From December 2022 to May 2024, I embraced my love for sweets by working at a Foodland Bakery. Along with baking a lot of bread, cookies, muffins, pastries, and more, to my surprise, there was a lot of packing from the morning hours all the way to the afternoon. I also had to take care of the reduced-price items every day. Later at night, I had to make sure all the early-morning doughs and pastries were in the chill ready to be baked by whoever opens the department the next day.
As the new person in the department, I obviously did not have to do the more really important work, but I can definitely say I was still busy. At the time, only five people, including me, worked at the department, so every person counted. On a typical shift, I would start in the afternoon until closing, being by myself for the majority of it. When they first started putting me alone, I was really anxious because I was worried a customer might ask me something I did not know. Over time, I got the hang of things while doing my best to produce quality work. This other coworker and I would mainly have closing shifts where we would work by ourselves for most of it and our other three more senior coworkers would handle the morning shifts. Since there is only five of us in total, each of us were important to the functioning of the bakery, and even if one single person could not do their job, it would put an immense amount of stress on the rest.
At the time, I was in the middle of an indefinite hiatus from school, and my socializing skills were not that good. During my time at Foodland, I learned how to open up a bit more and talk to new people. It really helped that my Store Director, Bakery Manager, and coworkers were all so friendly. I also got to improve on talking to strangers because there were a bunch of times I had to help out customers or even pass out samples throughout the store. I am extrememly grateful for what I experienced during my time at Foodland, as it helped me grow as a person.