I work for the patisserie Ladurée which has been around since 1862. It is found in posh places of Paris and at the airport. I work in one at a department store called Printemps on the boulevard Haussmann (next to the Galeries Lafayette). This store focuses on luxury, and the brand neighbors to mine are Gucci, Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, DeBeers, etc. There are 4 different, strategically placed, Laduree vending points in the department store. I work mostly at the one situated at the main entrance of the store. With heavy foot traffic, it is the most profitable vending point. The picture Luke took of me is at that location. On Saturdays, the lines get long, and for the week before Christmas, comes out the door.
Apart from French customers, we sell primarily to Chinese tourists who comes in tour buses, then Japanese, Russian, Saudi Arabian and the rest of the world tourists in distant second. During the day I speak English half of the time. And now I wish I knew Mandarin too. It happened a couple of times that a person couldn’t communicate at all with me, and that was frustrating.
My outfit is a knee high black dress, a pink apron, and a pink bow tie. I also wear black tights, and black flats. I have to tie my hair in a bun, and put a little bit of make-up everyday (not used to that). Anyway, that’s the outfit. There’s more than remembering the 18 flavors of macarons. That part was done in a few minutes. Laduree has a lot of packaging options with codes to memorize, and different procedures going with them. They also have dozens of different tea with names like Le Roi Soleil or Marie-Antoinette or 1001 nuits, which I never can remember what the hell is in it. There are also dozens of candles, jams, honey, and flower confits, chocolates, bags, nougats, marshmallows, meringues, cookies, room scents,… And thank you so much, I didn’t have to memorize any of the beauty products that Laduree sells at other locations in Paris.
