What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate
March 15, 2011 I'm always fascinated by the breakdown in communication that can occur when you order a cake. I love figuring out what went wrong just by looking at the cake; it beats any crossword puzzle or word jumble.
As you can see, there is in fact a "Coca Cola can/bottle" on this cake.Other times there's a severe misunderstanding from the get-go:
I like to think that if they'd spelled "capital" correctly they might have figured it out.
Sometimes you specifically ask for little plastic "Happy Birthday sticks" stuck in your order of cupcakes:
Other times you're just not specific enough:
And sometimes, on wonderful, rare occasions, you get an amazingly talented baker. A baker with mad piping skills, a steady hand, and perfect spelling. A baker who, incidentally, is also a little hard of hearing. So, when you get this baker, and you want to order a giant Gerber daisy on your cake, just be sure you enunciate really, really well.
Because otherwise...
You might get the Gerber Baby.(Yes, really. Scout's honor.)
Reader Comments (95)
Perhaps the way to avoid situations like these is to have customers submit their orders to CW comments for spellcheck and factual verification before forwarding to the bakery... (JK)
#1 We know what would have happened if the customer had brought a Coke bottle or can and said, "put this on the cake," right?
#2 Someone's 55th birthday? Some child whose name starts with 'L' just turned 5? Viva Las Vegas? Oh, by the way... why is it shiny?
#3 Obviously, the problem here is that instead of saying, "I'd like 'happy birthday' sticks on these cupcakes," the customer should have asked for 'happy birthday' sticks on *all of* these cupcakes. Which would either have meant fewer cupcakes or a lot more writing...
#4 Simple. Elegant. In the best tradition of 'Under Neat That'.
#5 Theory I: Kelly's baby picture bears a striking resemblance to the Gerber baby. Theory II: Maybe the wreckerator just wanted to avoid controversy: "Is that a daisy, or a dogwood blossom, or a lotus flower, or..."
@Kimberly Chapman: Sound theory, but impractical; if wreckerators verified orders, at the end of the month there would be an $18 Zillion phone bill and no cakes made.
What these bakeries ought to do is contract order-taking out to a call center somewhere. Then bakery employees could follow a simple sequence: read the order, make the cake, process the refund, send a picture to Cake Wrecks, eat the evidence. Much more efficient that way.
@Pandora (2): My sentiments exactly. Florists get paid to know about flowers, bakers know about wrecks. If I needed a specific flower on a cake, I would go to the florist, say "I'd like that one, please," then go to the baker and say, "I would like a cake that has this on it, please." After that, I would just have to hope the flower was food-safe. Or not worry about it, depending on whether I like the intended recipient of the cake. (JK)
wv: adnes. A mountain range in Preu.
Hmm. It could just be that "daisy" came across as "desi" (i.e. subcontinental), the baby also looks like that with its big black eyes and curly black hair. I am not sure what the baker was thinking, though, since the two words are IMHO pronounced quite differently, and why would Kelly want a giant desi baby on her cake? Apart from that, "Gerber" seems not to have been understood at all, but if English is not your mother tongue it is pretty likely that you don't know all the flower names, I would probably not have understood it either. Just my two cents.
sometimes (as a former cake decorator myself) its the consumer who ruins it.
last year a man came in and requested a Buzz Lightyear cake for his 21 year old son. i was a little confused, and asked if he was sure his son would appreciate this, he replied "of course, hes not under age or anything".
hmmmm, ok its YOUR cake man, i thought, and made a fun blue cake with space ships and buzz firing his wrist gun. it turned out pretty good, and i was happy.
the next day, i was written up for giving my owners grandson (oh yes, turns out that was their kid) the wrong cake. it was supposed to be a BUD LIGHT cake. ouch. my first fail. i found out later that the man who ordered the cake is legally deaf, and didnt hear me when i repeated the order. after that he got to fill out his own cake orders :)
I wonder if the LV cake was supposed to be a Louis Vuitton logo cake...
wv: iritrypo: an especially irritating attempt at typing something correctly and failing.
I love when cakes are misspelled. Last year for my friend's 35th birthday our other friend got him a cake. All it said was "Big Guy, 35, Farve," because our friend was a Green Bay fan. There was no Happy Birthday. And "Farve" is actually spelled "Favre." You would think people would write this out and spell check before they make these mistakes?
should be "is a failure to communi-cake"....
Hah! One of the most misquoted movie lines of all. It is "What we've got here is (pause) failure to communicate" (not a failure to communicate).
The "something nice" cake literally made me laugh out loud.
The people that ordered the Gerber baby cake totally deserved to get that cake! One of my biggest pet peeves is people who say "gerber" daisies!
I would have loved to see a "gerbera" daisy cake, cause that baby was awesome!
Perhaps it's because I'm from the UK but I have no idea what a Gerber baby is! Wikipedia helped me out ;)
Do the bakers get chain-gang labor, repeated beatings, and time in the Box? 'Cause that seems a little severe for getting a cake order wrong.
--Dr. Vic
These are my favorite kinds of wrecks! Although I enjoy Cake Wrecks every day, I rarely actually laugh out loud...and I did so today, more than once!
And held my breath hoping there would not be a huge Epcot thing blow up about Gerber/Gerbera...looks like it came close a couple of times.
Loved this! A laugh AND a lesson. I'm taking notes! Great post! - Tammy at:
http://singlepast50.com/blog/
I don't understand why so many people are doing the Epcot over Gerber Daisies.
Every garden center around here calls them "Gerber Daisies."
The Florist shops sell "Gerber Daisies" too.
I've NEVER been told by anyone, horticulturist, florist, or other that "Gerber Daisy" is somehow a completely invalid method of referring to the particular plant, and only the "GerberA" form is legitimate.
Besides, if the fabulously talented decorator who created the baby cake hadn't misheard the order, we wouldn't have anything over which to hide out in the Epcot bunker and eat cake, now would we?
wv: unbubbl
I have no idea what it means but it made me giggle. Maybe it's a name for what you play with at an UN-birthday party. It's your Un-birthday. Here blow an unbubbl.
SO sad about the gerber baby/daisy mix up because that is one talented cake decorator. It's just a shame that he/she gets on cakewrecks after actually doing a superb piping job.
Thanks for the much-needed chuckles today.
I usually drop in, read, laugh (wee a little), and leave assuming there are already 200 "lol, you guys are awesome" comments and one more would just get lost in the fray. In light of Marti-gate, I thought I would stop and try to express to Team Cakewrecks how wonderful you guys are and how much I appreciate you posting throughout the insanity, and how the laughs you provide help get many of us through our own dark days.
These are too much! I think I would be slightly happier to recieve one of these than an actual "Happy Birthday"...I know I'd get a good laugh out of it!
The cheap phone system in our bakery actually saved me from making a wreck. We can barely hear customers sometimes and end up repeating the spelling and sometimes shouting to be heard. The company refuses to do anything about the phones. Usually when customers call and we are not sure about the message we write what we think they said and annotate "wait to write message until the customer arrives." Usually this saves from scraping the cake. Anyway a customer called and asked if we could do a "Gerber Baby." We talked about the cake and I repeated it back to her many times. I didn't have a picture on hand to work with so I asked her to bring one in. Of course she brought in a picture of a Gerber daisy. If I had gone out of my way to find a picture for the customer as I usually do, I would have made that wreck.
@Dr. Vic asked: "Do the bakers get chain-gang labor, repeated beatings, and time in the Box?"
Of course not. Those things are reserved for people who dare to assert that anything has ever been deep-fried and try to cite Wikipedia as proof.
Bakers just receive their 15 minutes of 'fame' here, then they are free to leave -- if we're in a good mood. Which we usually are. Except, that is, when we go to EPCON 1* and things start getting...interesting. Mwahahaha.
*EPCON 1 = Maximum Alert: 'Launch on the slightest provocation, real or otherwise'
Reading this blog @ midnight during our vacation in the UK, I showed my husband the Gerber/Gerbera Daisy/Baby cake and I had to keep shh-ing him as to not wake up the other occupants of the B&B with his laughing! Keep it coming guys, I love your blogs and read them daily :o)
Amanda, Love your site and your Blog! Especially fond of Cake Wrecks. Laughs and lessons all in one! Very nicely done. -Tammy
http://singlepast50.com/blog/
I would have to say that I would have a hard time not buying the last cake even though it was wrong.
Cool Hand Luke reference- classic! A line that all wreckators should be familiar with!
If that Gerber cake wasn't a mistake that would have made a great baby shower cake. I'd rather see that than edible baby butts and fondant hoo-hahs anyday.
The "Gerber Baby" reminds me of the Mexican lady who asked for a figure of a boy in a football uniform, holding a football under his arm .. with a brown face (because he was Mexican).
When she came to pick up the cake... there it was, a football player with uniform, helmet and football.... and a CLOWN face. Mother was not happy.
the Gerber baby- bwahahahahahahahaha
"What these bakeries ought to do is contract order-taking out to a call center somewhere."
I work in the Quality dept of a large call center. Some of the more harmless spelling errors I've seen include spelling out "underscore" & "at symbol" in emails. Yes, even though every one of them has to be proficient with email! (i.e. cakeunderscorewrecksatsymbolefacepalmdotcom). Did I forget to mention the "dot?"
Then there's the ones that get rude. Did you know furnaces "sh_t" down? Nope, not the letter above the "j" but the one to the right of it. :D Spell Check was eventually installed- now, maybe they'll use it one day.
There've been a few lewd ones, too, but I can't mention those here (compact DISCS can be mispelled very, very hysterically but men don't find it as funny as women do).
-Barbara Anne
I think that Gerber baby is kinda cute lol. As for the capitalize it cake ewwwwwwwwww. It looks all sweaty and rather gross. Scary how they misunderstand an order..
The Gerber cake is now my favoritest CW evar. I laugh aloud every time I look at it.
I'm glad I read the comments today because someone asked what the WV is all about. I always thought it was funny, but never understood where the words came from! I would never have asked myself.
@Brooke I only read the comments today is see if the *Gerbera Daisy - Epcot helmets* were needed! LOL!
WV- censable: Mink is not the most censable coat at a protest rally. ;)
Maybe it's Stick's birthday???
And that is a stinkin' awesome baby!
WV: Deless, adj; "This cake is deless, too bad it's a wreck!"
I love Gerbera Daisies, but I would be happy with that cake, just for the effort put into it--the likeness of the Gerber Baby is spot on!
"Happy Birthday Sticks" is classic! LOL I'm imagining your next book cover right now...
Thanks a million for the much needed laughs!
About the cake with the Gerber baby...the daisy is a "gerbera" daisy I believe.
Just sayin'...
Grandma Nancy
Anonymous said:
>>Cool Hand Luke reference- classic! A line that all wreckators should be familiar with!<<
Makes you wonder how many eggs are in the cake recipe, doesn't it?
:-)
wv -- stery
It's a my-stery how some of these Wrecks happen!
I am in LOVE with the something nice cake! I can't stop laughing about it!
@KittyKat- while I laughed out loud at 'something nice' and facepalmed at the gerber baby, I laughed the hardest at your 'do the epcot'. It should be a dance craze!
wv gyribl- a terrible gerbil.
@ southlundon Gerber is the name of a major baby food company in the U.S. The Gerber Baby is the company's iconic logo, reproduced not only on jars and boxes of baby food, but as dolls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerber_Baby
I'm sure many have pointed this out, but that's a pretty good baby on the Gerber cake.
if you were to write down that you needed a Gerbera Daisy cake, then you shouldn't need visual aids.
I admit I laughed, but as an extremely hard of hearing individual, i found the after effects of being made fun of, ringing a little to long. A touchier subject than you might think.
I'm pretty sure I've seen an old Coke sign with exactly that layout of "bottle" and "can"
What is "Gerber baby" supposed to mean? English is not my mother tongue and I didn't manage to google anything relevant.
@Jitka: It's this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerber_Baby" rel="nofollow">Gerber baby
Maybe the first cake was for someone who is a fan Coke AND Star Wars. Picture Yoda saying, "Bottle Coca-Cola can."
-Michelle
I have to defend the Sticks one. "Sticks" could quite easily be someone's nickname (a drummer, a cricketer, someone with long legs or who lives out in the sticks), and given you would generally ask for "birthday candles" not "birthday sticks", I think that was a perfectly understandable mistake.
Love the Gerber baby.
The Coka-Cola cake and the Gerber baby cake both look like they where made by talented baker. I mean the phrase "Coka-Cola" was written with a steady hand and looks pretty nice. I guess everyone makes dumb mistakes sometimes. But the others, Oh Boy, the others are absolutely horrid. Uhg! Could the baker CHOOSE worse colors! And the cake is sweating too! It probably was left out for too long and will taste nasty.
I think it's gerbera...daisy...but who's keeping track? ;] LOVE your site! It's THE BEST!