Choosing a Career - Part 6. The endgame!

A few months into my time in the Supermarket bakery, and still the lowest ranked baker (all the "workers" were grade D, but wage increments were based on time served, so I was still the lowest ranked and paid) we arrived one week to find that our department manager had been sent on a project (trialling part-baked bread), his assistant was absent sick (long-term), and the Senior Baker also went absent sick, leaving us with no-one in charge. The other younger bakers seemed reluctant to step up, so I did, and basically ran the bakery for the next 4 months! I was first in, and many times last out, did all the ordering, all the production planning, and all the staff scheduling, which was a nightmare as we were three men down, and at times more due to holidays and sickness! Every week I submitted the time sheets which always had a big overtime element for me, and no-one higher up ever queried it! The overtime sheets were supposed to be signed and approved by a manager, but I was doing it myself, and not once did anyone question this! The "fresh food" manager, whose responsibilities covered the bakery (as well as produce, deli, fish and meat) avoided coming anywhere near the bakery, as he "felt we were doing OK"! During this time my wife's sister was getting married in Dubai, and I couldn't go as I had to stay and run the bakery! Understandably tensions ran high at home, but I felt I had no option, and the extra money was very, very welcome - I was sometimes working a 70 hour week instead of the normal 35, with the extra at overtime rates! The situation only improved after a Store Manager "swap" - our manager and another did an exchange for a couple of weeks, and the "new" manager asked me about our staffing schedule - as he could see we were really short - and asked me about my role as he could clearly see that I was struggling. When I explained I was the most junior baker he was appalled that I had been left like that to run the department with no help from above - and two days later he arranged a relief bakery manager relieving me of my unwanted responsibilities! Shortly after that the others returned from their various illnesses and things got back to some sort of normality.
A few months later, however, I hurt my lower back while at work - I was emptying dough out of a mixing bowl, following correct work procedures, when I felt a sharp pain near my right hip. I continued working, but was in considerable pain, so next day off (we worked 5 days out of 7) went to see my GP who told me I had pulled a muscle and best thing was to work through it, but to be careful. However over the next week or so it got gradually worse, so much so that I could not stand still on my right leg, and it used to take me several minutes to climb the stairs to the canteen, so eventually I had no option but to initially sign myself off work, since my GP still seemed unwilling to. It turned out that I had damaged my sacroiliac joint, and by continuing to work had caused further damage, so much so that it was decided that I could no longer work in the bakery doing physical work. This took several weeks to play out, and by then I was back at work but doing like duties in the personnel department, mainly performing filing. When it was realised I could no longer be a baker I was moved to the general office, doing administrative work, including answering the phone, and escorting the cash collections from the checkouts.
I was then asked if I would like to join the newly created stock control team - our job was basically to investigate gaps on shelves once the night shift (no 24 hour trading at our store) had finished replenishment. The stocking system was semi-automatic in that all sales were instantly taken off system inventory, and using algorithms the system automatically re-ordered stock for arrival the following day - so in theory there should never be any empty shelves, and it was our job to find out why there were. There were other factors I will not go into here, but human error was often to blame!
The work was OK, and the working hours reasonable - early starts and early finishes every day helped the situation at home, as I was able to be home by the time my daughter finished school. The pay wasn't that good, but at the time my wife was bringing home more than me so we were OK financially, but both needed to work full-time. I was still keeping an eye on jobs in the area and spotted a vacancy for an Accounts Clerk with a local charity, very close to our home, so I applied and was invited for interview. They were relocating their Regional Administrative offices to Norfolk, and none of the existing staff (other than the Manager) were making the move, so I joined a brand new team a few weeks later.
We were located next door to an Activity Centre owned by the charity, and as accounts clerk I had quite a lot of daily contact with the centre, and we were included on a rota to welcome guests on a Friday night for the weekend stays. It was nice to get back into accounting, and to learn how to use a basic computerised accountancy suite, though I was little more than a bookkeeper/data entry clerk as one of the trustees dealt with the accounts proper. 
During this period my wife had to give up work on medical grounds, and was unable to take on employment for some time, and was medically retired from her current job. This put enormous strain on our finances, and on our relationship, as I was not earning enough alone to support us fully. While on my first vacation, after a year, it was decided that I needed to try and find much better paid work, easier said than done, but upon my return I found out that the Activity Centre Manager's position had unexpectedly become vacant - the person who was supposed to take over the role had issues with his reference, so they were re-advertising. Having seen much of what the job entailed, and knowing the salary and benefits (free housing was one!), my first reaction was to talk to my wife about it, and her family were round that evening so we had a discussion, and it was decided that this could be a really great solution - the salary was much better, the free housing meant we could rent our house out to pay off the mortgage, and my wife would not need to worry about finding work, or she could do whatever she felt able to without any pressure.
The next day, after checking with my boss, and he with the charity's area commissioner, I threw my hat in the ring! They had to go through with a rigorous selection and interview process, culminating in an overnight stay at the property with spouses/partners and two interviews, and I was awarded the position! It was like our prayers had been answered.
Over the next few months I trained as an instructor in Archery, Kayaking, Canoeing, Climbing and Abseiling (Artificial Tower), as well as training staff - the assistant left the same time as the previous manager, and we employed GAP students who we trained as Summer instructors - and working on many areas of the "business" that desperately needed improving. I was finally doing something I really enjoyed, and I felt that I had found my "place" in life, and I really seemed to be good at it!
The supplied accommodation was going to be improved and extended so my wife decided at first to stay in our own home until it was complete, though that was going to take several months, but then she dropped a bombshell saying she had no intention of ever moving, and that I should move back home! My job required me to live on site, so moving back was not an option, and long-term we couldn't afford to run two homes - it depended on us both living in the free housing and renting our own house, but she would not have any of that. From elation about how things had turned out to despair in the space of a few minutes - but I was not about to give up the job of a lifetime, so felt I had no alternative other than to petition for a divorce. Seems a bit harsh choosing my new career over my marriage, but I knew that if I gave up that job I would struggle to find anything paying nearly so good, that I would regret it for the rest of my life, and we would probably lose our home anyway, and with it our marriage, so it was really a no-brainer! I threw myself into my work, and as it was showing positive results I was really enjoying it - it hardly felt like work. I mean what job entails spending time out on the river in a kayak "playing" with a bunch of kids - and getting paid for it!
It turned out that this was my last career move, and I spent the next 8 years there, until one day they decided to have an operational review, which included reviewing all the jobs. Their decision was that the manager needed a formal business qualification, so after doing a great job for 8 years, in their opinion too, I was no longer qualified to do it anymore, so I took redundancy! It also turned out to be my last paid employment (other than a couple of temporary contract jobs) so I moved to Brazil, and have only done a little unpaid voluntary work (here and in Peru) since then. I do feel that managing an activity centre (with 44 beds, camping ground for 600, and a variety of outdoor activities) was my idea of a perfect job, and am so pleased that I managed to find it eventually!

Choosing a career - Part 5

My foray into Engineering had been short-lived, but enjoyable, but here I was back full circle to the bakery I had created, but now working for someone else. Unfortunately a succession of highly paid "managers" had almost destroyed the business we had created, allied to the owner's lack of knowledge how to run a village grocery store. He had learnt nothing form what we had tried to pass on, and grocery sales were much lower as his pricing policy was foolish, to say the least. He had still not grasped the concept that we had to try and compete on some level with the local (5 miles away) supermarket, at least with KVI products ("known value items" or everyday purchases), and the Cash & Carry we used allowed us to do that, but at very reduced margins on those items, and he was unwilling to accept those poor margins (ignoring the fact that we made more on other products).
The quality of the bread had declined alarmingly, too, so correcting that was my first priority, and relatively easy to do, however in order to afford to pay a bakery manager, something we still felt was the job he should be doing himself, he had branched out a great deal into the wholesale trade, but was giving away most of the profit by doing this, and it meant he also had to employ a delivery driver and buy a small delivery van, further affecting his "bottom line"!
I lasted over 2 years in this role, though throughout that time my "assistant bakers" were inexperienced and unqualified, but were there more for "muscle" than skill so it was not too bad. The problem was that it was a 6-day a week job, and the owner was reluctant to allow me any time off for holidays, as he had no one capable of running things in my absence, but offered me payment ("cash in hand" or tax-free, which I declined) in lieu of holiday. The only time off I got in those 2 years was a week I took in order to replace my back door at home, when he stood in to do the work at the bakery.
Eventually, though, I had had enough. If I complained about the hours (which were around 60 a week!) he threw more money at me, if I asked for holiday time with my family, he offered me more money to forego it, and was continually telling me that he had big plans for the business and that I would soon be in a more senior daytime role. When I told him I wanted to leave his response was - offer me more money - but I knew that the business could not afford what he was offering me (far more than any of my family had received as a partnership share before, when the business was taking more money!), but he then tried emotional blackmail, saying that if I left he would probably lose the business, and his young family (second wife) would suffer! It was all to no avail as my marriage was suffering with the time I was putting in, all night shifts, and arriving home around 06.00 - or later if the delivery driver was a no-show so we had to deliver as well!
I stayed in the bakery industry, initially at new supermarket locally, but that was short-lived due to differences of opinion with the store management - my department was never fully staffed from day one, and I was having to pick up the slack so working excessive hours, and every week I was being questioned about the hours I was putting in, and then being told they would recruit more staff, only for them to go back on that later the same week, and then complain again I that I was putting in too many hours!. There followed a period of time when I worked for three different small craft bakeries in fairly close succession, though I use the word "craft" broadly as most of them were not producing a "craft" product, but again chasing turnover. None of the owner/managers had a real clue how to treat staff, or how to make bread (one was even the former bakery manager who had almost ruined the business my family had created), and again excessive hours was the order of the day, though since none of them had given us contracts of employment (a legal requirement they ignored) we had no right to overtime payments, and no right of recourse. At all three my excellent reputation had preceded me and they were all delighted to have me join them, but unfortunately the way they treated staff was appalling, and none of them had the skills necessary to run a business.
During this time I was also looking to move on, though without the necessary paper qualifications it was extremely difficult, and eventually I ended up back in the Supermarket world, this time with one of the market leaders in their in-store bakery. By now (it was the same group I had been with back in 1982) their bread was somewhat better, though still not "craft" quality, but their systems were streamlined, they treated staff reasonably well, and I had no real responsibility so was happy as one of the bakers - the oldest by some way, but the most junior as the newest arrival. I had by now almost given up on being able to find my ideal career, but also knew that I had not nearly reached my potential.

Choosing a career - Part 4

I was around 33 at this time and undecided what to do when I finished at the bakery, so I popped in to a Careers Advice Centre near where my parents now lived - they also had jobs advertised as part of the Jobcentre network. The advisor there suggested I try their aptitude test, which only took a few minutes, and while waiting for the system to spit out some results they mentioned to me that they were trialling a new psychometric test which took half a day!! The next was on Saturday (it was Tuesday) in a different town, but there were vacancies - normally this test would cost about £50 but was free to the invitees for the trial.
There were around 20 of us there and we were told there would be about 12 different tests, lasting different lengths of time - we would be told when to start and when to stop, but not how long we had for each test! The tests were varied, from mental arithmetic, general knowledge, spatial awareness, and even manual dexterity - and the times allowed seemed very short! We did 6 tests then had a break for refreshments, and I found that, like me, the attendees were struggling to complete the tests in the time allowed - that was a relief as I was beginning to think I was thick! When we had finished the organiser explained that not being able to finish each test was part of the test!! It was supposed to put us under stress to see how we handled that - and when he found out that I had actually completed 4 of the 12 tests he was amazed, as no-one had achieved even one before!
While waiting for the results, which would take a couple of weeks, I started working for an Engineering company - a friend worked there and told me they were recruiting short-term workers, and I ended up in the machine shop, working on a power guillotine alongside a 64-year old about to retire! We had to chop up steel following simple drawings, and the work was physically hard, but relatively easy, the pay was OK, and weekend overtime usually available, as well as a productivity bonus! We were initially employed on 13-week contracts, then laid off during a "shut-down" and immediately re-hired for a further 13 weeks (most of us were contracted to do overtime during the shut-down, too!). The government of the day had introduced a job creation scheme where they paid part of the wages of any "new" employees hired for at least 13 weeks, so many companies realised that if they hired and fired at 13 week intervals then they would get a big chunk of the payroll paid for by the state!
I received the results of my psychometric test and had an appointment at another different Jobcentre! My results were excellent, among the best they had seen, and my aptitude demonstrated that I could pretty much choose any career I wanted, and this included professions like legal, medical, etc. However - and there is always a "however" -  entry into these professions was almost impossible past 30, since the years of study and training required meant that many companies would not invest in "older" candidates (I would have required sponsorship from a firm to attend university) since the "pay-back" time after qualification was limited. It left me with very few options at my age to think about starting a new career track, and opportunities in Norfolk limited them further.
By now I had been offered a permanent job at the engineering company, and they were talking about multi-skilling all the workforce, so we would be moving round the machines (there were power presses, punching machines and sheet metal fabricators), and learning new skills like welding, so I put any career aspirations outside this on hold. My first child was also on the way so I needed a regular, steady income, and with occasional stretches on night shift (with enhanced pay rates) and weekend overtime when I wanted, I decided to maintain the status quo.
My colleague retired and I "inherited" his machine with my own assistant, but I was waiting for the multi-skilling opportunity that everyone else, except me, seemed to be getting. Eventually I asked my foreman about it, and he was genuinely shocked - I was the youngest worker with his "own" machine, and he thought I was happy - though rather it was that he was happy knowing he didn't have to worry about output from that machine! They did, however start training me on other equipment, but I never got round to the welding!
The work was hardly high-quality "engineering" as tolerances were pretty generous, but it did give me an insight into a different world of working practices, and in attitudes by the workforce - at breaks (tea break, lunch) and start of day the men would all stand around, even after the "hooter" had gone and wait for the foreman to come and say "All right, lads" before starting, and if he was late (at a meeting, or just elsewhere on the site) we would all still wait until we got the "nod" to start again! "It's his job", they would tell me if I asked why.
My daughter was born just after I got my permanent status and the regular reasonable income, especially on night shifts, though not brilliant, meant I was in no particular hurry to move on, especially as my wife was not yet working again. The company had factories at two locations locally (as well as one in Holland), the other some 30 miles away, and a change in management meant we embarked on a "customer service" training course, to be held at both factories and with some workers from each travelling to the other site for sessions. They were stressing that we were all customers, as well as the final purchasers of the trailers - and that each department was a customer of the preceding one along the production line, so we had to work together, rather than try and compete (and make life difficult for the others!). At the end of the training session we all had a "meet and greet" with a senior company employee, and we got the Financial Accountant, who then opened up a question and answer session. I asked why they didn't give the staff more information about how things were going for the company, as the notice boards were devoid of any company information - his response was that they "didn't think we were interested"! He then went on to tell us the company was doing reasonably well at the moment, with full order books, but that we shouldn't get complacent as it was a very competitive industry.
The next day I started a two week holiday in Kenya (where my in-laws lived), during one of the regular shut-downs, and returned to find that they had just laid off a third of the workforce as business was bad! I was appalled that the Accountant had stood in front of us and lied about the situation - as I couldn't believe that he was unaware things were that bad, but either way the signs were not good for the business. I decided that maybe the time had come to move on, before I was forced out into a very limited job market locally. For some time the man who had bought our grocery shop/bakery had been pestering me to go back and help save his bakery business which was being ruined by highly paid "managers", and I had been rejecting his advances, but a few days later he contacted me again, and offered me a lot more than I was earning in engineering to go back, so I decided to jump ship and change career path again.

Choosing a career - Part 3

My parents had returned to the UK in 1977, the year before I did, and my Dad said he was "semi-retired" at 51. They bought a small village grocery store in Norfolk, and my sister joined them, and they kept on a lady who had worked for the previous owners for many years so knew the ropes, and all the local customers! I don't think any of them imagined how hard running a village shop was, but everyone seemed to enjoy it - this was in the days before Sunday trading was prevalent, so it was only a 6-day a week job, though they all git an extra day off in the week (but Dad generally worked through most of his!).
The plan was that upon my return I would help out, while looking for a job in accountancy, though I soon realised that they really needed my help - Dad was the only driver back then, so had to do the weekly "cash and carry" runs on Monday, as well as the twice-weekly runs to the bank. The business was growing apace, mainly due to the fact that we were novices, so had no preconceptions, and provided the sort of service that we would have expected as customers - and it paid dividends! With 4 "partners" the business still was not really generating enough profit for all of us (Mum, Dad, my sister and me), despite the fact that we all lived in the attached house above/behind the shop. 
I started putting out feelers, and had a few interviews, but soon realised a huge problem that I had not foreseen - in the UK manual accounts was a thing of the past, and my lack of computerised accounting experience was a huge issue! Time and again my lack of knowledge in that field was the stumbling block, and even though I was pitching for jobs well below my experience in other areas, I was being turned down - even for "starter" jobs, as I was "too old" - at 25!
The shop was actually a double-fronted one (it was a converted semi-detached house) and the other half we rented out to a hairdresser, and when she decided move on we looked for ways we could utilise that second shop to our advantage. Initially Dad was keen on a mini garden centre - he always had green fingers - but one of our grocery supply reps suggested a bakery! There was a national bread strike on at the time, and he serviced a couple of small bakeries and said they were doing extremely well. We all fell about laughing as we had no baking history in the family, but the idea caught on - it would complement the grocery business, and also provide a draw to a new customer base. I was tasked with doing some research - a feasibility study, if you like! Eventually I found a local bakery where they would "teach" me the ropes and after only two nights decided that we could make a success of it! To cut a long story short here is the link to that Opening a bakery which we opened in 1979, and traded very successfully alongside the grocery business, increasing shop turnover by an additional pound for every pound value of bread we sold as customers came for bakery goods, and bought other things in the shop!
My change in career direction from aspiring accountant to baker had been seamless, I really enjoyed baking - it was very satisfying to create something from raw materials rather than just being a small cog somewhere along a process! I did leave the family business briefly (for around 6 months) in 1982 for personal reasons, and got a job with a large UK supermarket chain as a trainee bakery manager - they used small-scale industrial processes, with machines doing most of the "manual" work, and with chemical additives to speed up the processing time, resulting in, at that time, a product that could not really be called "bread"! However I did return to the family business, and started developing the bakery side further, increasing our  confectionery range.
In 1986 Dad decided to retire - he had turned 60 and discovered that he was no longer liable for capital gains tax on the sale of the business - and we (my sister and I) realised that we could not realistically keep the business going with just the two of us, if we lost half our labour force, as the cost of replacing both our parents' work contributions would be unsustainable, especially as they needed to withdraw capital also (so effectively we would have had to buy them out!) to buy a house to retire to. So the business was put up for sale. It did not take that long to find a buyer, either, and as part of the deal I agreed to stay on for up to 6 months to help with the transition (as he also had no prior grocery or bakery experience!)
Despite trying to convince the new owner that he, or a family member, should be the main baker - the most "expensive" job - he immediately started looking to employ a bakery manager (after offering it to me first!), who was being paid more than a partner's share had been under our ownership! He made quite a few more changes to the way the grocery business was run, too, most of which had a detrimental effect on customers, as prices started rising considerably. By the end of my 6 month "transition" I was pleased to be moving on, and embarked on another change of career - this time into engineering!!

Power cut

Last night here in Brazil we had a power outage - or rather a severe reduction in power initially, that eventually led to a complete town-wide blackout.
It started while I was eating dinner and watching something on Netflix when the lights went out, but my laptop kept working (showed it still had mains power) and my router showed that the internet was still up, so I simply lit a candle (so I could see what I was eating!) and continued as though nothing had happened!
When I finished my meal I looked outside and though my immediate neighbourhood was in darkness I could see lights in other parts of town, and by now my (low energy) lighting was glowing feebly. The centre of town, where the ISP shop is, still had power so bizarrely, though I was sitting using candlelight for illumination I still had internet access! At around 23.00, however, everything went dark, and it remained that way till 05.00 this morning (I had left a table fan on in my bedroom so I would know when power came back on).
It brought to mind an occasion in the late 80's when I was working night shift in a bakery in Norfolk, when suddenly around 22.00 the lights went out! Electric ovens, electric mixers and lighting - all gone! After a few seconds of panic I rushed through to call the electricity company (having checked that our circuit breakers were OK, and having looked outside to see everything in darkness), and they said they were aware of the problem, were working hard to resolve it, but had no idea how long it would be. I had learnt from experience that most people assume it is a "known" problem so don't report it, and once before I had called after 2 hours (from home, not work) and the electricity company were unaware they had a fault as it hadn't been reported yet!
We were at a stage in production where we had bread products proving, some baking, and were weighing up and moulding another batch - fortunately at that moment nothing was mixing, but we needed to get another batch on in the next 30 minutes. We decided we needed to keep going, and hope that the problem would be resolved soon, so we wouldn't lose any products. We collected a few candles and pressed on!
The ovens had enough residual heat to complete baking the bread already in them but we would need power to heat the ovens back up for the next bake, as there is considerable heat loss when you empty the ovens. Dividing and moulding the dough was done by hand, so that wasn't a problem continuing with the batch we were processing.
About 10 minutes into the blackout there is a knock on the front window and one of our neighbours is peering in - "Ah, I see you have no power, too, well I am off to the pub at the corner to see if they are still serving!" As it turned out they had closed early because of the lack of power, so a few minutes later Julian returned to let us know!
30 minutes into the blackout we were at an impasse - we couldn't mix another batch, the ovens were a little too cool for the proved bread to go in, so we were now in danger of losing three batches - one fully proved and ready for the oven, and another starting the proving process, and a third which was now ready, after bulk fermentation, for dividing and moulding! As we debated whether to begin the latest batch the power came back on! Just in time!
We gave the ovens 5 minutes to recover and popped the first load in, got another mix on, processed the ready batch, and then had a much-needed tea break! We had "lost" maybe 5 minutes overall due to the power cut, and our decision to crack on regardless had proved the right one, though we were fortunate the outage had only been 30 minutes, and not the 6 hours we had here in Brazil last night"

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!

Bakery tales - part 2

4. "Best work I have ever seen"
This bakery had a second retail shop in the centre of the city, as well as wholesale customers, and one day Jimmy had asked if anyone could do Harvest Festival bread (wheatsheaves) - it was during a handover so the day shift were there as well - and foolishly I said I had done them in the past. Jimmy said he would like one for each shop display, so I explained that usually a large one (30" x 18" baking tray) took around 90 minutes to produce, so I wasn't sure how we could fit that in alongside the normal production. He said he would see if they could do them during the day shift.
That night we arrived and on top of the bread production sheet was a note "Please make 2 large wheatsheaves, and five small ones (for customers) ... for tomorrow!" Chris, my assistant baker, and I looked at each other with horror - done properly that would take most of my shift to produce - if I did nothing else! There was no way he could do all the bread production alone, and neither Mark nor our oven man could make bread!
The only way I could do this was by cutting corners on the wheatsheaves - going against all my principles and making an inferior product - but there was no other way I could do that many in one night. First thing I did was make a really slow dough - very cold water and tiny quantity of yeast - as I didn't want it to ferment too fast, as I was going to have to work on these between my other work.
So every time I had a few minutes between doughs - when the next one was mixing, or when I should have been helping Chris with roll production - I cracked on with the wheatsheaves. The wheat stems are all rolled by hand, like thin strips of spaghetti, and the ears are cut with scissors to resemble corn - all the time the work has to be egg-washed to stop it drying and forming a skin. I made the stems much thicker than usual to reduce the number I had to make, and made the ears of corn much larger - I had to cut back the amount of work I had to do to complete them.
Eventually they were all finished and baked off, and though the other guys working with me were impressed I knew that by my standards they were very substandard! The day shift arrived before we left - yes, we were late finishing as usual - and they all commented on how good they were, and a couple of experienced bakers even asked how the heck we managed to do that many in one night (then Chris explained it was all down to me, and they were even more amazed!). I was still not that happy with the quality, but at least they were completed in time.
That evening when I arrived (always the first as I used to start by checking the production list and then working out a schedule) Jimmy was there. He came over, shook my hand, and told me how impressed he, the shop staff, and the clients the 5 small ones were sold to, were - "Best wheatsheaves I have ever seen!", he said.

What a wheatsheaf should look like!

5. Formal written warning
Bakery night shifts in 24-hour production bakeries are never easy - we are the people who have to finish off the production and pack the orders, so any problems on the day shift (including machinery breakdowns) that slow production have to be resolved by us! We used to arrive and find a production list and had no choice - we had to finish the list off the best way we could, and before 6.00 am when the deliveries went out! Our "shift" was supposed to be 20.00 - 04.00, 6 nights a week, but it rarely worked out that way! There was only ever one night that we used to get away on time, or on a couple of occasions early, and that was Sunday night, the rest of the week we generally had to work 1-2 hours extra (of course, unpaid!) to complete the work, and Friday, despite starting 2 hours earlier, we regularly worked 11-12 hours - so instead of the "contracted" 48 hours were working closer to 60!
One Sunday night/Monday morning we managed to finish early, and by "early" I mean everything was completed by 02.30 - all bread baked, all orders packed, bakery cleaned, so we left early. As we were going one of the delivery drivers, who was a close friend of the owners, arrived - said he had forgotten something. 
When we arrived for our shift Monday evening Karl was waiting for us - he said he heard we "had been finishing early" so now we had to bake off the confectionery at the end of the shift as well as slicing all the bread (something done later as you cannot slice hot bread). I explained that we had finished "early" once, which was that morning, but that generally we never got away on time, but he was adamant we had extra work to do!
This additional work put another hour on our schedule, which I was not happy with, so I spoke with the day foreman, who occasionally came in before we left, and he appeared sympathetic, and I told him that the following day we would be finishing at our scheduled time (after 8 hours) no matter what remained to be done. As it turned out there were only a few, maybe 20, loaves to be sliced, so we left "on time". 
When we arrived back that night there were letters for us all - formal written warnings, for not completing our work! The first and only time I have ever been disciplined at work - for leaving on time! The following morning I tried calling the bakery to speak to them about this, and neither owner was "available" - I went in early in the day and neither was there, but I did manage to get hold of Karl (who had written the letters) on the phone and told him I wished to speak to him, but he said he didn't have time for a few days!
That night I sent the other bakers home at 6.00 (2 hours "late") and continued on my own slicing bread. Karl came in shortly after that and asked where everyone was - and I told him I sent them home as we had already done too many hours. He had the nerve to say that "maybe you all don't work hard enough?" I flipped, I looked him in the eye and asked him if I had "idiot" tattooed on my forehead? "What do you mean?" he asked. "Do we get paid overtime?" I replied, "Of course not!", "So why the hell do you think we stay here working extra hours we don't get paid for? Don't you think that if we could finish in 6 or 8 hours we would do that? But we have to work 10-12 hours because there is that much work to be done! And when we do manage to get away early one night, we get extra work, and then written warnings! You have got to be kidding me!"
He tried to placate me and even offered me a cigarette - "You are joking, right? We are in a bakery and you expect me to accept a cigarette? There are only two people who smoke inside the premises, you and Jimmy (the owners), so if any contamination occurs you know who is responsible!" He then told me he would finish the slicing, and I could go home, but I said I would finish the work required for my shift, but that he would lose all the good people he had working if they continued to treat us the way they were doing. The next night when we arrived slicing was no longer our responsibility, but we still were working over 60 hours a week.
Ironically two nights later we arrived to find a "special" order for an additional 2500 bread rolls (it was Bonfire Night the following day and a local radio station were having a stand at the city celebrations). Normally rolls are pretty simple to produce - we had a roll-moulding machine which cut production time, though fitting that much extra production would be tricky ... and we arrived to find that the roll machine was broken! There was no way that we (well, Chris, as he processed almost all our rolls), could make that many additional rolls by hand overnight, so I had to call Karl to see what we should do. No-one had told him the roll machine was broken - it had happened during the day shift, which is why they left the extra roll order for us - but he and Jimmy came in, to their credit, bringing an old roll divider with them, which cuts a lump of dough into 36 pieces which are then rolled up by hand. Jimmy didn't stay long but Karl remained with us all night until we finished the rolls - which was 4 hours unpaid "overtime" for us all, and he never said a word about the fact that we did that without hesitation, even after receiving written warnings earlier that week for finishing "on time"!


6. "If you don't like it there is the door."
As I mentioned in my last post Jimmy and Karl never gave any of us employment contracts, which contravened labour laws. So although when hired we were told it was a 6 night a week, 48 hour a week job, none if us had any formal contract stating this is writing or laying out the terms and conditions. This was actually quite common in small bakeries, only one out of 4 I worked for ever gave me a formal contract, but the others never appeared to get caught.
The bakery was a 24 hour a day operation, though the day shift concentrated mainly on cake and pastry lines, and a solitary bakery continued when the day shift left until we arrived to relieve him, and finish the production. He suffered from Psoriasis (brought on by contact with flour!) and used to have to wear latex gloves to work, though on occasions it was so bad he had to take a few days off to let it recover. When this happened the daytime foreman, who was a nice guy, covered for him, starting a little later, and we got to meet him (I suppose I was the "night foreman" as I was responsible for the night work, though this wasn't a formal title), and talk over any problems we had during handover.
One major problem was that part of our job was to bake off some confectionery lines at the end of our shift, and often, especially by the end of the weekend, there weren't enough to meet the orders that were going out shortly. I asked him how the production worked, and he said that he was the main baker preparing the confectionery lines (which were then frozen unbaked), but only until Thursday when he had to help with bread as orders were higher for the weekend, so no-one made pastry lines on Friday and Saturday. I suggested we needed to move the day staff around a little to ensure we had enough to carry over the weekend, and he realised that it would be quite easy if he and another day baker changed their production roles - the other baker wasn't involved in bread production so could concentrate solely on pastries. As the foreman implementing this should be a simple process, and he planned to start that the following Monday when he returned to normal hours.
Monday we arrived to start our shift to find every member of staff in for a meeting - including the shop staff from their three outlets. Jimmy and Karl are there, but no foreman (I cannot recall his name!) - and Jimmy starts by telling us that he sacked the foreman this morning (during his first shift back on days) for trying to change the working system! "I am the boss and you will do what I tell you to do. This is my business!" 
"If I tell you to make a batch of bread and throw it in the rubbish, you do it, because it is my business and you do what I tell you to do. No-one changes things here without my permission. If I tell you to work a 12 hour shift, you do it, because I am the boss." I looked around at the rest of the staff and the horrified looks on their faces, including the wife of the man they had bought the business from. I had to say something: "Excuse me, Jimmy, we were all taken on to work 48 hours a week, over 6 days, and now you are changing this?" He looked at me, pointed at the door, and said "You heard me, if you don't like it, there is the door. If you think I cannot find easy replacements you can go the same way as the foreman!"
The following day I was looking for a new job.

Bakery tales - part 1

I was a baker on and off for around 13 years and met some real characters during those years - many were "qualified" bakers, meaning that they had achieved their City & Guilds qualifications, which are vocational qualifications completed by attending a college course while working several days a week, but in my experience the "degrees" were awarded rather too easily, and the level, in many cases, was very basic! I worked in a variety of bakery environments, from running my family craft bakery, to supermarket in-house (almost production line) baking, including one chain that introduced bake-off units, so no doughs were processed in the stores.
In all those years I met maybe one other baker who I would have given a job to without any hesitation, but the remaining workers would have struggled to meet my standards and gain my trust! Many of the managers and foremen I met along the way were also woefully sub-standard, even though some had passed "in-house" training as well - and there were also quite a few business owners who had no clue what they, or their staff were doing!
Here are a few anecdotes of my experiences.

1. Hit and Run.
My bakery assistant at one bakery needed a vehicle to get to work, so his best friend, who introduced him to me, sold him an old Morris Minor. Three days later he ran into the bakery at starting time, out of breath, and in a bit of a state, and told me he had gone to fill up the car and driven into another car as he left the garage forecourt - he panicked and ran off. He had not yet registered the car in his name, nor purchased insurance, so he called his friend and asked that when the Police called (as it was still registered to him!) he deny knowledge of who he sold the car to, and that he had sold it for cash in a pub! I was not that impressed by this, but we had work to do, so we started production.
Less than 30 minutes later the phone rang so I went to answer it - it was Jim's father (who was an Army Captain), who simply said "Tell Jim the Police are on the way! They called here and I told them where he works." A few minutes later there is a knock on the door, so I went and there were two Policeman standing there - I just opened the door and invited them in. Jim was still working, and they let us continue while asking questions, so they asked him if he was driving at the time of the accident. He admitted the offence and explained that he had panicked, but wanted to know how they got on to him so quickly - it was under an hour since the incident. They started chuckling - and asked if he remembered leaving anything in the car. He replied that he thought he had left his work shoes - so they produced his Filofax, with all his personal information, and a cheque book that he had left in the car. It took them only a few minutes to find his home phone number and his father had given up the work address, so it was one of the easiest "crimes" they had ever solved - and they congratulated him for owning up so readily and that this would help him out. He would probably get away with a small fine and an agreement to repair the other car. We never even paused in our work while this was going on!

2. Training for Success.
When we first decided to open a bakery I needed to find somewhere to do my "training", so we first went to a small new rural bakery suggested to us by a bacon representative (who knew both parties). He set up the meeting and my Dad and I drove out to the place, and got out of the car to wait for Reg, the Rep, to arrive. The bakery was set a little way away from the grocery shop also owned by them, and we noticed that someone inside the shop kept looking out at us. Just before Reg arrived a lady came out armed with a broom and demanded to know "what the hell" we were doing - we were standing at a road junction on public land!! It turned out that she was concerned we were a picket line, as the factory bakeries were on strike at the time (which was part of the reason we decided to try our hand at baking ourselves), but Reg's arrival defused the situation, although our visit was fruitless as the baker said he was too busy, and not experienced enough, to train anyone.
Next attempt was equally fruitless - this time my Mum and I visited a small bakery on the outskirts of Norwich, but were met with much suspicion, and again the remark that they didn't feel "qualified" to train anyone!
Fortunately the third bakery was more accommodating - the owner simply asked where we were going to be operating (over 8 miles away in a village outside the city) and agreed that I could come along the following Friday night and meet his 2 night bakers. John and Cyril were delightful old fellows - both around 60 years of age, and more than happy to pass on their knowledge to a youngster (I was 26!), and within minutes I was trying to get to grips with different types of doughs, and unfamiliar machinery (some of which I never saw the like of again!). I have always been a quick learner and was soon moulding dough into different shapes, and learning the processes, which they agreed I could write down, including recipes!
Cyril was a heavy smoker, and in fact smoked in the bakery,which was against all sorts of Health & Safety laws, placing the lit cigarette on the edge of the bench where we were working between puffs! He had badly nicotine stained fingers from his smoking, but proudly showed me how the coarse multi-grain doughs "cleaned " this off for him!
I went back the following Friday night for a second "lesson" and they were suitably impressed by what I had learnt and remembered - those two night shifts with these "old boys" were my only "formal" training I ever had, and were sufficient for me to feel confident enough to continue and open our own bakery!
Over 10 years later I happened to take a job with this same bakery, but now under new ownership, and John was still there (Cyril had succumbed to a smoking related illness!), now in his 70's. He was still working night shift, but now doing confectionery, and still working harder than most of the young bakers there - he immediately recognised me and proudly announced that he taught me how to bake, and I only needed 2 nights!

3. "What are you going to do? Fire me?"
After we sold the family bakery on my parents' retirement I worked for a variety of small bakeries, not one of which had owners/management who had any clue what they were doing - they didn't make very good bread (and we had to follow their recipes!), nor were they any good at running a business.
One such bakery was run by two friends - one was a halfway decent confectioner (but a terrible manager) and the other a former merchant seaman cook, who was a terrible baker, and an even worse manager! On nights we were pretty much left alone and simply got on with things - there were 4 of us consisting 2 bakers, an oven man (who was actually underage, but that was not something the owners worried about!), and a packer. The packer, Mark, was a bricklayer by trade, but needed the work, and was a decent hardworking young man.
Eventually Mark found a daytime job on a construction site for much more money, so he handed in his notice - or rather he wrote a letter and pinned in to the office door as we rarely saw the owners. None of us had formal contracts, which was against the law, so there was also no formal process for handing in notice, or even a legal requirement to do so as there was no contract stating the terms and conditions! However he gave them the normal 7 days notice (as we were paid weekly that was the "law" in the absence of a formal condition, which, as it was a Thursday night (well they would get it Friday morning), meant he would finish the following Thursday at the end of the shift.
We heard nothing more, however the following Thursday, Jimmy, one of the managers, was in the bakery when we arrived, so Mark asked him when he would get his final pay (plus any accrued holiday pay - but as we had no contracts we didn't know how much we were entitled to!), and Jimmy said that he had to work Friday as well to complete his week. Mark argued that as he had handed his notice in BEFORE the Friday shift this wasn't the case, and he was finishing that night.
Jimmy started screaming and shouting (as was his wont - he was a bully) and saying that as he didn't get the note till a short while ago (hadn't noticed it pinned to the outside of the locked office door!) it only "started" when he got it. Mark again reiterated that this was not his fault, and that he had complied with the law, but Jimmy again said he had to work another shift to complete the notice period. Calm as a cucumber Mark said "Well, I am finishing tonight, and if you don't like it .... you can fire me!"
Jimmy totally lost it at this stage - he grabbed a large nylon rolling pin and started thumping the stainless steel workbench with it, putting a huge dent in it! The rest of us were trying hard not to laugh out loud at this performance, which was hilarious. Mark just stood there calmly until Jimmy stopped beating the bench, and then asked "Do I finish my shift and get paid for the week, or am I sacked?" Jimmy simply walked out, and we all got back to work.
This wasn't the only occasion that Jimmy lost the plot!

The death of a bakery

This is a continuation to my post about starting a bakery from scratch, establishing it as one of, if not the best in the area, and the eventual sale upon my parent's retirement.

We had tried to explain during the selling process that the only way the business (grocery store and bakery) would make any money was if the most highly skilled (and therefore expensive!) jobs were done by family members, something that was going to be tricky as they had two young pre-school daughters and a baby son, requiring much of his wife's time and attention. He showed no interest in becoming the main baker, and immediately advertised for a "Bakery Manager", as well as promoting one of our former staff members (a 17 year old girl) to shop supervisor! Despite our warnings that this was folly as she had insufficient experience, and that hiring a "manager" for the bakery would be too expensive and take up too much of the profits he went ahead with this. Initially, though, production was handled by me, him and my nephew, who was doing a baking course at the local college and had started with us just before we sold.
Not long into this "transition" we had some extremely bad snowfalls, and one morning I was unable to get in to work, getting stuck along the way and only just managing to extricate my car and return home - I tried an alternative route but powerlines were down across the road and they were not allowing traffic through. As a result I called in and advised that due to the problems many people would not be able to get to the supermarkets so he should have a bumper day, and as my nephew was staying with him at the time the two of them should be able to manage - but should only make bread rolls and white loaves, to keep things simple and maximise output. Then I went back to bed. An hour later the phone rings - asking what they should be doing at this time, as they had just started the Harvestgrain dough! I asked why they were doing that as I had said to stick to loaves and rolls, and he replied that they were following the normal production run. I again said they should ignore that and concentrate on white loaves and rolls (rolls were extremely high profit margin and easy to make!), and returned to bed. 30 minutes later the phone rang again - they had now started on Wholewheat bread ..... in the end they followed our usual Monday schedule and ran out of bread by 10.00am! That afternoon I managed to drive in, spent the night on his sofa and we cracked on in the morning, producing a crazy amount of bread which all sold! The next day we had to drive to the mill to collect more flour as they were unable to deliver - fortunately he had a Range Rover by then, and managed to keep going till the snow cleared.
He also decided that he needed to do some extensive remodelling work on the residential part of the property, so the area also became a building site soon after he took ownership.
Part of my transition duties was also to help with shop stocking - so on Saturday afternoon I would return to "help" him do a walkround and decide what we needed to collect from Cash & Carry on Monday morning. However this soon became me alone doing the ordering as he had other things to do - though I never discovered what these were. It was a fairly simple task, something my family had managed to get down to a fine art - basically my sister and our other shop assistant would fill the shelves first and then make a list of items we were short of. We had a cellar where we stored surplus stock (it was also cool enough to keep some perishables fresh), so this was checked too as our shop shelves were fairly small so couldn't hold a lot of stock. Now, though it was supposed to be the new owner (with my help) going round to look for shortages.
On Monday morning when we finished baking for the day, usually around 9.00 am we headed out to Cash & Carry armed with our lists, which ran to several pages, and had details like 2 cases Heinz Beans size A4. Peter used to start with the cigarette and alcohol lists, and the perishables (butter, margarine, etc) while I started on the grocery lines. As we filled a trolley we would push it to the front of the warehouse and line it up with others - so I would look out for the other ones with our goods on them (generally we needed 4 or 5 trolleys in total each week). Because Peter never helped with the ordering process he was unfamiliar with the package sizes, so I used to go through his trolley removing all the "wrong" items - like A10 size, which is the size restaurants or businesses would use and would never be sold in a village grocery shop - or even the wrong products, like Curried Beans instead of Baked Beans. I would simply remove the offending item and place it by the trolley, and Peter would then go and exchange them when he returned to the trolley! It was a painfully time-consuming process, caused simply because he still didn't know what was on sale in the shop, something that would have been corrected easily had he bothered to help with the ordering process!
The bakery was now running fairly smoothly with the new "manager" in place, though I had concerns that the quality was not as good, and corners were being cut in inferior quality ingredients, but I suppose he felt he had to make savings somewhere! As the end of the 6 month transition approached it was agreed that I cut back my involvement in the "running" of things, in anticipation of when they would have to "go it alone" and even helped with some exterior decoration of the shop, until I finally finished and left them to it.
I started work at a local engineering firm, part of an international trailer manufacturing business, so had little contact with Peter or the bakery after that. That is until around 2 years later when he called me and invited me round "for a chat"! The "chat" was to offer me a job as bakery manager! He had been through several people since I left and, he said, they all robbed him blind and destroyed his business and reputation - the last one being a married man of 40 who was having an affair with a 16-year old who lived round the corner, and whose parents, apparently, approved of the relationship! His wife had a cake business a few miles away and he was stealing materials from the bakery to subsidise her business as well!
I initially told him I wasn't really interested as I was establishing myself in the machine shop of the engineering works, but then he started offering me silly money to work for him - ending up at 50% more than I was earning at the time, and as my daughter had recently arrived I must admit we needed the money! I was concerned whether the business could afford a single salary that high (OK, I know that this was his problem, not mine, but my intimate knowledge of the business still made me a little sceptical), but he told me he knew that I would help him turn things back round, and felt he had no option, other than close the business! So, I agreed to go back.
I had looked around the bakery which he had extended, and knew he was now wholesaling, something we had avoided for two reasons - one was capacity, and the other was a reluctance to give discount, and thus our profits, to someone else! He now had the capacity, though, but as his profit margins were much lower as all the bakery staff were employees and not family (profit sharers!) he was constantly chasing more customers to bring in more revenue. I tried explaining that offering 30% discount was not viable, but he kept saying that "turnover is key". At one stage he asked me about increasing our bread roll size - for one customer only - as they said ours were too small, but maintaining the same price. He went on that if this customer bought rolls from us it would increase their weekly purchases and gain them a 5% additional discount. Fortunately this never materialised - and he couldn't see that making a larger roll for one customer, but selling at the same price, and then giving them an extra 5% discount was hardly good business sense.
He still had the same mixers as before, but had extra ovens - and a daytime baker who produced confectionery and savoury lines. Because of the volume required we used to have to start at 10.00pm  (till around 6.00am) the first three days of the week, increasing to a 10-11 hour shift Friday night (no Sunday trading back then) - and he would go in about an hour before we did and turn the ovens on, and then bake off all the savoury lines, while we would bake off the confectionery lines in the morning while our last bread was baking. Occasionally we would arrive to a smell of burning as some sausage rolls had fallen off the back of a tray (I always placed the trays with the opening - three sided trays - to the front myself), and one day the smell was even worse - the confectioner had left 6 trays of meringues "cooking" in cooling ovens, but not left a note, so Peter came in switched the ovens on, baked off the savouries in one bank of ovens, blissfully unaware of the meringues blackening in the other oven bank!
The night I started I arrived to find it was just me and him working - he had dismissed all the other bakers prior to my arrival, so expected me to pick things up and cope with him alone. I had hoped to find out what system was being used to complete all the orders from the assistant baker, and now had to work everything out from scratch - as, of course, he hadn't a clue how they had done things!
It was a nightmare working with him! Every time we finished processing a batch of bread and there was a few minutes gap, he would disappear, and I had to go look for him every time so we could start the next batch - I had no idea what he was doing, but he said he had paperwork to attend to. This obviously was not going to work - I needed an assistant who had some idea what he was doing, and who would be there helping all the time. The confectioner on days had his wife helping him, and also another young woman part-time (I have no idea why he felt he needed three making confectionery and savouries, but only 2 bakers on nights doing everything else!!!), whose boyfriend had done some bakery work, so we took him on, and Peter stood down. He didn't know that much, but was a willing worker and we worked well together.
We also had an elderly guy who came in early in the morning to pack orders and then deliver them in a small minivan belonging to the business - there were two routes, one was rural which was done very early, and then a later one into Norwich, and on the early route the delivery man had to search around for bread baskets as well! We had around 50 of our own, with Logos, which should have been sufficient, but there never seemed to be enough to go round! Many small bakeries didn't have their own so used to "steal" from everywhere else, with Sunblest (the big factory bakers) being the main target, though they would take any that were available. So drivers used to go round to shopping precincts, back of supermarket, etc. collecting whatever was available! Sunblest regularly had amnesties, but would also send representatives around to small bakeries to look for "stolen" baskets and threaten legal action! Later on Peter used to go out every evening looking for baskets for us, returning with a variety of different firm's property as well as some of our own!
This assistant baker, however, didn't last very long - he found a daytime job back in his own profession (which I was think was bricklaying), but before he left he introduced us to another young man keen for a job, and interested in baking. Jim was another willing learner, and picked things up fast, and again we developed a good working relationship. The work was hard and very hot as we worked all the time just feet away from hot ovens - I used to lose 7 pounds in weight on a Friday night, but put it back on during the week, so it was probably mainly liquid loss!!
For a while all went smoothly, but then our delivery driver decided he wanted to cut his hours, so the early delivery became our responsibility! It was only around 30 minutes there and back - once the orders were packed - so Jim used to do that while I carried on alone with an easy dough. Then Jim decided he didn't want to work 6 nights a week - he was a young party animal! - so Peter managed to find someone to work Friday with me, Jack! Jack had a little prior bakery experience, but was a mechanic by trade - and used to run stock cars - and liked a beer or two! As the work was so hot Peter allowed us "free" drinks from the grocery shop - mine was water (from the tap!!) as I was replenishing lost fluids,  but Jack drank beer, and by the end of shift on Friday night was decidedly worse for wear! He used to then go out and do the local rural delivery in this state!
Around this time I spoke to Peter about taking a holiday, but instead he offered to pay me "cash in hand" to keep working as he didn't know how things would go if I wasn't there, but eventually a few weeks later I had to take a few days off to replace a rotten back door - so Jim and Jack worked together with Peter helping. When I got back Peter said he was so relieved as the other two didn't have much clue how to plan production - despite us working to a pretty standard timetable every day!
When I got back Jack was proving unreliable - he would arrive late, or not show up. On one occasion he called in to say he couldn't get a babysitter so had to stay home, yet Peter, on his basket run, had seen Jack's car outside his local pub - so he went back and called Jack from inside the pub, and just asked him to turn round, then told him he had 10 minutes to get to work!
By now I was working around 60 hours a week, though I must admit that Peter did keep giving me pay rises, which I still felt he couldn't afford! Peter kept telling me he had big plans for the business and would get me out of the bakery and earning some serious money with him, but nothing ever materialised. The hours I was working, overnight, meant I arrived home around 6.00 am every day (6 days a week) and then went to bed, was taking a toll on my marriage, and I was hardly getting to see my daughter - my (now ex-) wife was having to take her out of the house most days so I could have quiet to sleep! Even Saturdays were affected (no work till Sunday evening) as I was too tired to do anything, and then couldn't sleep Saturday night!
I had to speak to Peter about this - I had worked for him for almost 2 years and only had one week's holiday (to repair my back door!) and my marriage was suffering - so I told him I could not go on like this. He again offered me more money to stay, eventually double what I was earning, though I knew there was no way the business could afford that - but he simply said "I cannot afford not to pay you that much! I need you.", but I told him it was about much more than money at this stage. I gave him 4 week's notice on the spot, and he started crying and telling me I had just cost him the business, and what would he tell his wife and the children! I told him how unfair that was to try and put that all on me - his contribution to the "business" at that time was baking off the savouries, looking for bread baskets, and delivering newspapers (as he "couldn't find a paper boy"!). He was going to Cash & Carry every day, rather than once a week as we used to, as he didn't want too much money tied up in stock, but this meant almost empty shelves - and his pricing policy was to put 20% mark-up on everything that came through the door, so prices varied week-to-week, instead of only going up when there was a national price change. Grocery sales were plummeting as a result, but he could not see where the problem lay!
I drove past late one evening a few months later and saw a solitary worker in the bakery so stopped and went in. It was a young (17 year-old) lad who lived across the road, and who I had known for years - he was working on his own in the bakery, but had no bakery background and admitted he didn't really know what he was doing just working from my old recipes, and the bread quality was appalling (I found out later from Peter that this lad was spending hours on the shop phone calling up "chat lines" and running up enormous call charges!). Within a year he called me up to tell me he was closing the business, but wondered if I might be interested in buying the bakery side of it! He managed to get out before going bankrupt, unlike so many other small businesses. So in little over 5 years he had managed to turn our formerly very successful village bakery/grocery store into a closed business!

Opening a bakery

I have spent around 13 years of my life working in the Bakery trade - in fact I started out in baking by creating, from scratch, a family bakery alongside our grocery shop. We had no background in baking but this didn't daunt us, and after 2 nights "training" in a local bakery (far enough away from us so that we didn't pose a competitive threat!) I started to "build" the bakery.

Globe Stores and Horstead Bakery, 1982

We were planning to buy our flour from a local mill, but when I placed my first order their chemist, who was also a test baker, came to see me to ask why I had ordered a particular grade of flour - not their best! I explained where I had been trained, and, though they were big customers of the mill, he told me he wouldn't cross the road for their bread - lent me a commercial bakery book, and advised me which recipes and which grade of flour to use.
Initially I tried to get local workmen to convert our premises, which had been a hairdresser's, into a bakery, but after getting a ridiculously high quote from one, and the second turning the job down (laying a floor, constructing a couple of workbenches and installing two sinks) as it "was too big for me", I decided to have a go myself! I decided to get the floor laid professionally, and asked the electricity board to lay on the 3-phase supply we needed - though they asked that we make the access hole through the wall for them, which I did, although I discovered that the wall was brick and flint (traditional Norfolk construction) so it took me ages and bruised knuckles to hammer my way through!
The sinks and workbenches I built myself, though I had no prior woodworking experience, apart from a term at school some 10 years previously! We added an electric water heater, which the electricity company installed for free as part of the 3-phase installation - in fact their work cost us nothing at all!

Twin sinks with water heater over - cooling rack to the rear

While this was going on I was also looking into what equipment we would need - and as this was before the days of internet and cellphones this consisted of using a baking industry magazine and looking through the adverts and calling companies asking for catalogues and so on! We heard about a local (50 miles away) bakery who also bought up old equipment, so arranged to go there, and bought some of our baking tins, a small mixer, a "pie" machine (with a heated die for things like mince pies), and some other sundries. Our mixer we bought secondhand from an advertiser and they delivered and installed it - buying new was way beyond our budget - but we did opt for a new electric deck oven and proving cabinet, and later on, when we were producing 90 dozen bread rolls by hand, also bought a roll moulder!
At this stage we had no idea how much bread we needed to produce, just that we had to cover the lost revenue from cancelling our order of factory produced bread, which was not that much in a village store. Similarly we didn't have much clue what our capacity was - I mean we knew how much bread the oven would take, but didn't really know how much we physically could produce!

All our bread was sold through the grocery shop - here is my sister wrapping a large white loaf

The premises we owned was a former semi-detached house, and we lived at the rear, with the two shop fronts, which had been extended some way outwards, being the old front of the house. We knew we would need some form of extraction over the ovens, and realised that the old fireplace had been bricked over, so once the ovens were installed (so I knew the exact location and dimensions) I knocked through into the old chimney and found a company who fabricated a stainless canopy, to my specifications including a condensation drip catcher, which we hung over the oven and connected to the chimney!
Interestingly the biggest "problem" we encountered was the oven installation. The company had warned us it was very heavy and suggested we buy four metal plates to go under the casters to spread the weight, especially as we had a wooden floor! These needed to be 12" square, and 1/4" thick (30cm x 30cm x 6mm), so we had them made and they were sitting next to the oven location before delivery. Unfortunately the electricity company, who were supposed to be there on the day to assist with the connection to the supply couldn't make it - or rather the oven arrived late in the day and we could not get the electrician to come at such short notice, so he could only come the following day. This meant that the installers couldn't connect the oven up, but also after they left we noticed they had moved the metal plates aside and NOT installed the oven on top of them! So for the next hour and a half my parents and I huffed and puffed, and levered and cursed, and finally managed to get the four plates under the casters.
The following day the electrician arrived and started by calling the oven company to ask about the wiring - again as this was before mobile phones it was quite a tricky process, as they explained to him where everything went, he rushed through to have a look at the wiring layout, and then went back to the phone for more clarification! Eventually he started connecting the 3-phase thick cabling to the oven and switched the main switch on ... and it tripped out! He switched it on again and again it tripped out! He checked his connections and tried again, and each time it tripped out! He called the oven company back and they again explained where everything went (the installers should have left a wiring diagram!), and after much to-ing and fro-ing the electrician realised that the oven was wired back to front! Live and earth had been transposed! A quick change over and we had a functioning oven! We had been told we had to "burn in" the oven before use, but had not been warned how bad it would smell, and how that would linger for days!

Tom Chandley 3-deck oven, with old, but reliable 100 quart mixer behind

Once the smell has dispersed and everything was in place we did a few test runs, starting with simple bread rolls, which we gave away as samples in the grocery shop - and they received amazing feedback from everyone! We had intended to create a sales area at the front of the bakery, but soon realised this was impractical, so used the large window as a display area where customers could see our bread all laid out cooling on the cooling rack I had constructed, but all the bread was carried through to the shop for sale.

Test baking rolls, oven canopy visible

While the construction work was in progress we had a visit from Norfolk's Food Safety inspector - we had to register as a food producer and this triggered a visit. It was early days so was a good opportunity to find out what was required as well as whether our plans would comply. The inspector was a young man, who later became the County's chief officer, and was very helpful. He made some suggestions which we willingly complied with, but also listened to our explanations why we were doing things a particular way. For example we were using wooden slats on our cooling racks, and he suggested we might want to varnish them as it offered better hygiene protection - I asked him how the varnish might react to hot bread coming out of an oven at 300 degrees being placed on it, and he agreed immediately that this was impractical, and as long as we maintained the wooden slats clean he would have no issue with this. We had also glued a formica laminate to our main 3 metre workbench, but had constructed a wooden one metre square "top" to work the dough on. He wasn't very happy with this - stainless steel was becoming the norm in food establishments, though formica was acceptable (but was subject to scratches which could harbour germs if not treated carefully - though he agreed that in a family business it was unlikely to receive rough treatment!), but wood was considered a "dangerous" surface. This was something I had talked over with my "trainers" and the chemist from the mill, so explained that stainless steel and formica were "cold" surfaces, while wood was neutral, and as temperature was crucial in the bread-making process, and the texture of wood assisted the manipulation of dough, it was the best surface for optimal bread production. We showed him our cleaning regimen on the wood surface, and he again acquiesced and accepted our procedure - he noted this in our file and over the years we never had any problems with inspections.
Everything was now in place and we just had to set a date to start production. We had worked out how much bread we had to produce to replace the factory bread sales, but were unprepared for how successful it was! The first week we sold 4 times our "usual" bread sales, and it kept growing from there! My Dad never quite grasped the concept of moulding dough, so he was our chief "mixer" and "cutter" - weighing the pieces for Mum and me to process. We approached the whole process with military precision - not having any family background in this it was all very new and we soon realised we had to put a system in place - so we sat down and worked out all our timings. How long the mixing process took, then how long that dough had to ferment (different breads had different bulk fermentation times), how long it took to process, how long to prove, then how long to bake. As the main bench was not only where we moulded the dough, but also where we emptied the oven, we had to make sure there were no clashes - that the bench was clear when a batch came out of the oven - so we had a timetable for when everything happened. There were very few gaps in this - we worked like a well-oiled machine - load oven then process the next dough, at the same time get the mixer on with the next product. Finish processing the dough on the table, empty the oven, and give it a few minutes to recover (might also entail changing the temperature setting) before loading the next batch, and then start processing the next batch. We had "training clocks" on each deck of the oven showing the time the bread was ready, and pieces of paper on top of every fermentation bin showing "knock back" time, and when that dough was ready for the next step! 
Monday through Thursday the timing didn't change, but Friday was busier so we had a couple of extra batches at the end - and Saturday ... well, Saturday was crazy, we started 3 hours earlier and finished an hour later to fulfill all our orders. Christmas we struggled to meet demand, so baked strictly to order - no walk-in sales - and had to close off the order list when capacity was met, and eventually had to do the same for the 23rd December - we were baking solidly, without a decent break for 11 hours in the bakery, and then putting in some more hours later (after a nap!) in the shop! It was hard, hot, work, but incredibly rewarding, not so much financially, but just satisfying to be producing such a good product that people really appreciated, and working together as a family!
When we started I was the one who got up first - at 4.00am most mornings getting the mixes going and the dough into the fermentation bins - with Mum and Dad joining me some 2 hours later when the table work started, but later on we started producing some confectionery lines (like almond slices, macaroons, fruit pies, etc.) and I would work on those while Dad was preparing the doughs - this meant that I was baking off cake lines while the ovens were not needed for bread (and using lower temperatures) so we were using our time (and our cheap rate overnight electricity tariff!) more efficiently. The great thing with all our confectionery lines was that they could sit and wait for oven availability as were not subject to over-fermentation! 
Everything we produced met with universal praise - something I put down to the fact that we worked with such precision - all the recipes were carefully calculated and strictly followed, and everything was planned and executed, no corners being cut, and no cheap ingredients. We even bought the highest grade flour the mill produced, using Canadian high protein wheat, and eventually became their "test bakery" as they knew we followed recipes and instructions. Their chemist/test baker would produce a new flour and test it under laboratory conditions, but when they wanted a "field trial" would come to us - the newest bakers in the area! Their sales Rep used to visit once a month - to collect the cheque mainly (some bakeries were slow posting cheques so his visits used to stimulate them into action, but with us it was a formality as the cheque was either waiting, or, if his visit was late, had already been posted!) - and he always commented that ours was the best bread he saw each month, even though other bakers were using the same flour, and sometimes the same recipes. He would always buy a Wholemeal loaf, and tell us that even their chemist, John, could not get the quality we got!
When we first started we (Mum and I) used to make the rolls by hand - Dad would cut 4oz (roughly 100g) pieces of dough, and we would split them in two and round them up. One "batch" was 360 rolls (6 trays of 60, which was the oven capacity), so on a Saturday we had to make 3 of these, spread among the other bread types - 1080 rolls rounded by hand between us! This soon became far too time-consuming and tiring, so we invested in an automatic roll divider/moulder, which made our lives a lot easier (and could also be used for Hot Cross Buns at Easter!).

Roll divider/moulder alongside proving cabinet, with slatted cooling rack in foreground

As we got better at things we managed without Mum three days a week, with just Dad and I managing to cope easily, freeing Mum for the grocery shop and more free time, but she was back with us for the busier days from Thursday onwards (Thursday we used the same schedule as the first three days, but the batches were much bigger so we needed the extra help).
John, the mill chemist, also showed me how to make fancy bread like wheatsheaves and "loaves and fishes", so we used to produce these at Harvest Festival time for our local churches, and for display in our window.

Loaves and fishes

Wheatsheaf

Unfortunately all good things come to an end, and when Mum and Dad decided to retire we realised it was financially impossible for my sister and I to continue the business - we needed to replace two workers, and would probably have had to employ three or four to cover the hours Mum and Dad worked, and as my parents also needed to withdraw capital to buy a house to retire to, it was decided to sell the business as a successful going concern. As part of the deal I agreed to stay on for 6 months to help with the transition, and to train the new owner in all the procedures, and my Dad (who was an accountant by profession) offered to continue to do the accounts for free, though this was turned down.

***To be continued***