Becoming a German Master Baker – Part 2
After the stress of the first set of exams, we set off as a group to conquer the final parts of the master designation: business administration and training. These two parts are common among all tradesmen career paths, which meant that our group of bakers were joined with a couple sales-ladies and a pastry chef.
Our instructors for the last couple months were the Dumbledore of the academy, who taught pedagogy/apprentice training, and the unpunctual guy from my earlier spelt grain course, who taught the business concepts. Between these two guys, a couple excursions to local bakeries, and a photo shooting session for our yearbook, these last couple months were to be quite dry.
Thankfully weekends were no longer spent practicing spreading cream on a cake by smearing margarine on a round block of wood or creating designs out of Nutella using handmade pastry bags. Instead, my weekends were more focused on vocabulary as I had to relearn all of the basic business concepts as they applied in Germany in the German language.
This unfortunately included all those economic terms like acquisition and manufacturing costs; accounting terms like debit/credit and owners equity and liability; as well as financial terms like return on equity and expense exhibit. The business portion of the training touched very high-level aspects of marketing, business law (including marriage and inheritance law) as well as insurance. All of these topics were just different enough to annoy me.
While the end exam(s) for business administration were to be pretty straight-forward (six hours of written essay and multiple choice), the training portion consisted of an oral exam and a written portion. As I had mentioned in the tutoring entry, my oral exam was training a 17 year old how to form a rye-wheat loaf. Luckily I was better at it than he, and received one of the best grades for my efforts.
The written portion of the training exam was … well, it was worthless information about the German education system and processes that have never impacted me and will never be useful for me to know. Studying for this portion was mind-numbing and a test of willpower. I persevered.
To break up the monotony, Dumbledore set up some trips to local bakeries in order to show us how small, medium, and large bakeries fill the niches in their communities and what marketing tactics they are using to survive in the present day.
It was through these excursions that I got to know Dumbledore a lot better. As could have been expected, my initial carpool arrangement was dismantled the minute the driver had a better option to ride with the cool kids. So, that left me asking the school master for a spot in his car. Looking back, this ended up being a turning point. Through these days driving all over the state of Saxony, I got to know Dumbledore much better which then opened up the door to getting to know the other teachers better. It was actually at this point that I realized that my presence in their school was, in fact, a special occurrence. That I was also seen as unlike my classmates. It is always nice to be special.
It was not until the last month of my training that the baker manning the ovens, my bakery teacher, opened up to me about his life and then invited me to see some culture in his city. At a point where I was counting down the days to the end of the tedium, I suddenly made a new acquaintance and started a new friendship… with a guy who made me cry.
Through him I was able to hike through the Saxon Switzerland, see the masterworks of famous artists, and explore the city. Weekends now consisted of campfires and stories, meeting new people and knocking back a few beers. Suddenly Dresden was no so bad.
Unfortunately, that final week of exams came. I had signed up for a language exam immediately following my baker exams, which meant that I had one last weekend in the city – one last weekend with the staff of the academy.
Upon reflection (already three months of it), the costs and stress of becoming a master baker may not have been worth it; however, I have met some very worthy and worthwhile people. As is given with any person one meets in one’s life, it is unknown how long they will remain a part of it. I continue to be thankful for the time I got.
