CAN I HELP YOU?!
In a noisy and crowded grocery store, at a bakery counter with a humming proofer, groaning oven, and grating freezer fan, with an industrial mixer in the background and every other department with a similar noise level, there is no good way to guarantee a customer's attention. And not guaranteeing a customer's attention means write-ups, especially for secret shoppers.
The solution is simple. It is a lung-busting, ear-drum-destroying, Shakespeare's Globe Theater screech of "CAN I HELP YOU?!?!?!?!"
It does not get attention. But it does cause every single customer to jump in fright, and then breathlessly assure anyone else besides the screamer "I'm just looking."
Twenty seconds later, after their heart rate has dropped, the customer will then scream at a similar volume "EXCUSE ME!"
This preceeds basically every single interaction of any kind. Including, but not limited to, other interactions in this article.
Blue
A roughly middle-aged man walks up to the bakery counter, looking mysteriously cheerful, and being followed by a silent, anxious teen.
"Hi!" he grins. "I'm here for a birthday cake for my wife!"
This happens every single day. The man is standing directly in front of a large display of birthday cakes. This is pointed out.
"Okay!"
He looks at the cakes. He walks twenty feet down the display case, to a selection of cheesecakes.
"Is this a pumpkin pie?"
That is a cheesecake. Also, it's June. Pumpkin pies hit shelves in October.
"What's a cheesecake????"
It's... kind of like a cream cheese pie???
"Great! Can you write 'Happy Birthday Debbie' on it?"
Technically, yes. It will look stupid, because the cheesecake is already sliced, but it is physically possible. What color should it be written in?
"Uh... uh... uh... uh... that one!!!"
(it was blue).
Pie
An old fella walks up to the bakery counter with the thickest accent, and requests "Mayrie's Keeyn Cayke."
Clues:
- It has a graham cracker crust, like a pie.
- But it's in a tall box, like a cake.
- It says "Mayrie" on it. (anything in the bakery can say "Mayrie" on it, with or without "happy birthday").
Things it is not:
- A King Cake, which are miraculously in stock, as it is Mardi Gras season.
- A key lime pie of any size stocked in the bakery.
- a birthday cake, with or without "Mayrie" written on it.
Seventeen aisles across the store, the correct item is finally found. It is a Marie Calendar's Key Lime Pie. The bakery does not stock this item; freezer does.
Shrimp
It is barely opening time. At the bakery counter waits a front-end bagging associate, demanding only a single, incomprehensible word. It takes seven repeats and three audio-processing challenged bakery associates to find out what the word is.
It is "shrimp".
There is a large sign marked "shrimp" twenty yards away, clearly visible, in the meat department.
The day does not improve.
This Happens Often
"Yall got any rotisserie chickens ready?"
Should probably ask the people with the rotisserie. This is the bakery.
Scary Terri
It is April. A majestic middle-aged goth woman strolls in, looks around, and sighs.
"So many flowers. I was hoping for something a little more... Halloween."
What flavor were you thinking? Chocolate?
A chocolate cake is grabbed. In one swoop of an intimidating bread knife, the pink roses are gone, leaving a gaping slash of chocolate sponge. Two more are added for effect, as if raked by claws. A jar of strawberry jam appears from beneath the counter, dripping red into the exposed cake and down the side. It's a stab wound cake!
The customer is thrilled. She returns often for increasingly chaotic cakes. Much of my portfolio comes from this wonderful person.
Happy Birthday Boo-Boo 5
Multiple times a day, every single day, people would politely request wording added to a ready-to-sell cake. This was a normal service. The normal questions with it were:
- How do you spell that name?
- What color?
- Is that the full message?
Inevitably, after writing "happy birthday boo-boo" or whatever variant du jour, sometimes there would be a final comment.
"Also can you put their age? Turnin' five."
The grammatically correct way would, of course, be to write "happy 5th birthday boo-boo". But frosting does not erase. So it will inevitably end up looking right stupid, with a big fat 5 floating around elsewhere, often presented as "happy birthday boo-boo 5!"
This never seems to bother customers, but it is a running pet peeve.
Will this be good on Sunday?
A woman is standing with a bakery associate and ordering a cake. It is not a difficult cake, but it is a special order, with choices of cake and frosting and design and topper. This is not her story. This is the story of the woman behind the first customer, who is waiting patiently with a tray of fudge.
It takes a while to wrap up the cake order. There are other bakery workers buzzing around, but none the second customer sees fit to interact with. It is assumed she would like to order a cake to go with her fudge.
Finally, the cake order is done. The first customer walks away, and the bakery associate shuffles the order form, preparing for another in-depth cake order. But this patient customer, now nearly out of patience, has only one question; about her clutched tray of fudge.
"Will this still be good on Sunday?"
The date sticker on the top has a sell by date six months away. This is pointed out.
"But will it still be good on this Sunday?!"
Yeah. Yes, it will. Have a nice day.
"No."
A customer walks up, managing to avoid the "CAN I HELP YOU?!" alarm - it is during the busy season.
"Can you help me?" she asks pitifully - in the same pitch and rhythm as the bakery assistant manager.
No.
Wait... That isn't Ashley. That's a customer. It takes some convincing, ending in "please, let me help you. What would you like?"
"I don't know!!!"
Then I can't help you. Come back when you know.
Mugshot
Want to know why every single name that gets written on a cake comes with the question "and how do you spell that?"
Once, a customer walked up with the announcement, "now, this is a stupid nickname, but write it anyway. Happy Birthday Mugshot."
Happy Birthday Mugshot was indeed presented.
The name was Buckshot.
Check the spelling.
Gluten Free?
"Can you make that gluten free?"
- The cakes are not made here. They come in frozen.
- If the cakes were made here, there would be a massive amount of flour contamination.
- No :)
Buttercream Allergy
There are two main types of grocery store frosting; buttercream, and whipped.
"Now, make sure that cake is whipped frosting. I'm allergic to buttercream."
Oops! I can't knowingly sell an allergen. Sorry! They have the same ingredients and allergy labels, just in different amounts. No cake at all!
"What? It's not a bad allergy. Just makes my teeth hurt."
That's the sugar. Because it's bad for you. Also, no one is going to mess up your icing choice. We can read.
Optional follow up scene: "That buttercream cake you gave me had whipped icing on it!!! It melted right off in the sun! I want a refund!"
All icing melts in the sun.
Cream Cheese
So, there are actually three types of frosting. The most common types for birthday cakes are buttercream and whipped. Cream cheese frosting is used on some specialty cakes, and is not used on birthday cakes unless they are special ordered specifically. That happens for a reason.
- The buttercream is made fresh in house. From a mix, yes, but fresh and fluffy.
- The cream cheese is off-white and looks yellow and gross, especially under display lights.
- All the colored frosting is buttercream anyway. Whipped sometimes gets a color or two, but it runs pretty pastel, and doesn't get mixed with anything else. All colors added to a cream cheese cake are added with buttercream.
- the cream cheese icing comes in a bucket with shelf-stable shipping, marked "cream cheese flavored shelf-stable buttercream type frosting". And it's normal to have to pour an inch of grease off the top or whip it back in with a drill mixer before use.
This is why birthday cakes don't usually come in cream cheese frosting, even if it is "so good" and "so much better than buttercream!" It's the same icing, but also objectively worse. It can be special ordered, but why?