Bakery tales - Part 3

7. Production planning.

Bread baking is not simply mixing a dough, forming it into loaves and baking it off, at least not in a working bakery! Oven capacity, availability of bread tins, differing baking times (rolls need around 25 minutes, tinned bread 35-40) and oven temperatures, and so on all come into the equation.
I used to arrive 15-20 minutes early each shift and go over the production list and work out how we would achieve it most efficiently - the first few doughs were always pretty standard, though the batch size might need increasing or decreasing, but after those it was a balancing act as we needed to recycle trays and tins - sandwich loaf tins and french stick trays especially. So the first mix was always wholemeal and used a lot of sandwich loaf tins, followed by the first French Stick mix. We had sufficient of each for two batches of each at once, but of course the oven could only take one of each so this had to be taken into consideration. French sticks proved faster than sandwich loaves (and baked quicker) so even if made at the same time - Chris did the sticks while I did the sandwich loaves - they would follow each other into the oven. The stick trays were perforated so cooled very quickly too, while the tins needed a little longer before we could put the next batch into them - so throughout the night we alternated doughs so the tins, trays and ovens were always ready and used most effectively. Even so on some nights we were waiting on the sandwich tins for the final dough when numbers were particularly high - for some reason, and despite us asking, the day bakers never made any sandwich loaves so these were always the bulk of the white bread overnight production!
Chris and I had this down to a fine art - we worked at opposite sides of the bakery and I made the doughs and all the tinned bread, as well as some of the French stick production (the stick moulding machine was also near my work station) while Chris handled all the roll production and the speciality bread (we used to make a little Soda Bread, Rye Bread and Cholla Bread) - we rarely had any "spare" time, but since we didn't get paid any overtime we obviously wanted to finish as quickly as possible, while maintaining standards. Our oven guy used to cope brilliantly with everything we threw at him, despite his young years, but would occasionally ask us to slow down a bit, or give him a hand, if the ovens were backing up.
Chris' girlfriend was expecting their first child, and when she went into labour Chris had arranged to take a couple of days off (as there were complications) so the mid-shift baker, Steve, (who only worked a couple of days towards the end of the week - the one who suffered from Psoriasis) came in to cover for him. Unfortunately the second day of this I was taken ill with food poisoning, so had to stay away - and I only found out the following day that Steve's condition also flared up preventing him from working, so Jimmy and Karl had to go in to cover the production.
The next night both Chris and I were back in, and Mark (our packer) and the oven guy (whose name totally escapes me - but it may also have been Mark, or even Mike!!) told us that the previous night had been a fiasco! Karl and Jimmy had looked at the production list and decided the best thing to do was run through each type of bread in order - so they started with 5 batches of roll dough, followed by 4 batches of French Stick dough - and halfway through the sticks - 2 batches complete and in the prover, one divided and resting in trays, and the fourth batch already mixing - realised there weren't enough stick trays (which were specially curved for sticks) to continue! The next dough they put on was the Harvestgrain, which used half the sandwich tins, followed by the first Wholemeal mix, which used the other half - then they put on the second wholemeal, which was all sandwich loaves - and realised that the tins hadn't even gone in the oven yet from the first batch! No problem, on with the first of the white doughs, which was ordinary tinned bread, and some tray loaves (Bloomers), as was the second white dough, followed by the remaining French sticks - leaving .... 4 batches of white sandwich loaves! They still had a Wholegrain sandwich batch to do as well - and since from start to finish a "sandwich" batch took over 2 hours, even allowing for the fact we had 2 sets of tins there was still more than 6 hours of production to do ... and they had already been working for well over 6 hours!
Apparently they spent most of the rest of the (extended) shift standing around in the bakery smoking, waiting for the sandwich tins to come back from the oven, and then placing the next dough in an extremely hot sandwich tin straight out of the oven, and then waiting for the tins to come back again! Mark, the packer, says he was giving them a hard time muttering about lack of bread to pack, "which was never like that normally"! I am not sure if they ever fully realised what a mess they had made, or whether it made them appreciate what "proper" bakers could do in a night shift!

8. Suspended for not working on your day off!

I applied for an assistant foreman job at a large bakery in the South of England. The interview they requested that the spouse attended as accommodation was offered as part of the package, which was over one of their many shops - all senior staff were provided with rent-free accommodation (more of that later!). We were shown a 3 bed-roomed flat which was quite nice, and the area appeared reasonable even though the shop was in a precinct.
Following the initial interview I was invited back for a week-long trial at their factory. I had to take time off from my current job, and drove down - they had arranged Bed and Breakfast accommodation for me for the week (at their expense). I arrived early for my first shift (which was overnight) and the Production Manager explained to me, in the presence of the Foreman, that no-one, except the Foreman, knew the real reason for my trial - just that I was there for the week and would be trying out various jobs.
The first night I met several of the workers, who all eyed me with a little suspicion, but I spent the night working with the Foreman, who explained a lot about the business and the way it worked. He also told me something about many of the other bakers, including one, Steve, who used to be the Foreman, but had stepped down due to the pressures of the job, and was now simply a baker, albeit a senior one. At one stage I worked with him for a while and found him to be a very pleasant man, though he admitted he knew I was there being assessed for the assistant foreman role! He asked if I was taking staff housing and warned me that once I was in free housing they would expect a lot more commitment from me. He was still in free housing and said that they regularly called him in to work extra shifts (for overtime pay) or to extend his hours, due to illness of another baker. The implicit threat was that if he didn't comply they would take his accommodation away!
The bakers had an informal arrangement that one baker would get an extra day off each week (we worked 6 days out of 7 normally) and the others covered the extra work. It was agreed with the Foreman, and the Production Manager was also aware of it and "approved". The second night I arrived for work to find that the Foreman had called in sick! Steve took charge and sorted me out with work for the night, even though he was not officially "management" any more, but he also explained that the bakery more or less ran itself and didn't require that much supervision unless things went wrong!!
The production manager had been appraised of the situation and came in around midnight, whereupon he told Steve that he would have to take charge for the remainder of the week. Steve reminded him he was no longer a Foreman, and that he had the following night off (it was his turn that week to get the extra day off). The Manager raised his voice and told Steve that he would have to give that up this week, and reminded him that he had a responsibility to step up! He then called him to the office. About half an hour later Steve came back - "I have been suspended", he says, "For refusing to give up my day off, and for refusing to stand in as the foreman, so I have been given a week's suspension without pay!" He was furious and was refusing to accept this - it would be a formal black mark on his perfect record, and he felt it was totally unjustified. So he continued working, but asked me if I really wanted to work for a company that treated its workers like this!
About half an hour later the Manager came through - "What are you still doing here?" he demanded. Steve told him he was not accepting the suspension as it was unfair, and with the Foreman absent we needed all the workers we had. Eventually he had to leave, though said he was consulting a solicitor about it in the morning! The manager allocated me different work and he, too, left.
The following night we still had no Foreman, and no Steve, so I floated around going to whichever workstation needed help. Quite a few of the other bakers commented on the fact that this was common practice with employees who had staff accommodation, as the company felt they now "owned" them and could treat them how they liked! 
The week continued in a similar vein, but the manager had asked me to go in to see him a little early on the final night to talk over my week there. At that stage he was noncommittal about how he felt things had gone, but he apologised for the way the week had panned out without supervision, and admitted that it was not the best of situations for a trial! I must admit that part of me wondered if it had been stage-managed, to see how I would react, and whether I would try and take charge, but as I had been told not to let anyone know I was being assessed for the assistant foreman role (as "there were others here also in the reckoning"), I was uncertain as to how I should have reacted.
I didn't get the job, and I do feel that I "dodged a bullet" there!