Bakery Job Interview

I have heard that it is pretty tough working in a bakery.  So sorry that you are having to deal with people like this.  I only do it for fun and as a hobby.  When I decide to cook cakes I normally do it for the neighborhood kids. They love it when they get cakes.  That way I am not under any stress and can enjoy baking and decorating.  Good luck with the bakery job!! Hopefully, it will get better for you!!

I get minimum wage at the bakery I work at and know that's what others start at in my area.  A very physical job at times lugging buckets 30-40 lbs and heavy trays, not to mention dishes and clean up.  That is the reality of most bakeries... profit line is not high in our area and I'm sure many other places.   For me it lets me decorate cookies the way I love and since I live in apt with cats will never bake out of house.   

  I think you would need to build up reputation and clients before you would get more money.

...plus side is produce I get and our boss is very generous about letting us eat what we want there.  Of course this way I can tell customers  what stuff tastes like.  maybe cake shops do better  Can someone tell me how their profit margin works vs  bread/pastry bakery.

Typically you would find out relevant information about the job (such as compensation) before the interview, otherwise what's the point of interviewing, especially a working interview?

Unfortunately in some areas there are bakers (licensed or not) that set prices below market value, which depresses the entire market. As a result, minimum wage may be all this bakery can afford and still make a profit if customers are being stolen by undercutting competitors. Grocery stores can usually pay more since their bakeries are often subsidized by other departments.

I always say this industry has a very poor sweat to dollar ratio and truly, I steer people away from it as a Plan A in life.  I wish someone would have told me :) (a million years ago)

Welcome to the food business. You work when everyone else is having fun and at the end the end of your paycheck you still have bills left to pay.

Hmm can you say "starving artist" boys and girls ? My daughter interviewed at a high end famous bakers private business here in California. After a "normal" I am told, 4-6 month process they couldn't even offer her enough to even make is worthwhile to drive the 120 every day just to get to work. Artists rarely make what they are worth, sad but true:-(

That was my first thought. When people undercharge, they're shooting themselves in the foot because of the above, cheating themselves of fair remuneration and are undercutting someone else.

 

 

yes this is all true

 

and

 

when i go to Michael's i am amazed at the tools available for the clever and the clumsy do-it yourselfers

 

africkenmazing--we're just talking in another thread about a low priced pillow cake--

 

hey you can buy a dang pillow cake pan--it doesn't have to be a sculpture--it's a simple two layer cake!

 

so not only do peeps underprice, the industry has been slowly pulling the rug out from under us for sometime a few decades

 

mortally unfriendly to owners as the tool makers try to stay alive too

 

no good answers--

 

<insert musical notes> stayin' alive, stayin' alive ahh ahh ahh ahh staying ali-i-i-i-ive

Been there....done that.    Compensation is not normally discussed (here) at the first interview.   I worked at a bakery for years that paid low wages.    I considered it "paid training"......learned what I could and got the hell out.  

like ddaigle said, bakery jobs are good for experience and training, but certainly not for money!

I know our local bakeries pay minimum wage, ($9.19), here, and have a very high employee turnover. Unfortunately, it's all they can afford though, like Jason said, they have a lot of undercutting competition.

One of our places went out of business about 2 months after Safeway opened up down the street, people just got their bread and nasty cheap cupcakes there instead.

A specialty bakery will almost always be a better job, that's what I did when I first started, in a shop that only sold custom cakes.

undercutting competition is bad, real bad

 

these are the users not the pushers

 

the pushers, the enablers are all the companies that make all our stuff available to everybody

 

i can buy cake deco stuff--really cool sh*t at my local grocery store

 

at my l.o.c.a.l g.r.o.c.e.r.y s.t.o.r.e

 

i can't necessarily equip myself for a tier cake there but you should see the awesome products they have--on occassion

 

like for holidays for example

 

they had these cookie pans--that made awesome detailed valentine cookies amongst many other things

 

the enablers and the enabled are gaining momentum for sure

In my rural neck of the woods, back in 1996 I worked at a grocery store bakery as the full time 2nd decorator.  The 1st decorator made $14 an hour to my $8 per hour and she had a very nice full benefit package and supported a disabled husband and two kids on that money.

 

Same town, flash forward to today, 2013 and a cake decorator makes $8 an hour, usually starting at $7.50 no matter her/his skill set or experience.  Part time, no benefits or a benefit offering that is 110% of your weekly take home pay, making it impossible to accept.

 

No wonder I retired.
 

 

It's amazing how much the retail landscape has changed.  I'm one of the last FT bakers/decorators in my chain.  If I leave, retire (which is many years away, btw), or something-or-other, my position itself will no longer exist.  I'll be replaced by two or three PT people on minimum wage who will have minimal training because it's cheaper.  It's all about the bottom line for any publicly traded company.

 

We recently had a PT clerk quit after roughly 6 months.  She was scheduled 6 days/week for no more than 4 hours a shift, and what she made didn't even cover the gas for her 50-mile round trip to/from the store.  The position was the only one she could find in our area. She finally decided it wasn't worth the hassle, and I can't blame her one single bit.

 

I worked for an independent bakery for a spell many years ago.  I was paid less per hour than what I'd been last making at another supermarket chain, but I was paid more per hour than probably most of the other employees (discovered that by accident), many of whom had already had been there for years.