Communication

During my externship I experienced many times where there was miss-communication. I worked at Cakewalk bakery & cafe in Lee, MA. It was a bakery and a breakfast and lunch cafe. Many times orders were not communicated and were then messed up and wrong. Cakes would be the wrong flavors or the wrong message/writing was on it, the pick up time was wrong, there wouldn't be enough of what was ordered ect. Everyone would get very frustrated and mad at the mistakes being made. People would point finger blaming other people. I think that one of the main problems was not giving your undivided attention to the message being told to you and not hearing the person out. On many occasions the FOH would come to the back and put up orders for the week or day and my boss and sous chef would be doing many other things while listening to the order and were not fully listening to what was being said. I know that at times working in a bakery/kitchen you cannot always put down what you are doing and listen but if it is possible I think it should be done. I saw many time someone would just be like "yup ok i got it" and they would not have a clue of what was said to them. There were many assumptions about orders being taken and that would cause problems as well. I think that we needed a better format of communication and a more organized process for taking orders. I would suggest that in the back was a board that organized all the order slips by the day of the week. Then whenever someone came to the back to put that order up they read the order out and and have someone repeat the order so they know it was communicated properly. This makes the system much more organized and communicated a little more properly. I feel as though communication and listening to someone is a form of respect to a person. If you do not communicate well to someone or do not listen well that you are showing disrespect and that you are not being serious. I one day hope to have my own place that is a very openly communicated business.