So as the title says, I have a job interview. I'm quite excited, it's at CVS and it's Tuesday at 6:30pm. Yeah I know CVS isn't exactly glamourous, or a step up from my current job either. But I'm excited because it will be a new experience, and I'm sure I will learn something new too. I'm also hoping that I will be able to start my 401k, and maybe get some other benifits too.
I will post again after the interview!
So in my previous post I wrote about how I was thinking about quitting my job, and then I preceded to list most of the reasons. So my decision is to look for another job, then quit my current job. The thing that pushed me over the edge was what happened this past weekend. So I had my phone off on my weekend off because I didn't want to talk to people, and just kind of get away. So when my boss couldn't get a hold of me to basically harrass and question me on my phone she called my boyfriend jeffs phone about 4 times (and each time I picked up and we had a brief arguement where she proceeded to hang up on me and then call me back on jeffs phone). So I am now looking for a new job. My goal is to get something like a receptionist at a hotel, but honestly at this point I will settle for working at like cvs or walgreens.
The reason why my decision is a little shakey is because I want a full time job, and I'm not sure if people are hiring for full time. There is just so many things up in the air its very unsettling.
Just a quick comment about my last post. I've talked to my brother since then and he explained why he was refusing to pick me up from work (it had to do with some tough love), and the "friend" that owed me money. Well let's just say that I decided to cut my losses and I paid for the cake and we are no longer speaking to each other (and I couldn't be happier).
But back to the reason why I choose my subject. I do have decisions I need to make with regards to my current employment. First off, I love what I do for a living, even though I don't want to do it the rest of my life. But my job is very demanding, and exhausting. My boss can be difficult to work with, and the working conditions themselves are straining.
I guess I'll start with the demanding part and work my way down the list. So my job is demanding in both the mental and physical aspects. Its demanding like that because I need to get every little detail perfect, but be as fast as possible and then some. And I'm on my feet for long hours, but not to mention hunched over a cake for a long time (and I already have some serious preexisting back conditions). I also lift heavy objects. So at the end of the day (which is usually 12 hours long) I'm too exhausted to even cook myself dinner.
Now on to my boss being difficult to work with *insert sarcastic yey here*. I'll give you a few examples I guess. So imagine an unfrosted cupcake. But instead of it being filled enough so that when its baked it rises to the top of the liner, it only rises up half way. Now in my past experiences, when I just frost the cupcake with the normal amount of frosting my boss whines that it looks to small. But when I frost it with a little extra frosting to make it match the other cupcakes, she complains that there is to much frosting. Sounds like a typical boss right? Well trust me it gets annoying when she does it with every single little thing you do. And when something happens its automatically your fault, even if she is the one that does it. Like today when I was making a cake in the shape of a soccer ball, I wanted to frost it with a star tip, so it would look neater. But instead she wanted me to airbrush it, then she started complaining that airbrushing it was dumb and asking why I did it. Then I suggested that we just put black fondant patches on it and she agreed that it was better. Then when I did it I cut the black patches to match the pattern she made on the ball (which was uneven), and she started complaining that it was uneven and asking why I did it like that. And when I told her I was just matching the pattern she made (because if I didn't match it I knew she wouldn't be happy), then she was all like "but I thought you said that you would make it look better" which I never said anything like that to her. And that's not it, one last thing that makes her difficult to work with is how disorganized she makes me. Now I have ADD, which is fine because over the years I have disciplined myself enough to funcition without medication. But in order to do that I have to be strict with myself and very well organized. And for examply let's say I'm working on a cake that is covered in regular frosting, but has flat 2d flowers on it. Now what I would normally do is make the flowers first, allow them to dry while I was frosting the cake. Then when I frosted the cake I'd put the flowers on. Easy right? Not with my boss. She would watch me doing the flowers then stress out that I'm either taking too long, or that the cake wouldn't be ready in time. Then make me stop what I'm doing and frost the cake. Then when I'd be almost done with frosting the cake she would start questioning me why I didn't finish the flowers first. Then would make me stop frosting the cake to finish the flowers. And usualy when I'm done with the flowers she would make me drop everything and do something else like make frosting or work on another cake for her leaving my cake unfinished. And then she would complain and question me on why I was taking so long to finish the cake and why it wasn't done yet. And she complains about how slow and inefficient I am all the time.
So on to my working conditions. For starters where I work is beyond small, we are literally tripping over each other. The back kitchen is probably like 150 square feet. And that includes 2 fridges, 1 freezer, 3 huge shelves, 5 large tables (3 of which is actually usable on a regular basis), a double oven, cooling rack, proofer box, like 8 bins, and a 30 quart mixer. All of that is in this small room (trust me its tiny for an industrial kitchen). And there are usually about 3-4 people working at any given moment. And 1 of those people are usualy either our bread baker or cake baker, and both of them have to take up a lot of room. So it basicly leaves my boss, another decorator and I about 2 square feet of working space, reguardless of how large our cakes are. And this would normally be fine because its usually till the bakers are done. But my boss always takes up as much space as she wants and isn't very mindful of how much space that leaves me and another decorator. And I don't think she's the most considerate person either. Because if were holding something and need to get by her she rarely moves, even if we say 'excuse me' or like 'sorry I need to get by you'. And our pathways are about 2 feet wide, so it gets a little cramped. And then on top of all that we have water damage and a bacteria problem at my work that I think is making me sick. It's either that or working 50ish hours a week is making me sick.
So the decisions I need to make are the following:
1.) Should I find another job?
If I find another job:
1- I don't want it to look like I'm flip-flopping from job to job, even though I've been here for a year now.
2- I really do like what I do, and dispite how difficult it is to work with my boss I do like her.
3- and if I decide to look for another job, should I wait till the walk-in fridge and freezer are installed (probably about 2 months) and see if the working conditions improve? Or should I just rip the band-aid off now?
4- I will miss this job A LOT.
5- But I'm pretty sure this place is making me sick, either from the bacteria problem, or over-working myself.
2.) Should I stay?
If I stay:
1- it will look good on a resume that I stayed for so long (untill I go to college)
2- I might get sicker
3- I will either get to see the business flourish or die (were at that make or break point)
4- if the business flourishes it will feel amazing, but if it dies it will be devastating becaused my boss and I have worked so hard.
5- if I stay I will learn amazing cake decorating skills that I can use the rest of my life.
I hope you can see why I'm conflicted, and hopefully by the time I post again I will have an idea of what I'm going to do.
So as the title says, I'm feeling a little stabbed in the back. My friend ordered a cake from the cake shop I work at and then called me up the day it's going to be picked up and says she can't afford it. Then she asks me to "spot her the cash". Which I refused for 2 reasons; 1 all my money is going to paying bills because my mom got kicked off unemployment, and 2 is because she already owes me $180 for some clothes "she just had to have" but she left her purse at home. But that fun stabbed in the back feeling comes from her Facebook post the next day saying that she was going to Chunkey's (in case you don't know Chunkey's, it's a very expensive dinner and a movie theater).
But that's but all. On top of that my brother is now refusing to pick me up from work in the evenings because it's annoying. You want to know what's annoying, the fact that I put off my college for another year to pay for his schooling. And that I get to be stuck here while he continues on with his life and all I asked was to be picked up from the job that's paying for his school instead of mine.
I'm sorry that this post is ranty, but it's all I can think about. I just can't believe my own brother, who's protected me and been my best friend my whole life, has been so ungrateful to me. I'm less upset about my friend owing me money because I expected that, but not my brother.
I'm still working on my candles while working full time. My brother finally started truck driving school, which is a major plus. And my boyfriend (Jeff) and I just recently celebrated our 1 year and 4 month anniversary. We don't really do anything to celebrate besides having a contest for who can remember first that it's our anniversary (I won this time!). I still haven't figured out a way to pay for college, which it just seems to get harder and harder for me to do. And I don't think mom has had any luck with the job searching, which is fine, dad and I can pay the bills. Oh and some more good news, I'm going to expand to making tapers for my candle business, I can't wait for the package to arrive! I'm thinking for halloween to do bleeding tapers (any colored taper that has a red core, so when you lite it it looks like it's bleeding). I'm just not sure how to do it exactly. But I'll figure it out, it can't be that hard right? Well, when I have more news I post again but till then I guess this is good bye for now.
First off, my hours at work are changing. So instead of working Wednesday thru Sunday, I'm now working Tuesday thru Saturday, but it's a half day Saturday so I now have something of a weekend! Maybe I can be a normal 20 year old now and hang out with friends hahaha. And some more good news is that my brother is starting truck-driver school on Monday, and he'll be in there for a month. After that he is going to go on the road with my dad. And on that note I have some bad news. My mom got kicked off unemployment a few days ago, so she has to get a job now. But we have some money saved up, so I think we'll be fine. It just means that I have to put off college again for another year, which is heart-breaking. It was tough enough in the 8th grade when I stayed back, then again when I graduated high school, and now again I get to watch my friends move on with their lives while I'm stuck. In some ways I feel ahead of my friends because I have a cool job, and plenty of work experience. But I feel like there's a huge chunk of life that I haven't experienced yet, and might not be able to.
So why doesn't college have to be so expensive anyways? I don't even know if I'm really better off getting myself in that much debt anyways. Also, I can't believe how many scholarships I'm not quailified for anymore because I didn't go directly to school. And forget student loans, no one in my family has good enough credit, and I don't even make enough to get one either. If anyone has any advice, it's very welcomed.
So as the title says, I have no idea what to write. So I guess I'll start with why I'm writing this blog 'The Definition of An American Family'. It's simple really, my friend Sarah said that she started a food blog and told me about how much she loves it, so I decided to try it. Now the name came to me when I was helping my dad clean his truck. I wanted to write about everything I've been going through lately, and how hard my family and I have been working to improve our lives. And that's when I thought about the 'American Dream', and how my family and I are working so hard to achieve it. So that's where I got the american family part of my title. And in my opinion, a family that's working to make their life better is in a sense the definition of an american family.
My family consists of my (older) brother, mom, and dad. I also have an amazing boyfriend that is family, just not legally (yet hahaha), and then my boyfriends (older) sister and mother. I do have a rather large extended family, that I rarely see sadly. So now that you have an idea of how many people are in my life (minus friends) I'll tell you about what my day to day life is like. My full time job is as a cake decorator at an amazing custom cake shop (I'm in love with my job by the way), and I am also trying to start up a candle business called Sweet And Lite. On an average week at the cake shop I work 40-50 hours, and then I try to do my candle business on Saturday (I mean making the physical candles). I think I might be a workaholic, and I don't really have the energy to see my friends anymore too. I do stay at my boyfriends house Sunday night to Tuesday, but that's my only relaxing time during the week.
So the main reason why I am doing this blog (besides to try something new) is to share with people my hopefully sucessfull story of the hardships I call life. And I hope it will help you as much as I hope it helps me.
-Mary a.k.a. CupcakeGirl
