I'm always curious what brings people to the place they are currently at in their lives. What did you do before you became a cake decorator? Do you still work another job in addition to cake decorating?
I have been a medical transcriptionist since 1998. I had formerly been in Property Management and having a baby, my desire to be home with her was all I could think about. After being notified that the company I was working for had plans of selling off all of their properties and that we would soon be out of a job in 1996, it pushed me to make the dream of being home with my daughter a reality.
I have always been a good typist (100+ words per minute since high school) so after researching the field, I took a home course in medical transcription. Been doing it ever since. Enter voice recognition technologies and greedy companies swallowing up all the local doctor's offices and hospitals, and the last several years have been difficult at best in this profession. I currently work for a large transcription service making about 50% less than I did starting out over 15 years ago. It's just really sad. Not sure of any other professions that are making LESS this far into their careers than this. Most of the work is being offshored to India and the Phillipines.
Anyway, about 10 years ago I started piddling around with making my own cakes and cupcakes just as a hobby and for family functions. I have not had any formal training in cake decorating/baking but just have taught myself with tutorials and LOTS of practice and trial and error. So, here I am. It is rumored that we are lucky to have 1-2 years left in transcription before it's all offshored and we are completely out of jobs. Not sure if that will actually happen but it has forced me to consider other avenues. I still have at least 20 working years left and since I will never be able to retire, I need something new.
I was registered in my prior location as a home baker and did ok as a here-and-there kind of thing but have had to take a break because we moved to a new state and am getting set up to be able to be a home baker with hopes of getting started at the first of the year. To my knowledge, there are no other home bakers in my small town (that are advertising anyway) and the only bakery is at the Piggly Wiggly, so hopefully I can get this going and earn at least a part-time income. That has to be better than working full time and barely earning a part-time income! :)
Sorry to ramble! Have a sweet day!
You might also do a search. There have been a couple interesting threads recently where members discussed this. One thread http://cakecentral.com/t/762749/how-did-you-start
AJust wanted to say that I do legal transcribing aside from baking. I found myself getting bored working from home and found myself baking in free time to give myself a hobby. Anyway just wanted to mention maybe legal transcribing might be something to look into as it isn't slowing down since most lawyers want state certified transcribers and can't use voice recognition because it needs to be 100 percent accurate. Just a thought while you build your cake business. Good luck ;)
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"............ It is rumored that we are lucky to have 1-2 years left in transcription before it's all offshored and we are completely out of jobs ............."
deja vu all over again.......
10 key operator – for math calculations
PBX operator – for phone systems
Travel agent – to get your plane tickets and hotel arrangements printed for you
Court reporter – with those tiny shorthand typewriters in courts
Printing Technology – with ink and metal plates
Photo shops – where you took your exposed film for processing
Gas station attendents – pumping your gas & washing your windows
Video Stores – for video tape rentals
Record stores – those round vinyl things
A & W Root Beer Stands – roller skates & window trays
Winchels Donut shops – weren’t they everywhere
Drive in Movie theatres - privacy & comfort
Industry – all industry - replaced by robots or moved to foreign countries
Iron industry, Steel industry, Ship building, auto industry, factories, assembly lines
Last but certainly not least – the family owned corner BAKERY
Replaced by commercial grocery store chains & big box stores with imported food products.
(some of you probably don’t even know what these jobs were. Ask Grandma.)
A
Original message sent by lafoutloud05
Just wanted to say that I do legal transcribing aside from baking. I found myself getting bored working from home and found myself baking in free time to give myself a hobby. Anyway just wanted to mention maybe legal transcribing might be something to look into as it isn't slowing down since most lawyers want state certified transcribers and can't use voice recognition because it needs to be 100 percent accurate. Just a thought while you build your cake business. Good luck ;)
Thanks! I actually had wondered about that. What kind of schooling/experience is required usually? I know with medical it's nearly impossible to get a job with less than two years experience.
A
Original message sent by MBalaska
[QUOTE name="ShandiKakes" url="/t/765794/what-did-you-do-before-cake#post_7463157"] "............ It is rumored that we are lucky to have 1-2 years left in transcription before it's all offshored and we are completely out of jobs ............."[/QUOTE] deja vu all over again.......
[B]10 key operator[/B] – for math calculations [B]PBX operator[/B] – for phone systems [B]Travel agent[/B] – to get your plane tickets and hotel arrangements printed for you [B]Court reporter[/B] – with those tiny shorthand typewriters in courts [B]Printing Technology[/B] – with ink and metal plates [B]Photo shops[/B] – where you took your exposed film for processing [B]Gas station attendents[/B] – pumping your gas & washing your windows [B]Video Stores[/B] – for video tape rentals [B]Record stores[/B] – those round vinyl things [B]A & W Root Beer Stands[/B] – roller skates & window trays [B]Winchels Donut shops[/B] – weren’t they everywhere [B]Drive in Movie theatres[/B] - privacy & comfort [B]Industry – all industry[/B] - replaced by robots or moved to foreign countries Iron industry, Steel industry, Ship building, auto industry, factories, assembly lines
Last but certainly not least – the family owned corner [B]BAKERY[/B] Replaced by commercial grocery store chains & big box stores with imported food products.
[SIZE=11px](some of you probably don’t even know what these jobs were. Ask Grandma.)[/SIZE]
Exactly! :/
Quote:
Originally Posted by MBalaska
Last but certainly not least – the family owned corner BAKERY
Replaced by commercial grocery store chains & big box stores with imported food products.
(some of you probably don’t even know what these jobs were. Ask Grandma.)
And brought to you by high labor costs, small profit margins (which all supermarkets have, btw), and a shrinking labor pool, depending on where you live.
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