Work

Well I've been putting off posting about my work but I figured I should at least talk a bit about it, seeing as I'm baking... a lot. I chock it up to laziness and the fact that work itself has made my life very busy. But I don't mind it. I may like reading and video games but it gets boring fast doing that all day.

The place that I work is called Bundles of Cookies in Bethesda Maryland. They mainly do decorated cookies to order and display them in various ways, such as in boxes, tins, or even as cookie bouquets. I was really amazed the first time I went in there. The storefront is really beautiful.

My job is a baker. It's fairly simple-pretty much the same tasks day in and out but it's not really repetitive. I am responsible for preparing the dough for the decorated cookies-an almond dough that I've never heard of prior to working here, it's pretty unique to them as well as the icing. In addition, the store also sells what they call "gourmets" which are cookies of varying flavors. They are all drop cookies, while the decorated ones are cut out. At the moment there are nine varieties-Snickerdoodle, Molasses, Chocolate Chip, Double Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal Raisin, Oatmeal Cranberry Walnut, and Oatmeal Pecan Chip. I am in charge of preparing those doughs as well as baking those cookies. I bake them every other day or as needed to sell from the store as well as fulfilling any orders for the gourmets. We have also begun doing a gingerbread cookie which I am in charge of as well.

For the moment that sums up my job. It may seem simple but it is really a lot of work. I need to keep adequate quantities of all gourmet doughs for my own tasks as well as plenty of icing and almond dough for the decorators. When a batch of dough can take 30 minutes to an hour to prepare, it can get time consuming. Especially when there are lots of orders for gourmets. For instance, last week I baked about 1200 gourmets on Monday and Tuesday alone in addition to my regular tasks for a couple very large orders, all from the same company. There were a few other orders throughout the week but none matching that. The same will of course be happening for the next week and maybe the following because of Christmas.

After Christmas it will be slowing down, but from what I gather I won't have to lose many hours as I will be getting additional tasks. Right now the main decorator bakes all of the almond cookies for the orders but after Christmas I'll be taking care of that so that she can focus only on decorating. I am already baking iced rounds, which are just plain round almond cookies that get iced, I guess to wean me into the more important job.

It is certainly a lot of work. It doesn't seem like it would be all that physically demanding but it really is. I was surprised how tired I got after the first week or two of working there. I'd like to hope that my body is getting more acclimated to a physical lifestyle. Even if it is a lot of work and I don't have much free time anymore, I am enjoying it and I'm glad that I can finally work in a place where I am getting real baking experience for my future.