one point during the festive season, the bakers had to work till 12 midnight, they came in to work at 9 am that morning, worked till 12 midnight, probably got home at 1 am in the morning and had to report back to work again at 10 am only to repeat again probably the entire month.... that was when the previous baker decided to quit and I fully understand his reasons now that I am partly in his shoes, I didn't experience that crazy working hours so I can't say I can put myself in his shoes, but with the amount of orders we are getting now, I can see why he decided to quit after the festive seasons.

The other baker that I am working with has also told me of her desire to quit soon, after I told her that I will be leaving the bakery by the end of August kinda to let her know beforehand so she could mentally prepare herself for the onslaught of new responsibilities. It came as a surprise to me when she told me she had already written her resume and was already on the hunt for a new job, I mean I have discussed with her about the possibility of her leaving this place to find greener pastures in the past as a conversation starter but I didn't expect her to do it so soon, and her leaving would only make my leaving worst for the current bakers because that would mean they will have to handle not only double the amount of work but triple when I leave.




I'm already delaying my departure by working there till the rainbow cake promotion ends because I'm afraid if I leave now, it will really be a huge blow for the bakery because of how low manpower is in the bakery, if one person leaves, it's going to cripple the bakery for a while, but the idea of me staying there until after Christmas is fucking crazy. I mean even having to work an extra hour everyday is already making me very unhappy, the thought of having to work an extra 7 to 8 hours everyday in December is ridiculous.... and we are not even getting paid OT, how the bakery deals with OT is by allowing us to leave earlier on days when we aren't as busy, no one there keeps track of how many hours the bakers OT, so no one really knows how many hours we can claim really.




So working past August? NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Gonna give my two weeks notice probably on National Day. That's a good day to look forward to, finally get back to actually looking for a job that will pay me well, one that will allow me to survive in the future and afford me my own house.

A career switch soon again.

Work has been going well so far, wouldn't say it has gotten better, if anything it's probably gotten worse.



The good thing is that I have all the recipes memorized in my head, so there's no longer any need to refer to the recipe book anymore. That means if I were to open my own shop in the very distant future when I have too much money to spend, I will have bakery quality cakes to create and sell,



The bad thing now is I am starting to feel the dread of going to work to prepare the same cakes over and over again. It was fun in the beginning, mixing cake batters, portioning them out and seeing them rise evenly in the oven, but after a while, it just starts to feel a bit repetitive, so much so that I would rather watch paint dry.




I am no longer learning anything new in the bakery, or learning things that I am interested in.




The urge to leave this job and look for a new one is starting to get stronger everyday, to look for an office job where I don't actually have to work the whole day non stop, a job where I can take a few minutes break from whatever I am doing to surf the net for recreational purposes or go to the toilet and sit down in an empty cubicle for 10 minutes browsing through 9gag and still get paid for it, probably even more than I am earning right now.



So this will probably be the last job I will take as a baker or pastry cook or whatever position I am currently filling because working at the bakery doesn't feel like a real job, it feels like I am working a part time job during the school holidays, something that isn't permanent, something that will give me just enough money to buy the new PS4....  but I am at this point in my life where what I want is not a new PS4, what I want is sufficient money to get a car of my own in the future, to get a house and fill it with enough cats to make me less lonely... or a dog... or a kid from Africa.





When all this "wanting to follow my passion and bake for a career" thing happened, it was definitely something I needed to explore and experience, I mean I went to work in a design firm right after I came out from the army and because I knew I didn't give a career in baking a chance, I ended up regretting that decision and started to hate working there, it also didn't help that people there were generally unfriendly and some quite unbearable, but now that I have tried working in a restaurant and a bakery, I think it's suffice to say that I have given it a real shot, I mean I even went to get a professional certificate for it, which I still hadn't gone to collect yet because the school's admin staff is bloody incompetent.






So I will probably work for 3 more months in the bakery before giving submitting my resignation letter, look for a job in Interior Design, earn a decent living and maybe be able to complete my driving license and own my own car.