Without any help, it became clear to me that I could never quite get my head above the work to look to the future. So I again tried to organize the baking schedule to streamline operations. Because baking is one of those things that once you’re started, it’s hard to stop and take a break because you lose the flow, I relied a lot on John to handle deliveries and picking up supplies. It was extremely frustrating for him because he was trying to help, but of course he had other priorities and hated being called in at the last minute for emergencies based on my poor planning. We were still getting up each morning at 4am so we still had very little sleep, and weird naps after the scone bake were making it hard to concentrate and keep a flow. Eventually, we started switching off every other day, which seemed to help, but still the days we had to get up early wreaked havoc on our bodies and stress levels.
A friend of mine was between jobs so she offered to help a few days a week. She did not have any professional experience, but she was quite efficient and very helpful. She had a very good palette, and since she was hired expressly to help with production, it became very easy for me to take the role of leader.
Still, though, I was getting home late, and there was very little planning and very little business development. It was just about production and delivery, which was spinning slightly out of control. Even if I was to just take production itself, there were still so many different types of tasks…making prep items, baking, finishing. It’s not like regular cooking where you could just tell your prep cook to chop onions, then chop tomatoes, etc.; bakery prep is a little more complicated and it seemed difficult for me to break it down into tasks a person with little training could do. Plus, I am a perfectionist who doesn’t know what I want so it’s very difficult for me to lead.
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