If you learn nothing from reading this post (which is probably an appropriate assessment of all of my posts), it should be this: chocolate oranges are best when frozen.
It's true. I have discovered this truth via extensive personal research. I've even considered submitting my work in writing to a few scientific journals. I defy anyone to refute my claim, and here's why:
1. Chocolate. Chocolate is God's way of saying that he loves us and wants us to be happy, if I may paraphrase Benjamin Franklin.
2. A hint of orange flavor. I am usually highly suspect of any product claiming to have an additional "flavor". For example: Vanilla Coke. I'm not opposed to vanilla flavoring in general, and I love Coke, but come on! Either we, as a society, have dulled our tastes to the degree that we must "crank up the volume" in our food products, or we have lost entirely the art of subtlety. I'd have to conclude the latter.
3. It's frozen. The delightful combination of my previous two points, arranged in a clever orange-like formation, is that much more enhanced by its frozen state. It's brisk, refreshing, and slower to melt all over your fingers. Also, the freezer doubles as an excellent hiding place from those would-be chocolate thieves who are not as enlightened as I.
And now to change the subject completely. The company at which I work has recently undergone a significant "restructuring". For those of you with no experience with corporate jargon, "restructuring" is usually a euphemism for "layoffs" - as in this case. Our company is relatively young, and therefore small. At the beginning of this month, we had thirty employees. Now we have twenty-one. Nearly a third of us.
I know that businesses must be cost-effective in order to succeed and make a profit. I know that sometimes that involves a reduction in personnel. I know how lucky I am to still have a job in this economy. But I believe, in our company at least, that layoffs are just as hard on the people who were not let go. Of course this situation affects us differently. The former employees now have to contend with finding new livelihoods. But we - the "survivors", if you will - now have significantly increased workloads, and additional pressure from our corporate management to meet the company's goals. It wouldn't be so bad if, along with the pressure, we also received corresponding support and encouragement from corporate, but that has most definitely not been the case.
The day that the layoffs occurred, the president of our company flew in to our facility to conduct a meeting with the remaining employees and explain the situation. Overall, I gave him two stars out of ten for consistency. The gist of his message was this: "We hated to do this. We're a family at this company. We should have done this a long time ago. We held off because we care about our employees. If you don't like it, we can replace you at any moment."
This was the last thing that we needed to hear. We were already trying to deal with the loss of many of our co-workers, but corporate's response/explanation was a thinly veiled threat. And in my capacity at the company, working in several different departments, I was privy to more information than the rest. I heard about how corporate had made the decision to cut nine people loose with little to no severance pay. I heard about how one of those employees, who had recently moved his family from California to join our company, had not even received any reimbursement for the cost of moving before he was let go, and now never would. I heard about too many things for me to ever extend corporate with any level of trust. These men are millionaires. If this is what it takes to make that kind of money - to make life-changing decisions for people you don't even know for the sake of the almighty dollar, then I take it as confirmation that business is not for me.
For some time now, I have been considering returning to school and obtaining a master's degree. This is not a decision that I'm rushing into. I want to carefully consider my strengths and weaknesses, conduct some self-exploration in an attempt to discover the optimal career path. I want a career that will allow me to comfortably support myself but also be something that I care about and keeps me interested. A certain degree of autonomy would suit me very well, but I don't want the responsibility of owning/running a business. In short, it's been something that I've been in serious contemplation about for some time, and I don't see myself making a final decision in the very near future. However, my recent experiences at work have driven home to me the knowledge that I must make a decision to point my life in a better direction.
In the meantime, however, there are always frozen chocolate oranges.
