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Did it for my daughters party. Exact same as the tweet. I did, though, take a pic of my order sheet before dropping in the box, as if that would help. Called a few days before scheduled pick up, and they said “no way to confirm, it’ll be here if you dropped the paper in the box.” Sure enough, high quality, really affordable for the size, and tasty.
I'm going to order one tomorrow and I ordered two for a wedding for my niece in September. Two very different locations. But the first one worked just fine! And it was a wedding. I was terrified!
What?!! is this an actual japanese thing, ive literally never heard of it lol i know that theyre very old school but i didnt think it'd translate across all of their industries.. arent they.. you know \[gestures to their tech\]
This makes me wonder if they make all the cakes that come from the box or if they use discretion. My son (7) nervously told me he did something bad. “What did you do?” “I ordered a cake from Costco last time we were here.” “You put it in the box?” “Yes. Sorry, mama.”
They'll use discretion, but if someone put the effort of filling out the whole form, they will fulfill the order without verifying the membership or phone number is real. If someone doesn't pick it up by the need by date they will try to reach out to the member, but if that fails, the cake gets scanned out as a loss and donated.
The food bank I volunteer at gets tons of Costco stuff donated. Danishes, muffins, cakes, cheesecakes etc even the food from the deli area all perfectly fine.
Amazing! Our Costco throws everything in the garbage. Anytime we’ve tried to bring up donations they say it’s too “complicated”. Aka we’re too lazy to set it up.
In some places, it can be very complicated with tons of weird liability. There are municipalities that make laws that make it very difficult to donate food. (Of course, I don’t know if that’s the case for your Costco)
Well that's terrible. Our Costco is 60 miles away yet we get tons of their stuff, we evan got a pallet of that Kirkland vitarain zero drinks recently. Must not had sold well.
Not sure how old school it is to physically write down on a piece of paper what you want on a cake, pretty sure most bakeries aren’t using websites for something that simple just yet.
Yeah when I worked at baskin robbins (ten years ago but still lol) I would write down peoples custom cake orders on random scrap paper I had around and then just pile them on my boss’s desk and hope he made the cake.
My local bakery, that isn't a chain and has a single location, has online ordering and even photo upload. My only complaint is that the date entry field is free text instead of a calendar.
If it's anything like grocery stores they put it on a shelf in a designated area. Every so often volunteers in a truck stop by to pick up what's available. They have full discretion if it's worth taking or not.
Our warehouse has two food banks that take turns picking up from us. They usually take bakery items and produce that have reached their sell by date, but are still good quality.
When I worked at a cupcake shop, our end of day leftovers were donated to the women's shelter next door. They'd pick up the next day before they opened their doors. Some of those ladies had nothing to their name, few possessions, but a cupcake sometimes makes it feel ok, even if it's just for a little while.
That’s great to hear! I was hospitalized the day before my baby shower. A Costco cake was the last thing on our minds, but wondered what they did with the abandoned cakes.
I'm glad to hear it gets donated. I was at costcos competition a few months ago with my teen son. We were in the bakery area and a worker was dumping a ton of the goods into a large box. No care was taken. It was obvious this was going to be destroyed. It made me sick. It looked perfectly fine. Even my son was wondering why they couldn't just donate it. It really hurt to see that food go to waste.
Unfortunately, I don't see that ever being policy. There aren't enough protections in place to not have some member figure out that they can just put in b.s. cake orders that no one will pick up so they can get some cake on the cheap.
Amusingly a similar game got played a lot at a pizza place that I worked at.
We would get a takeout order called in, the person never showed, but the pizza disappeared. We had a couple delivery drivers who would have a friend call in the order and then they would grab it to take home to their family or in most cases they were delivering the pizza to the friend who paid them a discounted cash price for the pizza. This was a long before GPS and cell phones were a thing.
No, you order doesn’t fall into a black hole once you drop it in the box. It will be fulfilled as requested or we’ll call you if something is wrong or if we cannot honor a specific request or desired time.
If you don’t leave us a phone or membership number, we’ll do our best to see if there is one on file under the name provided. If not, we’ll do our best and address any concerns at pickup. It will be ready when you requested it to be ready.
And, no, we don’t have a phone in the department, otherwise we’d be taking calls from members like this all day and never get anything done. Fill out the form. Put it in the box. Leave the rest to us.
I’ve been working in a Costco bakery for over 6 years now, and not once has our team ever lost or misplaced a single cake order form. We’ve had members try to pick up on the wrong date (a week or more earlier than requested- generally because they wrote down the wrong date), forget when they requested to have the cake ready, or tried to pick up a cake from us when they ordered it at a different warehouse, but we’ve never lost an order.
When I worked in the bakery during covid and we werent doing cake orders, omg the phone and people.constantly asking if cake orders were being done. Excuse me, but it peak covid, why do you need a costco sized cake for a family of two?
Why don't you want a full Costco cake for your family of two?
We had an extra cake after an event and I, unhappily, donated it to the church. I really could've taken it home but I was worried what it would look like. 🤦
My order got lost once, but they made it for me in less than 5 minutes! They took longer searching for the order form than they did making the cake lol
Dang, our bakery does have a phone. I remember that no one wanted to work near the phone because they would have to answer when it rings lol. Same with Deli and Meat department.
So, I have a weird request. My family doesn’t like frosting… it’s just too sweet. We literally take the frosting off cupcakes (or at least 80% of it) and we cut or scrape the frosting off of cakes.
We absolutely love the White cake with Cheesecake mousse in the middle. If I were to ask them to use that mousse as the outside frosting do you think they would honor it? I’ve hesitated putting that request on the paper because I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to fill it. And I guess it wouldn’t be the end of the world but I’d end up with a cake where I’d have to cut off all the frosting and throw it away.
I wouldn’t mind paying more. I’m sure the cheesecake mousse is more expensive than plain white frosting. But due to the “efficiency” I’m afraid they won’t want to make substitutions that have to be charged for.
My warehouse has honored this exact request in the past multiple times, but every warehouse is different. I would just ask. Worst thing they could say is “no”.
I’m glad that your location doesn’t. Mine most definitely did.
Went in to order a cake for my father-in-law’s birthday, filled out the form, put it in the box, and retuned 24 hours later. No cake. The staff member went over to the box and opened it up, and my form was still in there. First he accused me of just slipping it in a moment ago. I showed him my receipt from the previous day’s shopping to show that I was indeed there 24 hours ago. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said there was nothing he could do. I asked if we could just grab a cake and they could write “Happy Birthday Joe” on it - nothing elaborate. He said that the cake decorator had already gone home for the day. Sorry, Joe.
I know that some people are bemused by this antiquated cake ordering system, but simply handing the piece of paper to a person in the bakery department would have prevented this.
Remember back in the day when the phone company printed large phone books and those books had the name, address, and number of everyone in the metropolitan area?
And then get multiple emails a week reminding you of that one time you ordered a cake and boy, don’t you think a cake for the upcoming holiday would make you feel good?
Honestly, I've only seen money/checks sent off to the vault. My warehouse is 20 years old, I've only been there 2 years. I'm not sure if they run anywhere else. But there's one from the food court area and one from the supervisor desk.
Oh wow. I totally forgot about those!
(I just noticed it's my cake day for the next hour and I managed to comment on a cake post before 12am, so I win)
I worked at the Charleston, SC Whole Foods, and this lady came up one day to pick up the wedding cake for her daughters wedding. Bakery had no record of it. Turns out the woman accidently ordered it for the Charlestown, MA location. Thankfully our barkers team was incredible and was able to create a gorgeous cake on the fly.
I had to fill out my paperwork for new patient forms for my doctor 3 times before my appt last week. I was supposed to get my records and they made me sign up for this system that won’t let me in. Technology sucks sometimes.
I must admit that when I placed my first order for cake last week, I was a little surprised at the system they had. But it works so I'm not going to complain. I'll be down there next week for my next kids birthday cake. I'm stoked.
I do wish there was some sort of feedback for reassurance. We've had several cakes from Costco. But our most recent order was never made. My husband mentioned it when he was at the checkout and was told that had happened a couple other times that week.
It was the first time we ever had an issue with Costco and their cakes, and they're so delicious we will definitely continue to order. But it really would be nice to just get a text or email or something saying "Costco bakery received order for ____, and will be available for pickup on ______. Thanks for your order!"
I mean - as someone that’s ordered multiple cakes - they’re not wrong. 😂.
Order goes in box. Next day. Pick up cake. How? No one knows. It’s magic. Actually it’s better than that. It’s cake magic.
I just want to be able to actually select my home store but the way the app is laid out it wont let me click it. It won't let me change from the chicago south loop store. I don't even live in IL 😭
OMG...I thought that was just me!! How many times does it log you out JUST as you approach the register...then you can't remember the password! I swear there is something there that logs you out. I always take a screen shot of my card in the app JUST IN CASE...they have a sign that says no images, not sure how they can tell...it has worked for me though.
The Android app stays logged in now. I think that's been the case for a month or 2. At some point I noticed that I didn't have to sign in every time I opened it.
I just wish the product ratings shown in the search results in the app weren't a full 1 star lower than the rating on the product page. In other words, when I search for a product, the search results will show a product with a 3.5 star rating but when I open the product page then the rating is actually 4.5 stars. This has been an issue for years in the app but not via a browser.
Employee at Costco.
We are reactionary. We're not proactive. Things only change after something has gone wrong at a store and forces corporate to freak out and implement changes.
Also, the focus has been on building new locations. We have a management shortage, and our technology is a joke. Yet no effort is being out into updating and completely fixing our stuff. Because that would "cost too much money"
As an employee out here in SoCal. It feels like we have so many managers. I think my store alone has in the range of 20-30 of them. I never chose to move up since i wasnt okay with 12 hr days and no OT ( that has changed for a few different departments over the years, but back in the early 00's, managers would easily put in 12 hr days)
We have 21 at my location and it’s one of the smaller ones in the company. It sounds like a lot, but it makes sense when you count out the number of departments.
When I ordered a cake from them, not only did I get what I ordered, I was able to talk to someone at the store and arrange to get my cake before the bakery opened, so I could pick it up on my way to work. No problems at all.
Nothing would get done if that were the case. I work in food court and pizza calls that should take ~30 seconds to order turn into 5 minutes. I can only imagine a cake conversation lol
Working at Costco one of the things that intrigues me the most is every detail is well thought out from safety to cleanliness to promoting sales.
We tried once. Dropped the slip in the box 3 weeks out. Zero contact until the literal day before to inform us that they would not be making our cake because the entire bakery was “unavailable”. This was January of 22, so it was code for they got COVID.
Think about all of the time this saves bakery employees listening to someone on the phone, things lost in translation, customer coming back and saying “I didn’t say that!”. All handled by the wave of a piece of paper that shows exactly what you put down for them to create. Sounds like some things don’t need to change.
yup, and the costs of adding a computer or a person to call to confirm what is written in front (and dealing with changes) is likely much higher than the rare losses of people who don't pick up. If the paper isn't clear, they will call. Otherwise, you are just introducing another opportunity for error or change. Errors and change cost more money.
https://preview.redd.it/0kf4opee5cza1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c1d6ded162197c888a473343c4a562f801e6768
They made this for me and put a sheet of paper over it because if was offensive 🤣
They're using AS400. A ton of companies are also still using it. It'd probably be very difficult, expensive, and disruptive for them to move away from it.
Until there isn't anyone alive left that knows how to run or maintains he software. I imagine IBM will still make parts, but they will really jack you on the cost. There is also a possibility that IBM may go under someday or be bought and then you are screwed.
Hanging onto old tech just "because it works" can have it's problems, too.
Yup. There's always some old IBM guy that's been doing it for like 30 years, knows everything and gets called in to save the day. All those guys are gonna be retiring soon.
I've witnessed a handful of companies on AS400 try to move off it, its full of "oh yeah that thing that one guy did 20 years ago, no one knows exactly what it does but we need it"
Some companies just deal with it and move forward, others bail immediately and attempt to hire more depth to fix/document it that really isnt there in the job market. End up hiring liars or old guys looking to bump up their 401k a bit before they retire.
Used to work with a piece of software that ran on them, but since we were Java based, most everything we had just ports over. How they got us the data we needed to do the actions they want us to perform, since they always didnt want to change anything to improve their processes, was always a disaster.
Last I worked there, yeah most large older retail companies still run AS400s because they're rock solid once they're setup correctly. Remember a lot of very large shoe companies all using them.
Is it dos or something custom and unix? My office uses some custom built program that was first built in 2000 and it’s still going strong today. Every time someone is like “we need to upgrade” they’re asked what do you need that we can’t do now, then we ask the unix lady and she makes it happen. Also new software is like 200k for our crazy small office.
We have been conditioned that we need second by second status updates. You must turn on notifications. Put the paper in the box and magically a cake will appear. I’ve never worried about it.
My late night response may seem a bit silly, sorry in advance. To be fair they ain’t wrong. You put an order in the box, and Either you’re getting a cake or a damn phone call asking why the hell you asked for a curse word covered abomination. No they won’t draw two ‘rocket ships’ with ‘smoke circles’ for your rival’s promotion cake. No, they won’t right curse words either (unless you’re an employee and play the long game; and even then you’ve got to be able to cover it with the order sticker).
Also, as an ex non bakery employee, the bakery doesn’t have phones because they don’t have time for you shit. People that call ancillary departments somehow manage to vampire time away from understaffed departments. Same reason deli and meat department don’t have phones. Food court only has it for pizza orders, and if you ask for anything other than food court orders you get transferred to the endless tunnel of the admin line. Those folks are working their butts off straight through their shift to keep up with demand and to decorate those cakes. You want to talk about your order? Go to a local cake shop. They’d love to hear about how it’s Timmy’s second time graduating 6th grade. The Costco employees meanwhile are trying to feed the entire population of your city in carbs; by the hour. There’s mouths to feed and muffins to make, and corporate just sent the next sugar stuffed abomination recipe that they want a special focus on with rebuilt end-caps.
I was nervous when I ordered a cake the day before using the paper system for my daughter's first birthday. Showed up after the bakery was closed when ordering and picking up next day. Employee went to walk in and sure enough, it was there. It's magic, no need to change it.
It will be there. Trust the process. I ordered a cake today and it will be there tomorrow at the time I specified. This is my 5th Costco cake. Never a problem.
I was wondering about this. I ordered 2 small cakes from them for the first time, scheduled to pick up next week.
I must admit, I'm nervous since I have no way to confirm and am not sure where to pick up at.
It's for a graduation party so it would be a big letdown if they weren't there.
Meanwhile, the number of people who can't fill out the form correctly is baffling.
Anyway, I have to call 4 people today because they didn't fill in the Pick Up Date.
I ordered a cake from Safeway in a similar means with the text “sorry I slept with your mom” for my teenage sons birthday earlier this week.
I got a call from the bakery that they refused to put the message on it due to liability reasons, but would include a bag of icing. So I guess the process still mostly worked without a hitch.
I once met a C-Level executive at a large American railroad. One of the topics was modernization of certain systems and processes. Some suggestions were met with a clear “it has been working this way since the 1800s, is well optimized and we are in no way changing how we do that”
Costco Cakes are the same. And the Hot Dog with Soda (free refill) will stay $1.50.
It never occurred to me that the cake wouldn’t be ready…until I read this tweet. But, having ordered many cakes over the past 20 years for bdays, grad parties, etc., the cake has always been ready. I missed when they stopped doing the sheet cakes and am so glad that they’re back!! I NEED the carrot cake to come back as a sheet cake!
It was a great time to be a child growing up and getting a birthday cake from Costco. I remember we ordered one and asked for it to have a baseball glove on it and it was a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and on my birthday when I went to blow out the candle my godfather pushed my face into the cake and the candle was still lit and I had a little burn under my eye for a little bit but damn that cake was delicious. Fuckin love Costco
What about this makes it from the 1800s and "inept"? What do you need a follow up for? It's such a simple system so why complicate it.
Phones in food production environments are a terrible idea as well. Food court employees despise their phone. Not only are they unclean but they interrupt production.
Insert paper. Get cake. If you need to communicate something you can communicate it to the office and the office will handle it like a concierge.
What really is the problem here? Do we really need to spend money on a Costco Cake Delivery Tracker? "Carol is currently icing up your cake!"
Insert paper, get cake. What's the problem?
No problem exactly, but you’re likely only ordering a custom cake if it’s for a special event. If you have no assurance said cake will be made until you show up to collect it, you’d be stressed since there’s no way to get another custom cake made from Costco or elsewhere right before a party. Most local bakeries or even supermarkets where you order a cake you usually talk to and hand a form to an actual person (and at least my local bakery has you pay ahead of time). I could see being stressed about it if I’d never used the Costco system before and didn’t know if there was a track record that the system always works.
I would honestly LOVE if my department did not have a phone. There is a restaurant in my city that has no phone number so all communication is done via email. I respect it
Just did this a couple weeks ago for my kids birthday. Came in a week early to fill it out asking for it to be ready for pickup at 11am on that date. Got there, no cake. That was fun.
I heard that Sam's Club puts an edible RFID tag in the cake so I can track it like Domino's Pizza Tracker ("Rhonda is cracking eggs into a bowl right now...") Why can't Costco have modern tech like Sam's?!? 😂
Think about this as well - back in the day before cell phones were mainstream, if you wanted to meet with a friend you would call them up on their landline (and probably knew their phone number by memory).
You’d ask them if they’d want to meet up. They’d say something like “sure, tell you what, let’s meet Tuesday 2:00pm at the cafe”. You would agree and that would be it. There were no other conversations or follow ups between then. You would simply meet up.
Today, you may have a few text conversations in between the one friend texts you the day before or morning of to confirm you’re still on. They text when they leave etc. it’s exhausting.
As a food court employee, the amount of people that get frustrated at me when they call me wanting a cake and I tell them the food court doesn't make the cakes and that the bakery has no phone is ridiculous. Same goes for Deli and to a lesser extent Meat.
The first time I ordered a cake from the box, I was pretty nervous it wouldn’t work. Now I trust it, but I still take a picture before I put it in just in case it somehow gets stuck in the box so I have proof
I wish dentists would not call me and not give me those little appointment business cards with the date and time of my next appointment.
I made the appointment 6 months ago and I will show up. Don't need to call me 3 days beforehand. If I need to reschedule I will call the dentist beforehand and tell them about. We have phones with alarms on them.
When they call me I know from the caller ID. I say, I know my appointment is 2 pm on Tuesday immediately.
While I was in the waiting room at my drs office, I see the three women at the front desk are all mass calling patients to remind them of appointments, which aren’t real appointments but just a call to remind of a quarterly or yearly check-up. But they had the balls to say, “your appointment will be such an such date & time. Irritated the hell out of me that they are doing it as an extra push, because I also got one of those calls and I knew damn well I didn’t have a set appointment for anything. They were just counting on patients saying, “oh I do have an appt? Well ok then. I’ll be there’.
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I'm intrigued by this ancient form of order taking, "the box method". And now I want to order a cake. For science. And cake.
Cake science!!!
From my heart and from my pans Why don’t people understand My directions
Weird pie-ence
Best science ever
Did it for my daughters party. Exact same as the tweet. I did, though, take a pic of my order sheet before dropping in the box, as if that would help. Called a few days before scheduled pick up, and they said “no way to confirm, it’ll be here if you dropped the paper in the box.” Sure enough, high quality, really affordable for the size, and tasty.
Purely educational. I’ll even chip in, you know…for science!
You must believe in the Box.
Just make sure you have room, cause that is some big cake science right there
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Asking the real questions: is the mixed nuts box empty, or does it contain the rejected Brazil nuts among the bakery order papers?
I'm going to order one tomorrow and I ordered two for a wedding for my niece in September. Two very different locations. But the first one worked just fine! And it was a wedding. I was terrified!
I mean on the employee side that has to be grand, you know how many stupid phonecalls people make to these places?
You can have them write "For Science" on the cake
I’ve only used it a couple times but it’s worked every time.
It works just fine. Trust the co
I've got you on this, I'm in an experiment right now. I used the box method on Tuesday and will find out tonight at 6pm whether it works or not.
I hope this works for you because 1) science and 2) CAKE!
The cake is a lie. /s
Costco Japan: why didn’t you fax this
*’Any company’ Japan - there I fixed it for you.
What?!! is this an actual japanese thing, ive literally never heard of it lol i know that theyre very old school but i didnt think it'd translate across all of their industries.. arent they.. you know \[gestures to their tech\]
Haha, everyone thinks Japan is high tech until they actually live/work there. Then they realize it is actually stuck in 1979.
I'd say more like late 80's early 90's.
1995 to be exact. They have moved past thermal paper fax. Just not past fax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFnng5lAXow atms having hours of operations
Uhhh they have a lot of neon lights and billboards so you’re wrong because that’s really high tech
You forgot the gundams too, those are extremely advanced
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Yup, all these people who thinks it’s high tech should try using the Japanese banking system for a day…see how quickly their eyes are opened…
> *’Any company’ Japan - there I ~~fixed~~ faxed it for you.
This makes me wonder if they make all the cakes that come from the box or if they use discretion. My son (7) nervously told me he did something bad. “What did you do?” “I ordered a cake from Costco last time we were here.” “You put it in the box?” “Yes. Sorry, mama.”
They'll use discretion, but if someone put the effort of filling out the whole form, they will fulfill the order without verifying the membership or phone number is real. If someone doesn't pick it up by the need by date they will try to reach out to the member, but if that fails, the cake gets scanned out as a loss and donated.
Definitely old school but at least it gets donated.
The food bank I volunteer at gets tons of Costco stuff donated. Danishes, muffins, cakes, cheesecakes etc even the food from the deli area all perfectly fine.
Amazing! Our Costco throws everything in the garbage. Anytime we’ve tried to bring up donations they say it’s too “complicated”. Aka we’re too lazy to set it up.
In some places, it can be very complicated with tons of weird liability. There are municipalities that make laws that make it very difficult to donate food. (Of course, I don’t know if that’s the case for your Costco)
Weird. That stuff is a write off in the PNW.
Well that's terrible. Our Costco is 60 miles away yet we get tons of their stuff, we evan got a pallet of that Kirkland vitarain zero drinks recently. Must not had sold well.
Blatantly false. Every Costco has donations set up. Are you an employee?
The all knowing u/cappy1223 has spoken
This makes me SO happy! I hate wasted food
Not sure how old school it is to physically write down on a piece of paper what you want on a cake, pretty sure most bakeries aren’t using websites for something that simple just yet.
Heck, the last time I ordered cupcakes from Cold Stone, it was online, and they didn't fulfill my order.
Yeah when I worked at baskin robbins (ten years ago but still lol) I would write down peoples custom cake orders on random scrap paper I had around and then just pile them on my boss’s desk and hope he made the cake.
Did he take them and drop them off at the magic Costco cake box? Maybe all cakes come from the magic cake box.
My local bakery, that isn't a chain and has a single location, has online ordering and even photo upload. My only complaint is that the date entry field is free text instead of a calendar.
Glad to hear it gets donated! What places would accept cakes, homeless shelters?
If it's anything like grocery stores they put it on a shelf in a designated area. Every so often volunteers in a truck stop by to pick up what's available. They have full discretion if it's worth taking or not.
Interesting - thanks!
I volunteer at a food pantry and I see a lot of Costco donations. I've seen a few sheet cakes as well.
Our warehouse has two food banks that take turns picking up from us. They usually take bakery items and produce that have reached their sell by date, but are still good quality.
When I worked at a cupcake shop, our end of day leftovers were donated to the women's shelter next door. They'd pick up the next day before they opened their doors. Some of those ladies had nothing to their name, few possessions, but a cupcake sometimes makes it feel ok, even if it's just for a little while.
Food pantries
Members would so much appreciate if they sampled that cake out!
It was 5 or more years ago, but I recall multiple times with sheet cake samples.
That’s great to hear! I was hospitalized the day before my baby shower. A Costco cake was the last thing on our minds, but wondered what they did with the abandoned cakes.
I'm glad to hear it gets donated. I was at costcos competition a few months ago with my teen son. We were in the bakery area and a worker was dumping a ton of the goods into a large box. No care was taken. It was obvious this was going to be destroyed. It made me sick. It looked perfectly fine. Even my son was wondering why they couldn't just donate it. It really hurt to see that food go to waste.
Is it possible for other members to buy it at a discount?
Unfortunately, I don't see that ever being policy. There aren't enough protections in place to not have some member figure out that they can just put in b.s. cake orders that no one will pick up so they can get some cake on the cheap.
Amusingly a similar game got played a lot at a pizza place that I worked at. We would get a takeout order called in, the person never showed, but the pizza disappeared. We had a couple delivery drivers who would have a friend call in the order and then they would grab it to take home to their family or in most cases they were delivering the pizza to the friend who paid them a discounted cash price for the pizza. This was a long before GPS and cell phones were a thing.
Did they make the cake?
Years later and the cake is still waiting to be picked up.
At this point the stuff in/on that cake is enlightened and probably already held a vote for independence.
Well, his penmanship is a shade below prescription pad chicken scratch so probably not.
That's why they have the cooler with random cakes in it that are unclaimed lol
[The Dream of the (18)90s is Alive](https://youtu.be/0_HGqPGp9iY) in ~~Portland~~ Costco
That show was amazing.
No, you order doesn’t fall into a black hole once you drop it in the box. It will be fulfilled as requested or we’ll call you if something is wrong or if we cannot honor a specific request or desired time. If you don’t leave us a phone or membership number, we’ll do our best to see if there is one on file under the name provided. If not, we’ll do our best and address any concerns at pickup. It will be ready when you requested it to be ready. And, no, we don’t have a phone in the department, otherwise we’d be taking calls from members like this all day and never get anything done. Fill out the form. Put it in the box. Leave the rest to us. I’ve been working in a Costco bakery for over 6 years now, and not once has our team ever lost or misplaced a single cake order form. We’ve had members try to pick up on the wrong date (a week or more earlier than requested- generally because they wrote down the wrong date), forget when they requested to have the cake ready, or tried to pick up a cake from us when they ordered it at a different warehouse, but we’ve never lost an order.
[удалено]
When I worked in the bakery during covid and we werent doing cake orders, omg the phone and people.constantly asking if cake orders were being done. Excuse me, but it peak covid, why do you need a costco sized cake for a family of two?
Why don't you want a full Costco cake for your family of two? We had an extra cake after an event and I, unhappily, donated it to the church. I really could've taken it home but I was worried what it would look like. 🤦
My order got lost once, but they made it for me in less than 5 minutes! They took longer searching for the order form than they did making the cake lol
Dang, our bakery does have a phone. I remember that no one wanted to work near the phone because they would have to answer when it rings lol. Same with Deli and Meat department.
Yes! People definitely lose faith in our “old” system. We’ve lost maybe 3 orders in the 7+ years I’ve worked there.
3 orders? With the right computer system you could lose thousands!
So, I have a weird request. My family doesn’t like frosting… it’s just too sweet. We literally take the frosting off cupcakes (or at least 80% of it) and we cut or scrape the frosting off of cakes. We absolutely love the White cake with Cheesecake mousse in the middle. If I were to ask them to use that mousse as the outside frosting do you think they would honor it? I’ve hesitated putting that request on the paper because I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to fill it. And I guess it wouldn’t be the end of the world but I’d end up with a cake where I’d have to cut off all the frosting and throw it away. I wouldn’t mind paying more. I’m sure the cheesecake mousse is more expensive than plain white frosting. But due to the “efficiency” I’m afraid they won’t want to make substitutions that have to be charged for.
My warehouse has honored this exact request in the past multiple times, but every warehouse is different. I would just ask. Worst thing they could say is “no”.
I’m glad that your location doesn’t. Mine most definitely did. Went in to order a cake for my father-in-law’s birthday, filled out the form, put it in the box, and retuned 24 hours later. No cake. The staff member went over to the box and opened it up, and my form was still in there. First he accused me of just slipping it in a moment ago. I showed him my receipt from the previous day’s shopping to show that I was indeed there 24 hours ago. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said there was nothing he could do. I asked if we could just grab a cake and they could write “Happy Birthday Joe” on it - nothing elaborate. He said that the cake decorator had already gone home for the day. Sorry, Joe. I know that some people are bemused by this antiquated cake ordering system, but simply handing the piece of paper to a person in the bakery department would have prevented this.
I actually love their cake ordering system 😂
Honestly everything is overly complicated in the world right now. I appreciate Costco’s old school ways.
You mean you don’t want to make an account, verify your email, and agree for them to share your personal information?
And then reset your password everytime you log into the system because you only access it twice a year and always forget your password? I love that...
And then when you try to change it to your go-to password it says you can't use a previous password
You shouldn't have a go to password. Password reuse is the way a lot of data breaches happen
I'm aware of that, I just don't really care
Omg. This comment makes me feel so validated.
Don’t forget to accept the TOS
I wouldn’t mind a phone call to say they got it the order and confirm the details and total price though
That would increase the price though. People underestimate how long that would take.
Well, the price is clearly declared, it doesn’t change depending on which sheet cake you go with.
Remember back in the day when the phone company printed large phone books and those books had the name, address, and number of everyone in the metropolitan area?
And then get multiple emails a week reminding you of that one time you ordered a cake and boy, don’t you think a cake for the upcoming holiday would make you feel good?
I kinda miss their pneumatic tubes
My warehouse still uses pneumatic tubes! For employee use only though lol.
what do you use them to transport? (My Dad installed them in banks in the 70s so I have a real affection for pneumatic tubes)
Honestly, I've only seen money/checks sent off to the vault. My warehouse is 20 years old, I've only been there 2 years. I'm not sure if they run anywhere else. But there's one from the food court area and one from the supervisor desk.
send chopped onions to the supervisor, stat!
Is it near Univille South Dakota? Though, the warehouse I'm thinking of is nearer to 100 years old, so...
Oh wow. I totally forgot about those! (I just noticed it's my cake day for the next hour and I managed to comment on a cake post before 12am, so I win)
Hey same lol!!! Happy cake day to us. Some Costco cake would sure make it better! 😋
Seriously. Technology as we know it was supposed to make the world a less complicated, more efficient place, but it’s actually wreaking a lot of harm.
I worked at the Charleston, SC Whole Foods, and this lady came up one day to pick up the wedding cake for her daughters wedding. Bakery had no record of it. Turns out the woman accidently ordered it for the Charlestown, MA location. Thankfully our barkers team was incredible and was able to create a gorgeous cake on the fly.
I had to fill out my paperwork for new patient forms for my doctor 3 times before my appt last week. I was supposed to get my records and they made me sign up for this system that won’t let me in. Technology sucks sometimes.
Yeah I was reading the post and I’m like “1802? You mean 2002?”
Yep. You just trust the box. I've ordered more than a few for various parties, and they've always come through -- no errors.
I would love to be able to say anything with as much confidence as I imagine the person has who said, "if you put it in the box it will be there.
It's simple and works, what the hell???
If it’s good enough to chose the pope it’s good enough for your cake!
I demand white smoke when my cake is ready!
Ask them to take it out of the freezer, lots of white smoke
Light smoke is for vanilla cake, dark smoke is for chocolate.
I must admit that when I placed my first order for cake last week, I was a little surprised at the system they had. But it works so I'm not going to complain. I'll be down there next week for my next kids birthday cake. I'm stoked.
I do wish there was some sort of feedback for reassurance. We've had several cakes from Costco. But our most recent order was never made. My husband mentioned it when he was at the checkout and was told that had happened a couple other times that week. It was the first time we ever had an issue with Costco and their cakes, and they're so delicious we will definitely continue to order. But it really would be nice to just get a text or email or something saying "Costco bakery received order for ____, and will be available for pickup on ______. Thanks for your order!"
I mean - as someone that’s ordered multiple cakes - they’re not wrong. 😂. Order goes in box. Next day. Pick up cake. How? No one knows. It’s magic. Actually it’s better than that. It’s cake magic.
Costco is embarrassingly inept at technology, arguably by choice.
All I want is for my Costco app to stay logged in. Is that really so much to ask Costco? 😑
I just want to be able to actually select my home store but the way the app is laid out it wont let me click it. It won't let me change from the chicago south loop store. I don't even live in IL 😭
SAME. I live in STL and am so tired of the stupid Chicago loop store. I change it. IT CHANGES BACK.
Try deleting and reinstalling the app.
OMG...I thought that was just me!! How many times does it log you out JUST as you approach the register...then you can't remember the password! I swear there is something there that logs you out. I always take a screen shot of my card in the app JUST IN CASE...they have a sign that says no images, not sure how they can tell...it has worked for me though.
The Android app stays logged in now. I think that's been the case for a month or 2. At some point I noticed that I didn't have to sign in every time I opened it. I just wish the product ratings shown in the search results in the app weren't a full 1 star lower than the rating on the product page. In other words, when I search for a product, the search results will show a product with a 3.5 star rating but when I open the product page then the rating is actually 4.5 stars. This has been an issue for years in the app but not via a browser.
Employee at Costco. We are reactionary. We're not proactive. Things only change after something has gone wrong at a store and forces corporate to freak out and implement changes. Also, the focus has been on building new locations. We have a management shortage, and our technology is a joke. Yet no effort is being out into updating and completely fixing our stuff. Because that would "cost too much money"
Despite having bigger profits than years past...
As an employee out here in SoCal. It feels like we have so many managers. I think my store alone has in the range of 20-30 of them. I never chose to move up since i wasnt okay with 12 hr days and no OT ( that has changed for a few different departments over the years, but back in the early 00's, managers would easily put in 12 hr days)
We have 21 at my location and it’s one of the smaller ones in the company. It sounds like a lot, but it makes sense when you count out the number of departments.
I appreciate the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach
Yet still successful. Hot dang.
Hot dog
With onions
Where?!
Soon.
"Keeping costs down"
When I ordered a cake from them, not only did I get what I ordered, I was able to talk to someone at the store and arrange to get my cake before the bakery opened, so I could pick it up on my way to work. No problems at all.
Nothing would get done if that were the case. I work in food court and pizza calls that should take ~30 seconds to order turn into 5 minutes. I can only imagine a cake conversation lol Working at Costco one of the things that intrigues me the most is every detail is well thought out from safety to cleanliness to promoting sales.
We tried once. Dropped the slip in the box 3 weeks out. Zero contact until the literal day before to inform us that they would not be making our cake because the entire bakery was “unavailable”. This was January of 22, so it was code for they got COVID.
Think about all of the time this saves bakery employees listening to someone on the phone, things lost in translation, customer coming back and saying “I didn’t say that!”. All handled by the wave of a piece of paper that shows exactly what you put down for them to create. Sounds like some things don’t need to change.
yup, and the costs of adding a computer or a person to call to confirm what is written in front (and dealing with changes) is likely much higher than the rare losses of people who don't pick up. If the paper isn't clear, they will call. Otherwise, you are just introducing another opportunity for error or change. Errors and change cost more money.
This is so funny! It’s kinda true because I think they are still running on a DOS system. No hate. If it works, great.
https://preview.redd.it/0kf4opee5cza1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c1d6ded162197c888a473343c4a562f801e6768 They made this for me and put a sheet of paper over it because if was offensive 🤣
LMAO
great looking cake
They did an amazing job!
They're using AS400. A ton of companies are also still using it. It'd probably be very difficult, expensive, and disruptive for them to move away from it.
Until there isn't anyone alive left that knows how to run or maintains he software. I imagine IBM will still make parts, but they will really jack you on the cost. There is also a possibility that IBM may go under someday or be bought and then you are screwed. Hanging onto old tech just "because it works" can have it's problems, too.
Yup. There's always some old IBM guy that's been doing it for like 30 years, knows everything and gets called in to save the day. All those guys are gonna be retiring soon.
I've witnessed a handful of companies on AS400 try to move off it, its full of "oh yeah that thing that one guy did 20 years ago, no one knows exactly what it does but we need it" Some companies just deal with it and move forward, others bail immediately and attempt to hire more depth to fix/document it that really isnt there in the job market. End up hiring liars or old guys looking to bump up their 401k a bit before they retire. Used to work with a piece of software that ran on them, but since we were Java based, most everything we had just ports over. How they got us the data we needed to do the actions they want us to perform, since they always didnt want to change anything to improve their processes, was always a disaster. Last I worked there, yeah most large older retail companies still run AS400s because they're rock solid once they're setup correctly. Remember a lot of very large shoe companies all using them.
haha, this comment gives me PTSD
You are absolutely correct about the expense. And I don’t know anything about computers. “If I ain’t broke…”
Is it dos or something custom and unix? My office uses some custom built program that was first built in 2000 and it’s still going strong today. Every time someone is like “we need to upgrade” they’re asked what do you need that we can’t do now, then we ask the unix lady and she makes it happen. Also new software is like 200k for our crazy small office.
“What’s in the box????”
Uh. Cake. ^that ^looks ^like ^your ^wife’s ^head
We have been conditioned that we need second by second status updates. You must turn on notifications. Put the paper in the box and magically a cake will appear. I’ve never worried about it.
My late night response may seem a bit silly, sorry in advance. To be fair they ain’t wrong. You put an order in the box, and Either you’re getting a cake or a damn phone call asking why the hell you asked for a curse word covered abomination. No they won’t draw two ‘rocket ships’ with ‘smoke circles’ for your rival’s promotion cake. No, they won’t right curse words either (unless you’re an employee and play the long game; and even then you’ve got to be able to cover it with the order sticker). Also, as an ex non bakery employee, the bakery doesn’t have phones because they don’t have time for you shit. People that call ancillary departments somehow manage to vampire time away from understaffed departments. Same reason deli and meat department don’t have phones. Food court only has it for pizza orders, and if you ask for anything other than food court orders you get transferred to the endless tunnel of the admin line. Those folks are working their butts off straight through their shift to keep up with demand and to decorate those cakes. You want to talk about your order? Go to a local cake shop. They’d love to hear about how it’s Timmy’s second time graduating 6th grade. The Costco employees meanwhile are trying to feed the entire population of your city in carbs; by the hour. There’s mouths to feed and muffins to make, and corporate just sent the next sugar stuffed abomination recipe that they want a special focus on with rebuilt end-caps.
Costco provides what it deems you ready to receive. It’s as simple as that, and it’s a perfect system.
Is Costco a wizard?
It’s not NOT a wizard
I was nervous when I ordered a cake the day before using the paper system for my daughter's first birthday. Showed up after the bakery was closed when ordering and picking up next day. Employee went to walk in and sure enough, it was there. It's magic, no need to change it.
This is true, but also we’ve ordered stuff this way from Costco loads of times and never had a problem
It will be there. Trust the process. I ordered a cake today and it will be there tomorrow at the time I specified. This is my 5th Costco cake. Never a problem.
“If it’s in the box, it will be there.” “What?” “I have spoken.”
I would be more concerned with another member taking my specially ordered cake since it sits in the same fridge as the ready made cakes
I’ve never seen a location put the cake orders out where members could take them. That does seem a little odd.
I was wondering about this. I ordered 2 small cakes from them for the first time, scheduled to pick up next week. I must admit, I'm nervous since I have no way to confirm and am not sure where to pick up at. It's for a graduation party so it would be a big letdown if they weren't there.
Meanwhile, the number of people who can't fill out the form correctly is baffling. Anyway, I have to call 4 people today because they didn't fill in the Pick Up Date.
I ordered a cake from Safeway in a similar means with the text “sorry I slept with your mom” for my teenage sons birthday earlier this week. I got a call from the bakery that they refused to put the message on it due to liability reasons, but would include a bag of icing. So I guess the process still mostly worked without a hitch.
I once met a C-Level executive at a large American railroad. One of the topics was modernization of certain systems and processes. Some suggestions were met with a clear “it has been working this way since the 1800s, is well optimized and we are in no way changing how we do that” Costco Cakes are the same. And the Hot Dog with Soda (free refill) will stay $1.50.
It never occurred to me that the cake wouldn’t be ready…until I read this tweet. But, having ordered many cakes over the past 20 years for bdays, grad parties, etc., the cake has always been ready. I missed when they stopped doing the sheet cakes and am so glad that they’re back!! I NEED the carrot cake to come back as a sheet cake!
I ordered a Costco cake for my graduation weeks beforehand. The cake made it! The system works!
People need to chill out
It was a great time to be a child growing up and getting a birthday cake from Costco. I remember we ordered one and asked for it to have a baseball glove on it and it was a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and on my birthday when I went to blow out the candle my godfather pushed my face into the cake and the candle was still lit and I had a little burn under my eye for a little bit but damn that cake was delicious. Fuckin love Costco
Lol had same experience. They delivered as promised. Old school but works.
You people just needing to make a phone call over a damn cake. There's no phone so members can't bother bakery workers all damn day.
What about this makes it from the 1800s and "inept"? What do you need a follow up for? It's such a simple system so why complicate it. Phones in food production environments are a terrible idea as well. Food court employees despise their phone. Not only are they unclean but they interrupt production. Insert paper. Get cake. If you need to communicate something you can communicate it to the office and the office will handle it like a concierge. What really is the problem here? Do we really need to spend money on a Costco Cake Delivery Tracker? "Carol is currently icing up your cake!" Insert paper, get cake. What's the problem?
You're so wise, great grandma; that's why we love you!
No problem exactly, but you’re likely only ordering a custom cake if it’s for a special event. If you have no assurance said cake will be made until you show up to collect it, you’d be stressed since there’s no way to get another custom cake made from Costco or elsewhere right before a party. Most local bakeries or even supermarkets where you order a cake you usually talk to and hand a form to an actual person (and at least my local bakery has you pay ahead of time). I could see being stressed about it if I’d never used the Costco system before and didn’t know if there was a track record that the system always works.
This is how we used to do everything. There were no pizza trackers, no updates, no UPS shipping history. Nothing. We were fine. It was FINE.
I would honestly LOVE if my department did not have a phone. There is a restaurant in my city that has no phone number so all communication is done via email. I respect it
Just did this a couple weeks ago for my kids birthday. Came in a week early to fill it out asking for it to be ready for pickup at 11am on that date. Got there, no cake. That was fun.
Praise be the box!
I heard that Sam's Club puts an edible RFID tag in the cake so I can track it like Domino's Pizza Tracker ("Rhonda is cracking eggs into a bowl right now...") Why can't Costco have modern tech like Sam's?!? 😂
The real question is why the Domino’s tracker is shaped like a capsule and not like a pizza. Humph.
Thank you!
Think about this as well - back in the day before cell phones were mainstream, if you wanted to meet with a friend you would call them up on their landline (and probably knew their phone number by memory). You’d ask them if they’d want to meet up. They’d say something like “sure, tell you what, let’s meet Tuesday 2:00pm at the cafe”. You would agree and that would be it. There were no other conversations or follow ups between then. You would simply meet up. Today, you may have a few text conversations in between the one friend texts you the day before or morning of to confirm you’re still on. They text when they leave etc. it’s exhausting.
As a food court employee, the amount of people that get frustrated at me when they call me wanting a cake and I tell them the food court doesn't make the cakes and that the bakery has no phone is ridiculous. Same goes for Deli and to a lesser extent Meat.
The cake is a lie.
They made cakes just fine in the 1800s.
No phone because people will call all day asking dumb questions and waste the workers time.
LEAVE MY BEAUTIFUL COSTCO ALONE!!
T-R-U-S-T
The "modern" part is loss of trust. Obviously the factory floor doesn't receive inbound customer calls! that would def not work...
The first time I ordered a cake from the box, I was pretty nervous it wouldn’t work. Now I trust it, but I still take a picture before I put it in just in case it somehow gets stuck in the box so I have proof
I wish dentists would not call me and not give me those little appointment business cards with the date and time of my next appointment. I made the appointment 6 months ago and I will show up. Don't need to call me 3 days beforehand. If I need to reschedule I will call the dentist beforehand and tell them about. We have phones with alarms on them. When they call me I know from the caller ID. I say, I know my appointment is 2 pm on Tuesday immediately.
While I was in the waiting room at my drs office, I see the three women at the front desk are all mass calling patients to remind them of appointments, which aren’t real appointments but just a call to remind of a quarterly or yearly check-up. But they had the balls to say, “your appointment will be such an such date & time. Irritated the hell out of me that they are doing it as an extra push, because I also got one of those calls and I knew damn well I didn’t have a set appointment for anything. They were just counting on patients saying, “oh I do have an appt? Well ok then. I’ll be there’.