The Baker's Assistant

When I was a junior in high school, a fresh, young, semi-lazy 16-year-old, my parents decided it was time for me to get a part-time job.

Naturally, I was against the idea. School was keeping me excessively busy. But my parents insisted. It was time I learned a work ethic, they claimed. I didn't have to work a ton of hours, but it might do me some good.

I was stuck. So I consented, not sure what kind of work I'd want to do. It was my mom who suggested The Market at Styer Orchards, a farm market that sat about five minutes from my house. Styer's held fond memories for me--it was where my family and I would pick pumpkins and apples in the fall, get ice cream in the summer, and look for Christmas trees in the winter.

I guess I could work there, I thought. One informal interview later, I had a job. In the bakery. At $5.15 an hour. I thought I was so cool.

My dress code consisted of a black T-shirt underneath a smudged and filthy maroon apron and a truly horrific attractive matching visor. No matter how short my black hair was, they always insisted that I use a million bobby pins to keep it up and above the visor's back rim.

Nevermind that the owner's daughter was allowed to keep her honey blonde, waist-length hair curled softly on her shoulders, maroon visor be damned.

I should have taken this as a sign of things to come.

But regardless of how I may have ended up positively loathing this job, I got to do some pretty awesome stuff along the way. I grew really close to one baker, who let me help ice cakes, fill canolis, and make the famous pies. I probably gained 15 pounds during the year I worked behind the bakery counter. Each employee was entitled to one free apple cider donut (made fresh daily!) a shift, and since outside lunch wasn't allowed on breaks, delicious sandwiches from the deli were an almost-daily indulgence.

Plus, those sugar cookies were so small anyway. Who counted how many times their hand drifted into the case?

I loved scooping ice cream in the summer heat, but hated that no matter how hard the AC was blasting everywhere else in the store, the bakery always stayed roasty-toasty warm, thanks to the massive industrial ovens. I always volunteered to get supplies from the freezer and hang out in the sub-zero temperatures for a few minutes.

While I hated closing the bakery alone, scraping helplessly away at metal bowls the size of my head with day-old hardened plaster cake batter all around the inside, there was something sweet about the atmosphere (no pun intended). The holiday season saw more customers for Styer's famous pies than I'd ever seen in one area.

(That was before I worked Black Friday at the mall.)

I loved being in charge of all the baked goods, helping customers find the perfect dessert for that night, and assisting the bakers in the back with whipping up innumerable goodies. I eventually quit when a better-paying job came along, but there was always a soft spot in my heart for that bakery.

You wouldn't be able to pay me $5.15 an hour to go back, but I do occasionally pop in and say hello to the pies.