Working in A Bakery My Working Day Started At 3am. With Half An Hour For Lunch At 8.30am!

Starting work in a bakery at 3am is one of those life choices you make because you think, “How bad can it be?”and then, at 2:30am, when your alarm goes off and your soul briefly leaves your body, you realise the answer is: very!

Let me explain something about 3am. At 3am, the world is not awake. The world is not even asleep. The world is in a sort of cosmic coma, and you are the only idiot wandering around in it, trying to find your trousers while muttering things like, “This is fine, this is absolutely fine,” even though you know full well that nothing about this is fine.

By the time you get to the bakery, you’ve already had the kind of morning that Victorian chimney sweeps would describe as “a bit much”. You stumble in through the back door, where the first thing that hits you is the smell of yeast. Yeast, at 3am, is not the warm, comforting aroma of a French patisserie. Yeast, at 3am, smells like something that has been living in a damp cave and has only recently decided to come out and start a new life.

Then there’s the baker. Every bakery has one. The baker is a mysterious creature who has been awake since approximately 1347. He does not speak in full sentences. He communicates in grunts, eyebrow movements, and the occasional ominous phrase like, “Dough’s ready,” which sounds less like an instruction and more like a threat.

Your first job is usually something simple, like “fold the dough”. This sounds easy, until you realise that bakery dough is not like the dough you see on TV cooking shows. TV dough is soft and pliable and behaves itself. Bakery dough is a living organism with the temperament of a drunk rugby player. It sticks to everything your hands, your clothes, your hopes, your dreams. After five minutes you look like you’ve been tarred and feathered by a flock of gluten-intolerant pigeons.

And then comes the kneading. Kneading at 3am is not a wholesome, rustic activity. Kneading at 3am is a full-contact sport. You slam the dough. You punch the dough. You wrestle the dough like it owes you money. Meanwhile, the baker watches you with the expression of a man who has seen a thousand apprentices try and fail before you.

By 4am, the ovens are on. Industrial bakery ovens do not simply “heat up”. They roar to life like dragons who have been woken too early and are considering eating you. You open the door to slide in a tray of croissants and instantly lose all the hair on your arms. This is considered normal.

Around 5am, something magical happens: the first batch of bread comes out. It is golden. It is beautiful. It is the closest thing to a religious experience you will ever have while wearing a hairnet. You stand there, basking in the glow of your creation, thinking, “Maybe this job isn’t so bad after all.”

Then the baker hands you a mop and says, “Floor’s yours.”

Because here’s the thing they don’t tell you about bakeries: flour gets everywhere. It gets on the counters. It gets on the floor. It gets in your shoes. It gets in your ears. You will go home, take off your socks, and a small avalanche will occur. Archaeologists will one day excavate your laundry basket and conclude that you lived during the Great Flour Age.

By 7am, the sun is rising, normal people are waking up, and you are half way through your shift looking like a ghost who died in a bread-related incident. Then 8.30 arrives and you put your feet up for half an hour as you enjoy your Lunch break! I kid you not!

But despite all this the ungodly hours, the flour storms, the dough that fights back there is something undeniably satisfying about it. You helped create something. Something warm. Something comforting. Something that will make someone’s morning better.

And you also,get to go home at 12pm, which feels rebellious in a way that should probably be illegal.