Blog #21: Independant Component 2

Literal

(A) I, JD Pabon, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(B) My Sources were my mentor, Ashley McNeal, head cake decorator at the Cake Mama's.

(C) Daily Duties at the Cake Mama's.

(D) At the start, I learned the importance of getting ready way ahead of time for big events. I also learned how to take orders in a way where I can make connections easier with clients. During this time, I learned new business/ consultation techniques, like not to say words like, "No" or "can't".


Interperative

        This was a very fruitful independent component actually. I already knew how to talk to customers, but throughout the component, I learned that talking to customers about cake orders is a completely different ball game. When I first started taking real cake orders, I usually would jump straight to the point, but when Janelle, the owner, confronted me about what I was doing, she told me that I should not jump straight to the point, but talk to them about what they like and what they are looking for so I can get a better idea of what the design should look like.
         Also, I had learned a lot more about the process of doing orders, and singling out things that can be done immediately from the things that take more time to do, like sculptures. Usually I had seen the cake decorators do one order at a time, tackling things at once, but now that I really focused on it, I saw that they took apart the order piece by piece, and did in time increments.

These are the cake push-ups we had prepared for an event at Nordstrom, in Brea Mall. This became a great opportunity to advertise about the bakery and tell people what we are capable of. I had to do 200... by myself. It was TWO DAYS of non stop cake push-ups. I hope I don't have to make those again for a long time.

     

These were some of the random colored fondant discs I made. I had to create about one tray of each color. I think I at least went through 5 full trays, leaving almost none for the rest of the bakery. I felt bad because I constantly thought, "What if they need these? Well, at least I know I used them for a good purpose!"

These are dog biscuits. I was kind of freaked out because I had never thought I would see the day when the bakery would do dog treats. They were really greasy and tough, but I guess the dogs will like them right?

This is going to become a mickey mouse hat for a Disney cake that we were preparing for . The rise krispes were really gooey and difficult to work with but I eventually got it into the right shape.

Applied

         This was a very useful component, for the most part. It definitely helped me with my third answer "Customer Relations". The fact that I got to work with customers all the time and improve my speaking skills was a big plus because I actually got to see my research and studies on customer service into action. Also, I saw things, like breaking apart the orders into sections, in greater detail because I never really paid any attention to it. Now I got to see that organization and communication between everyone in the bakery is crucial for the the business to run smoothly. Helping prepare for the events was also something new that I wish to research. I hope to find things about advertising and reaching target audiences with those events.