Antipathetic Magic
April 06, 2009
Shortly before I left for Scotland, one of the managers approached me about switching my baking days to Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The head pastry guy had been having some health problems, which, compounded with a generally no-need-to-rush work ethic, prompted the need for a faster and more flexible person in the kitchen on weekends. There was talk of getting a walkie-talkie or baby monitor to communicate between floors, so that if the café got slammed or needed to send someone on break, they could call me up to help out (the ovens and fans are noisy, nobody in the kitchen can hear someone calling down the stairs).
I said I would be delighted, but because my mother taught me how to bargain I also pointed out politely that on days I work as the kitchen staff I don't receive tips because I don't have to deal with the public. We make good tips, sometimes as much as two dollars an hour over our usual pay. Spending more days assigned to the kitchen on the logic that I can (and will) wind up in the café would mean I was losing money while still having to wrangle customers. And even on the days that I don't get summoned upstairs, I spend my surplus hours scrubbing floors, breaking down boxes, making pavé, and generally being useful. Recession or no recession, they know very well that I am worth more than what they are paying me.
They acknowledged my point, and I expected the subject to be dropped in my absence. It probably would have been, but the head pastry guy abruptly announced that he was going home to Puerto Rico, and gave his two weeks' notice. Overnight I was transformed! I am now the undisputed sovereign of the kitchen, with a full time schedule and a dollar an hour pay raise. Part of me wants to quibble that I am talented and well-educated twenty-four-year-old white woman who is still wasting her time making an hourly wage in food service, but another part if me says YAY! I'M A BAKER! I will spend my summer making a living on cakes and croissants, bitches, how many of you can say the same?
I said I would be delighted, but because my mother taught me how to bargain I also pointed out politely that on days I work as the kitchen staff I don't receive tips because I don't have to deal with the public. We make good tips, sometimes as much as two dollars an hour over our usual pay. Spending more days assigned to the kitchen on the logic that I can (and will) wind up in the café would mean I was losing money while still having to wrangle customers. And even on the days that I don't get summoned upstairs, I spend my surplus hours scrubbing floors, breaking down boxes, making pavé, and generally being useful. Recession or no recession, they know very well that I am worth more than what they are paying me.
They acknowledged my point, and I expected the subject to be dropped in my absence. It probably would have been, but the head pastry guy abruptly announced that he was going home to Puerto Rico, and gave his two weeks' notice. Overnight I was transformed! I am now the undisputed sovereign of the kitchen, with a full time schedule and a dollar an hour pay raise. Part of me wants to quibble that I am talented and well-educated twenty-four-year-old white woman who is still wasting her time making an hourly wage in food service, but another part if me says YAY! I'M A BAKER! I will spend my summer making a living on cakes and croissants, bitches, how many of you can say the same?
I cannot say that, which saddens me greatly. ::sigh::
:-P
hooray! i'm a bit jealous. cakes..mm...pies...mmmmmmMMMMM! --liz
Poor Paul. But you are very welcome to sit in my café and work. A man cannot ask for much more than cakes and wireless.
We don't really make pie, Liz...or rather, we don't make pie at all. It's a very European-styled range of pastries, so although we have some tarts with the same ingredients as a pie, they don't have much of that down-home pioneer flavor.
Congratulations! I hope that you're still in Boston by the time that I get there, so that I can have at least one visit to Burdick Chocolates with you as the "undisputed sovereign of the kitchen," as that would rock.