On the night of Sunday, Merlin Reiter comes to work an hour earlier at the local bakery Brotzeit in Pullach. Because one hour of working time is lost, because at two o’clock it is suddenly three o’clock, the Sunday shift workers start this weekend at 0.30 a.m. instead of at 1.30 a.m. “Otherwise our whole process wouldn’t work,” says the 25-year-old, who completed his apprenticeship as a baker in 2017. After all, around 1000 small baked goods have to be made overnight so that the people of Pullach have their fresh rolls.
Reiter’s duty then goes until 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. Then he goes home, lowers the shutters – “I can make my room pitch black” – and disappears without an alarm clock, as he says. After the morning shift, he usually sleeps two to four hours. In the afternoon he enjoys his free time, the evening is very short, because between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. he lowers the shutters again. Eventually his duty begins again in the middle of the night.
“Of course you have to have a good night’s sleep.”
With these already demanding rhythms, does the time change confuse him even more? No, quite the opposite, he says. “It only bothers people who always go to bed at the same time.” He and his colleagues practice sleeping in stages and the bedtime changes very often, at least every week, because then the shifts and work starts also change. The first shift starts at 1:30 a.m., the second at 2:30 a.m., and the third at 4 a.m. “I always sleep at a slightly different time depending on the working hours.”
This means that Merlin Richter experiences a small summer or winter time change every week. He’s used to it, he assures. “Of course you have to get a good night’s sleep, otherwise this job isn’t for you,” says the baker. He himself has this good sleep and can also switch off very well at different times.
This Sunday at 0.30 a.m. we start with the baguette. “It’s divided, cut and shot.” shot? This is a technical term and refers to the very quick removal of the tray from under the baked goods so that they remain at the back of the oven. Then it goes on with multigrain, sunflower rolls, pumpkin seeds. At the end there are the pretzels and normal rolls. The bakers don’t have to make the dough at night, it’s already in long-term cooling, it’s prepared the day before. But it is not frozen, only chilled, emphasizes Richter.
This Sunday, Reiter has one more task: He’s the one who has to drive to the bread bakery in Grünwald in the morning. There he prepares the sourdough, the sourdough (seeds that are mixed with water) and the poolishe, a dough mixture made of more, water and a little yeast that is used to bake bread.
So the fact that daylight saving time begins on Sunday isn’t a problem for him at all? Not sleep-wise, he assures. “The only annoying thing is that I lose an hour of free time that day.” Because Richter is on duty again on Monday, and it starts at 1.30 a.m. according to the new time.