Quality without compromise®

chapter 3: sick of it

Queasy and lethargic, the significantly softened frame of Eden Offen did its best to wobble and bobble in her too-tight work outfit into her and Shira’s cheery workroom.


“Uulllaaaaghh!” was her workday start greeting to Shira, who was already in her seat.

“Rough night again?”

“*Rough first month!* I don’t ever want to see another chocolate in my **life**—premium or otherwise! Milk or dark! Nutty, chewy, or soft-centered! *How am I going to survive 5 more months of this?!*”


Eden had made so much noise, she’d not heard the door swing open.

“You’re doing very well so far, so hopefully it’ll work out.”

“Mr. Easter!”

“Good morning Eden, Shira.”

“’Morning Wes.”

Eden spun her head around almost fast enough to give herself whiplash. “Wes?!” she silently mouthed.


Wesley Easter easily read Eden’s lips. “We’re a California company through and through, hence tending casual where others might use formalities. Were we in the Deep South, assuredly I’d have greeted you as Ms. Offen and Ms. Will. My greeting just now using your given names was intended with the same respect, as is our shared culture here. Shira’s been here longer, so I know she’s comfortable going on a first-name basis. Would you prefer I call you Ms. Offen, which I will gladly do if you so wish?”

“No, I just… I’m….” She never finished her thought aloud.

“Please don’t anyone get worked up over this” he smiled gently. “I am *totally* happy being referred to as any of Wes, Wesley, Mr. Easter, and maybe more variants if I thought carefully about it, interchangeably. Now if someone gets into That asshole Easter or Jerky Wes, that’s a whole other matter—unacceptable. At least to be verbalized or written for others to see.”

“No no! You’re… *more* than kind! I just… it’s…. It’s a *lot* of chocolate!”

“It is. But at least it’s a variety of chocolates with wholesome, pure ingredients and no preservatives, as was this company’s practice before the mid 20th. century mass industrialization of food beyond those like us of an earlier era, where preservatives, other additives, and sometimes less-pure ingredients became common. As Shira knows and you’re now finding out, I’m here this morning for monthly checkups—her two month and your first: your one month. We’ll start with you, Shira. Do you want to meet privately?”

“No need” she smiled. “Eden and I are getting on well—from my end at least, and I’m an open book.”


Indeed, reclined in her chair with her legs restfully spread, had she not already developed chastity fat, the tightness of her thin-fabric pants might have taken her to a whole other level of open.


“Last month you reported touches of nausea, primarily at the end of the day. What’s your current status with that?”

“Improved greatly. Better hydration, mostly plain water but also non-caffeinated teas brewed on the weak side, avoiding things with the same categories of ingredients we use here to the degree possible, healthy veggies and savory foods when hungry—all of these have helped, I think.”

“So nausea issues are… rare at this point, would you say?”

“Pretty close to nonexistent, for me.”

“Excellent” he smiled, tapping some notes into his tablet. “I have no record of other concerns from last month. Am I missing any?”

“No. It was just the nausea from getting used to all the chocolate.”

“Would you say you’re used to your workday average consumption at this point?”

“Well, closing in on that. I’m no longer nauseous, though there were still a few days this past month where by the end of the day I was more than ready to go far, far away from anything black and white and porcelain and chocolate—any one or more of those.”

“I See, capitalized S—*ah* hah hah! OK, I shouldn’t make jokes on the job, nor anywhere else amongst civilized beings. We’re doing what we can to rotate our fails between varieties and evenly distributed between the two of you, to minimize overloading on any one variety. But as you know and Eden’s now going to learn, in a perfect world we’d have no rejects at all, hence no need for the excellent, important work the two of you are doing. The nature of the process is that failures, misadjustments, out-of-tolerance ingredients, and so on tend to affect one product until we detect and resolve the issue, hence yesterday for example we had that problematic batch of Polar Bear Paw®s with the slightly burnt peanuts.”

“Ullllggh—*sorry!*”
“It’s OK, Eden. Or did you want Ms. Offen?”

“Eden.”

“I want to hear all about your experiences and work with you in a moment. So for now listen in, and think about whether you prefer to have a private meeting with me or have it here with your team member. Either option is up to you, no judgement, no bias. Back to you, Shira: any new concerns or questions or anything?”

“Nothing like that. I’m enjoying my job *much* more having a co-worker to talk with, so thank you for scheduling Eden in with me!”

“Gladly. Despite the unfortunate circumstances that led up to it, we’re glad to have her here. And you, for sure.”

“I would like to ask one question that I may have asked last month, that I think Eden wants to ask but will be too shy to follow through on. Why again is it that we Defect Processors in here are prohibited from using our tech devices on the job?”

“Before I answer, totally understood that it would seem to make sense in today’s world to allow employees in your positions to freely do so. Now the answer, two major points. Point 1: we found that allowing previous Defect Processors to use their devices at-will led to more than one of them becoming sufficiently distracted that they failed to keep up with their candy consumption. We do understand that your personal devices need to be at hand for urgent communications, say from relatives in trouble, repair shops contacting you, and the like, hence those things and brief work-related usage are allowed.

“Actually I just remembered a point 1B: one former employee was playing a game or doing something which deleteriously affected her visual system in a manner that her body became far more nauseous than when her device was put away and her focus was elsewhere within this room. She didn’t know what was going on and neither did we, but when she stopped using her screen during her active work shift and only used it on breaks and lunch and before and after work, all was again well with her.

“Point 2: IT objects. This is an issue out on the production floor and for us in the offices as well, though many office jobs including mine require regular contact over handheld devices, so to a degree IT has to deal with it. The reason for IT‘s objection is primarily one of network security: when connected to our internal WiFi, there were situations where malware came in on personal handheld devices—more than one, I’m told—then infiltrated the network and got into some of the production systems. They’ve redone the networking to better isolate production systems that generally have no need to be on the public Internet apart from occasional software updates, setting clocks to network time, and all that. Nevertheless they don’t want to have the greater risk exposure of more devices if those devices are being used primarily or purely for entertainment. Yes Eden?”

She‘d had her hand up. “What about staying off of company WiFi and using cellular?”

“What’s your reception like? Go ahead and pull out your device and try it.”


The results were disappointing. “One bar.”

“There’s a lot of metal rebar and sheet metal all over the place with the machinery and trays and storage and so on. As you two may already know, the whole cellular system was designed by telephone companies for *outdoor mobile* operation. It never occurred to them in the 1980s and 1990s that we would have powerful handheld supercomputers that could be cell phones too that would obviate most people’s need or desire for the old-timey hardwired voice-only telephones they offered back then, hence they figured there was no need for indoor coverage since indoors at home or work people would keep using legacy telephones. Alright, I’m talking too much, and we all need to get on with our workdays. Bottom line as you can see is that cellular is spotty, the company isn’t going to install cellular boosters or anything like that for better in-building coverage as it’s not a business need, and WiFi’s problematic as I explained.