As my sister and I drove up to Baltimore from DC, I was pretty quiet, I think. I was pondering possible questions, and how I'd respond. Thinking of which cakes to point out to best highlight skills of mine I thought might help me get hired. Mentally calculating my finances, and trying to piece together how I might pull off a cross-country move, while at the same time trying NOT to think about that, lest I jinx myself.
Also, I was steadily working my way through 2 travel packs of tissues, and my voice was all but gone from the illness that continued to plague me and wreak havoc on my body. We got there early, thank goodness--early enough to track down the nearest Starbucks so I could procure a venti peppermint tea with honey, in the hopes it would let my voice sound halfway normal, rather than the scratchy, raspy thing it had become at the time.
My sister dropped me at the interview, then went to entertain herself for an hour--the place was small enough that her hanging out in the lobby would have been extremely conspicuous and odd. I met with two people: the decorator supervisor and the office manager (not their official titles--just the best descriptions of what they do, as I've been able to suss out). We talked cakes, we talked frostings. We looked at my photos, and we talked about what techniques I was familiar with, my speed, my job duties at my Santa Fe job, and how this job would differ.
At my job in Santa Fe, I was IT when it came to weddings. If someone so much as mentioned the word wedding, they got bounced to me, no other questions asked. I handled the inquires, baked the cakes and made the frostings for them (after too many bad batches from the people who were supposed to do that, I took it on myself to ensure they'd be right), built them, decorated them, and delivered them. At this job, I'd be doing nothing but building and decorating--no face-time with the client (they had consultants), no deliveries (they had drivers). And where my busiest weekend at my Santa Fe job had been 4 wedding cakes (couple with the other duties they had started piling on me), this place regularly did upwards of 30 weekly, and sometimes as many as 60. In one week, with 3-5 decorators.
Woah.
I put on my best interview face--joked/apologized about being a little sick, answered all their questions, showed off my work, expressed how much I wanted a challenge and wanted to learn (and how that was never going to happen at the Santa Fe bakery). We'd been talking awhile (and I was feeling it), and I felt the interview was winding down. But then they asked if I could build a cake for them.
I shouldn't have been surprised. For cake decorating, it would be all too easy for someone to slap together a book of photos pulled from the internet, claim it as their work, and try to get a job with it. Bench tests (or "bench trials" or "working interviews") are common--you have to prove your skills, your familiarity with kitchen standards, and it's also a chance for your potential employers to see how your work style might fit in.
But I was startled, a bit. The woman who had scheduled my interview hadn't mentioned the possibility (she'd forgotten), and I had forgotten to ask. I was in completely inappropriate clothes for it--slacks and a button down shirt and (if I remember right) my fake Ugg boots (while my sister and I share clothing sizes, we do not share shoe sizes, and those had been the only black shoes I had with me). Usually, if I know I'm in for a working interview, I'll dress in "work" clothes: jeans, non-slip shoes, and a chef's coat. I'll bring an apron, and a kerchief for my hair, and sometimes my favorite tools (better to have what I need, than not). But I pulled my hair back, tied on a borrowed apron, and built the little 6-inch cake according to the directions they gave me (and was relieved--I had a moment of terror when I thought they'd want me to construct a tiered cake--I could have done it, of course, but my energy at the time was so low, it would have been rough).
I worked as quickly and cleanly as I could while still maintaining an eye for the finished project and let them know when I was done. The frosting was new to me--full of air bubbles due to the chilly temperature, it wouldn't smooth out, and I obsessed about it (even though they assured me that was normal). They told me they'd get in touch, and left me to get back to work while my sister and I waited for a decorator to finish making a 6" version of her wedding cake flavor they'd very, very nicely agreed to do on the fly. She quizzed me on how it had gone and I, not wanting to rehash it right there in the lobby, quietly told her I thought it had gone very well, indeed.
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