Bakery from Hell!

I am back! After a bit of an absence I am back! I got busy and lost track of time. Eventually I will catch you all up on what has been going on!
Where did I leave off now.....
Oh yeah. I was looking for a job at a bakery. After a few weeks I found one in the town near where I live (Babylon). It was great because it was part time (3 days a week). That gave me free time to work on starting my own business. (www.mycookiedaddy.com).
It started out pretty good, although on hindsight, I remember that the interview was very odd.
The owner and one of the pastry chefs (two women) were acting very strangely. They were staring and gigling. I don't know why, but I can guess now. It was very unprofessional, and as it turned out, the whole business was unprofessional. After about a month of being there, the owner told me that the business had lost money in all but one year of 9 years in business. She started crying and asked me if I could help with the Finances of the business. So I did.
The biggest problem was that she tried to take on too many things. She should have focused her business on one thing before she branched out to more. She was terrible at managing inventory and her finances. She complained about losing money, yet she would take orders at the last minute that would lose her money. We would spend time running out to the store to buy ingredients we did not have to fill these orders. There was never a cutoff on orders. Everything needed to be planned ahead so we would have the right ingredients, yet she would take an order when we had no inventory to make it!
At one point we added breakfast (eggs, pancakes, crepes, etc) and lunch (paninis, salads, etc).
I didnt think we could handle all that with all the cakes and pastries that needed to be done. With a small staff of 3 (plus the owner), it became chaotic at times.
We were making specialty cakes (birthday, wedding, etc) and having to stop to make an omelete? It was insane.
Then the mice came! Eek! They were all over the place! Traps were set everywhere and each day I came in to find them dead in the traps! One of the woman left things out and in the morning, you could see that the mice nibbled on the food!!
That woman eventually left. Then there were 2! Myself and an 8 month pregnant woman!
So my hours increased twofold. I didnt mind, except for the fact that the owner was not even looking for a replacement! So I started posting jobs everywhere (including the two Culinary schools I went to). I posted on the Internet. Calls and resumes started to come in. The owner kept dragging her feet about getting back to people. Then when she would interview them, she didn't hire them because they were fat or ugly. I told her she couldn't wait, she needed to get someone in to help. I was working 6 days a week 12 hours a day. I didn't want to be doing that!
Now I can see when she was interviewing me what all the giggling was. There were times when she really made me feel uncomfortable working there. She made it quite clear she wanted to do more than bake with me. Talk about unprofessional!
There was constant sexual inuendos about guys that she dealt with and customers as well. Meanwhile, she was married with kids. Then were were the girls (and I mean girls, 16-18 years old) that worked the front. The turnover out there was terrible. It is no wonder, the way they were treated and the conversations that went on. I was embarrassed. If a customer heard the conversations in that place they would walk out! Who knows, maybe they did!
So one day I came in and was looking at the calendar. Some of the Sundays were circled. I tried to figure out why. Then I realized it was the Sundays the Mets were home. I had told her that I had Sunday Season tickets to the Mets. Then I noticed a note for me next to the calendar. It said, "Just a friendly reminder that I need you to work Saturdays and Sundays from now on. Hmmmm....interesting that the calendar is circled next to it.
At that point I figured this was not going to work out for me. So I pretty much told her I thought if she found more than one candidate for the position, that I would be willing the help train them and that she could hire two people. She was annoyed and thought it was because I was unhappy. I just wanted to work part time and get my business going and it seemed she needed more.
When I got home and was eating dinner I got a call that she found someone to replace me and that Friday (it was Wednesday) would be my last day! Funny how for over a month she could not find a person for the other position and today she found someone to replace me and the other position?
I am glad the way it worked out for me. I was glad to get out of that place. In my next post, I will talk about the last three days and the famous Wedding Cake story!