Being the only person responsible for something at work is stressful enough, but it gets worse when the schedule doesn’t match the workload.

What would you do if you were the only cake decorator and had dozens of orders due early in the morning, but your manager refused to let you come in early or stay late? Would you push back? Or would you just follow their directions and let the fallout speak for itself?

In the following story, one employee finds herself in this situation and decides to follow instructions. Here’s how it played out.

I can’t come in early but I can’t stay late? Fine. When the cakes aren’t ready on time, you can explain to the customer.

For almost 6 years, I worked as a cake decorator at a well-known department store. The stores have multiple assistant managers who rotate every 6 months to two years, managing different departments.

For example, the bakery is part of the fresh area, with the deli, produce, and meats, so the manager for that area was over all of those. This is just for some perspective. Keep in mind that many managers have never worked in most of the departments before being put in that position.

In the bakery, we had become very short-handed in the last 2 years. I was there because people were moving, quitting, or being promoted. Instead of filling those roles, management decided to have everyone in the bakery do the work of 2-3 people.

The store received orders for all types of cakes.

I was the only cake decorator. That meant even though I was the decorator, in charge of the front cake case and customer orders, I also had to help with freight, baking the bread, and sometimes the donuts. Oh, and I was constantly getting pulled to help the deli, no matter how far behind I got.

Most special orders on the weekend are due before 1 pm, which makes sense because most parties are in the early afternoon. On the weekend, we could get 20+ orders in a day, ranging from sheet cakes to 3-tier wedding cakes.

Depending on each cake, it could take 15 minutes to decorate to an hour. It just varies depending on size and what decorations are going on it. Being the only person and having to help my coworkers made it hard to complete orders on time.

She tried to keep up, but it was hard sometimes.

For some reason, the cake decorator is scheduled to come in last, a 10-7 shift. Again, orders are usually due early. During the week, this was no issue, but on the weekends, it was another story.

I would do my best to complete orders Friday evening for Saturday, but because we weren’t allowed to turn away any orders, I would sometimes be near the end of my shift which had to be spent cleaning up my area and sometimes the other areas of the bakery among doing other things like mark offs for the day, and I would get 5 more orders come in, on top of all the others, all due by noon.

Most of the time, my manager would just let me come in at 7 am to complete the orders. No problem.

The manager didn’t want to help with the situation.

Well, we got a new manager after a rotation. This manager had no clue what the fresh area consisted of work-wise, but thought they did.

I had one such weekend when I had too many orders and not enough time. I went to the assistant and asked them about coming in early. We will call them AM.

AM: No, we need you here till 7 pm because the deli doesn’t want to deal with the bakery customers.

(This made me even madder because we constantly helped the deli.)

They also refused to allow her overtime.

Me: Ok, but it’s almost an hour before the end of my shift, and there is no way I can complete all of the orders for the morning, clean, and be out of here on time. May I stay late to finish? (This would mean I’d get OT because Friday is the end of their pay week)

AM: How many hours do you have this week?

Me: 40 (full-time employee)

AM: No. You can’t have OT. The store can’t afford it. (yeah, right)

According to the manager, someone would take care of the cakes in the morning.

Me: What should I do then? The orders can’t get done on time in this case.

AM: We will just have someone do them for you in the morning.

Me: Uh…ok. Who?

AM: Don’t worry about it.

Whatever. So I cleaned up and went home. I messaged my department manager and told him the situation. He was not pleased to say the least.

Luckily, it led to some changes.

The next morning, I go in, and the orders haven’t been touched. Needless to say, almost all the cakes were late, and we ended up having to give a lot of the cakes to the customers for free or at a discount.

When asked about it, I told the store manager what happened. The assistant apparently got chewed out because from then on out, I was scheduled 7-4 on weekends.

I’d like to say it stayed that way, but we got a whole new management team shortly after, and they wanted me to work nothing but the ‘late’ shift, making it hard to complete orders again. I left shortly after due to medical problems.

Wow! As if just anyone can decorate those cakes.

Let’s check out how the readers over at Reddit feel about what happened.

Here’s a question from a former ASM.

This reader thinks she’s talking about Costco.

According to this reader, they possibly worked at the same store.

For this person, it sounds like Kroger.

That system sounds like a nightmare.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.