Petty bakery manager ignores employee's input during graduation weekend, resulting in $1000 loss and 19 free cakes given to customers for free: 'Jill got demoted'

Author image for Ben Weiss
Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Oct 26, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

Every industry has at least one week out of the year when things get so busy that everyone feels like they're just barely treading water. 

Sometimes, these weeks are unavoidable and sudden, but other times, you can, at the very least, anticipate that they're coming. According to this author, who worked at a bakery for over six years, her busy season was during graduation weekend.

The baker just so happened to be living in a small town populated largely by three colleges and several high schools, so every year, graduation week was intense. Again, there were always some aspects of the week, such as an out-of-the-box complicated order, that you cannot plan for. However, year after year, it became clear that there were ways in which the bakery could better prepare itself for this daunting period.

When the baker was passed over for a promotion in favor of a less experienced and less committed manager (who just so happened to be in cahoots with upper management), the author knew that she wanted to leave this place behind after giving birth to her child. In anticipation of graduation week, she tried to make suggestions, but the new petty manager ignored all of them. It turns out that this was the manager's loss at the end of the day.

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  • 01
    Four cakes lined up on display at a bakery.
    via Ansuman Mishra

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Yes, after the manager refused to find a proper replacement who could take over cake decorating duties for the author while she was on maternity leave, no one was talented enough or prepared enough for the big week. This ultimately led to a total mess of a situation, with customer angrily lined up, wondering where their cakes were. We bet Jill wishes she had listened to the author!

  • 02

    "Don’t recognize my work? Have fun having no cake decorator during graduation season"

    I've been an assistant deli/bakery manager for +6 years. In those years we had "Jill" take over the previous managers position through backstabbery and lies, a
    via ChaosRisingBook
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    position that was supposed to go to me, but she had a friend in upper management get her transferred over. Jill never did any of the work, left things for me
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    to do last minute, took four day weekends, intentionally 'missed' orders to try and make me look bad; the whole nine yards.
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    I put up with it for years... Every time I brought it up with the management, they gave an excuse or sorta just brushed me off. The company has a union, so
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    getting someone with even a year of seniority over you in trouble is almost impossible. I was doing more and more of the work,
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    making sure orders went off on time, fixing ones she would forget or mess up, covering shifts, calling people to come in if she intentionally under scheduled us, training.... A headache.
    via ChaosRisingBook
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    During this time, I got married (which she tried to deny me my vacation time to do) and had a hectic schedule that my husband graciously understood. Dealt with it for another few years and just got so tired with everything...
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    then the kicker came! I got pregnant with our first!! I decided then and there that once I left for maturnity, I wasn't going back.
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    I did everything by the books, notified management and the union, scheduled doctors visits and worked around my schedule, made sure that there was no possible way she could mess with
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    me. Once I heard the due date; I grinned a maniacal smile deep in my soul. April... right before the busiest time for any deli/bakery... Graduation.
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    When you're in a town with 3+ colleges and 4 high schools just in a ten mile radius, you get a LOT of orders to fill. I even had a reputation for color matching certain school colors and doing
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    cakes last minute. On any given day for those months, they could have anywhere from 15-150 cakes going out in a weekend (Friday-Sunday) and to make matters worse for them, I was the only cake decorator.
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    I let them know that they had to get someone in and hired for me to train MULTIPLE times or else they would be in dire straights, especially since Jill didn't like decorating. They never listened, like always. So after four months,
    via ChaosRisingBook
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    I stopped reminding them. I let it go. And it felt great. Then I decided to use one of my vacations during the week before delivery (good thing I did, the baby was ready anyways) and they still hadn't found a cake decorator.
    via ChaosRisingBook
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    The day I delivered my baby, guess who finally got demoted??? Jill had scheduled one of her four day weekends again, missed three supply orders, didn't cover my shift, and
    via ChaosRisingBook
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    the icing on the cake??? Left 19 cake orders unfulfilled for a Friday and did not let management know about them.
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    When Friday morning came around and she wasn't there; there was a line of angry customers wondering WHERE their cakes were.
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    A baker in a white shirt and a tray of breads in the back of a bakery.
    via Unsplash+ (Pablo Merchán Montes)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 20
    Upper store management was called in, people from two different departments who had "some" experience on cakes were pulling premade 1/4 sheets and randomly throwing sprinkled this way and that and giving out the cakes for free. Over $1000 in products having to be given to customers... for... free...
    via ChaosRisingBook
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    Apparently this also happened on a day the district manager was set to come in and do a tour to make sure things were set up for graduation. Needless to say she
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    was demoted and moved from the department the very day she came back into the store (she turned off her phone over the weekend so no one would disturb her)
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    I only know this because they called me to see if I could come back for a day or two from my "vacation" to fix everything. (They hadn't known I had the baby yet, just thought I was still heavily pregnant). I've now been six months as a STHM and cannot be happier without all of the stress from there.
    via ChaosRisingBook
  • 24
    They still ask if I want my old job back when I grocery shop there, but I just smile and tell them no thank you. (Although I do miss some of my coworkers) now I get to raise an amazing little boy and bake cakes for the fun of it now.
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    Update: WOW; I was not expecting any of this really! Thank you for the validation! Here is a few things to clear some things up for everyone
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    1. Jill got demoted: she is now a produce clerk and is not allowed anywhere near the bakery deli and took a massive pay cut
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    2. It did not cripple the whole store, it just made a department almost a living. nightmare for management for the weekend, they now have their retired cake decorator in on weekends to do cakes until they can find someone else
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    3. I had to take that unplanned vacation two weeks before my due date do to #+++StReSs++++ from the job that contributed to gestational hypertension (baby came out alert and happy, heart rate got to 164/98 though )
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    4. do I in no way, shape, or form blame the union or upper management for any of it. When two people are constantly issuing complaints to HR, the truth gets muddied. It did not help
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    that the store went through 6 store managers while I was there and the union did what they could especially when it came to her trying to mess with my vacations, paid holidays, and days off. (Especially my wedding)
    via ChaosRisingBook
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    5. doormat? No; I called her out on things all the time, which is why she was out to get me at any chance. I even had my staff stand up for me when I wasn't there and she's try to take credit for things I did. Paper trails were made, and I followed procedures for reporting things to the letter.
    via ChaosRisingBook
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    6. did I intentionally leave innocent bystanders to have no cake? No; I warned management, they dragged their feet. I warned my customers, they chose to still go there. I did more than my fare share.
    via ChaosRisingBook

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Tags

graduation bakery toxic-workplace manager work cakes petty revenge entitled people karma entitled people toxic-work-environment
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