Working for the Weekend

This is the first weekend when I have to actually go to work in probably 8 years. (The last-minute speeches that I wrote in my pajamas on a Saturday don't count.) I wouldn't say I'm pleased about it, but I knew it was going to be part of the food service grind. 

I like to tell myself that I'm not going to miss much while I'm at work, as most of the early part of weekend days are spent figuring out what to do with the rest of the day, or cleaning, or breaking up arguments over the Wii. Still, with my husband almost exclusively home (read: in town) on the weekends for the rest of the month, it's hard to muster a lot of enthusiasm for spending my morning with strangers. Oh well.

In better news, I think I've acclimated to the bakery. I don't know everything, but I know enough to get me through the day without any major screw-ups (usually). Yesterday was the busiest day yet, which is good and bad. Good because it makes the time fly, but bad because it draws attention to the incredibly inefficient way we are made to do things. 

Our manager, exercising the tiny bit of power she has in life, has taken a stand and decided that the best way to serve customers is on a one-to-one basis, meaning that I have to take the order, plate the order (or bring the order to the kitchen if it needs to be heated), ring up the order, and get all the beverages. To do all this, I will traverse the length of the bakery at least twice during each transaction. 

In most establishments offering counter service (and believe me, I've worked in several), the labor is divided so that one person takes orders and another person cashiers. During busy periods, you might have a third, or maybe even a fourth, person running food and/or getting beverages. This is what's known as "teamwork," a concept that the bakery apparently does not endorse. Perhaps this is so that errors can be immediately blamed on the correct person, I don't know, but it's clumsy and slow, two qualities that are generally thought to be unfavorable in the customer service realm. 

Am I going to stage a revolt to change the way we do things at the bakery? Um, no. Though it runs counter to my nature, I'm just going to let my manager have her power and go on thinking that she's running things well. It is her career, after all, while I'm just a vagabond, poised to hitch a ride onto my next professional adventure as soon as the wind changes...or something like that.