industry

4 Reasons Why EVERY Industry Should Be Hiring Kitchen People

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Good evening, friends and neighbors.

Honestly, so much of this week as felt like people trying to find the slowest possible way to rip off a Band-Aid.

As I write this, work at the bakery is slowly becoming more dire. Our staff AND wholesale contracts are dwindling, and it won’t be long before I receive a call that- arguably- should have been weeks ago. A call saying I should stay home for the time being, and perhaps find other work.

I wouldn’t be alone, to be sure. An enormous chunk of the current record unemployment claims are culinary and service staff, trying to figure out where to go next.

Fortunately, whether we all realize it or not, our experience in the kitchen has drilled an assortment of hard and soft skills into our minds- and those who used to look down on “burger flippers” would be wise to hire us while they can.

Get yourself an employee that can do both
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You Aren’t A Superhero. Stop Hurting Yourself Trying

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Good morning, friends and neighbors.

I’m finally attending to my side work, and not a moment too soon. It’s starting to get a bit too real out here.

For reference, “side work” in this case doesn’t mean I just decided to start cleaning down my tables, scrubbing floors, and organizing the walk-in in the bakery. That’s an expectation of kitchen life. I use the idea of “side work” as a metaphor for self-care. The stuff that isn’t necessarily anyone’s job, but it needs to get done or things get pretty gross pretty fast.

In everyday life, “side work” is things like making dentist appointments, cleaning your house, balancing your check book… and in my case, getting myself back in front of a psychologist.

Lately, my stress levels have been a bit higher than usual. A large contract is coming the way of my bakery, and my team is central to completing it. Over the time we’ve had to prepare, there’s been delays, meetings, and higher priorities left and right. Then, in the final week we have to prepare- we don’t have enough ingredients, and won’t till the end of the week.

I’m frustrated, I’m stressed, I tried to avoid this situation happening. In the end, it’s going to be me working extra hours trying to make the deadline- and I’m more pissed about not making the deadline than I am the extra work.

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Dim Sum and Star Wars: “Jewish Christmas” and Holidays in the Industry

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

“Hey, so we’re closed on Christmas Day, right?”
”Huh? Yeah, of course.”
”Well… there’s orders going out the next morning. If we’re not going to be here, who’s going to make them?”

”…Crap.”

Bakers necessarily need to plan for a few days in the future. Especially when you have wholesale accounts expecting pastries early in the morning. Someone dropped the ball somewhere.

“Uhh… okay, don’t worry, we’ll think of something.”

Well, we thought of something first.
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“Heavy is the Head that Wears a Crown”- Thoughts on Teaching and Leadership

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Good evening, friends and neighbors! Only a short blog post this week because I spent much of the afternoon doing this months Live Bakealong, and, for reasons I’ll soon make clear, this week at the shop has been a bit more demanding than usual.

Long story made short, the bakery is hiring on more people- and I will be training and directing them. There are a couple large contracts coming down the line, and I will be leading the Pastry Prep team.

I am getting a team that I will need to train and organize.
It’s exciting, and I’m thrilled. Now I just need to stop being terrified.

*Imposter Syndrome intensifies*

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Snapshots of the Bakeshop III- The Night Shift

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Good evening, friends and neighbors.

The last time I wrote a “Snapshots,” I was working the morning bake shift. Since then, I’ve taken over the completely opposite end of the day- evening pastry prep.

I’ve gone from managing the oven and getting the bakery off to a good start each day to watching it slowly empty out, till I shut everything down as the last man left.

If you’re wondering what a bakery looks like as the day dies down, here we go.

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