If That Word Ever Turns Up in 'Collins Concise English Dictionary' -
Then I want royalties. SO! Today we have an Intro full of manglement and an insight into how catering on an industrial scale is so much more complex than bashing out a pan of sauce in your very own kitchen. Thanks to the Youtube channel 'Ripe' for the info. Art!
To set the scene, I will introduce Industrial Lynch Pin, hereafter ILP. He was a Food Scientist, working with artisinal sauces, marinades and dressings, and had been Lead Product Developer for seven years. The jewel in his crown was 'The Midnight Glaze', which he described as a 'black garlic and truffle infused barbeque sauce'. This single line accounted for nearly half the company's revenue. Don't bother trying to Google for it, ILP stated that they're not in South Canada.
A Midnight unclear
Don't knock food scientists. The renowned space opera author E. E. (Edward Elmer) 'Doc' Smith was a food scientist who worked with doughnuts, which I cannot have THANK YOU SO MUCH DIABETES. He started off with butter and oysters, and moved into doughnuts and pastry mixes once he got his Masters in Chemistry, focus on food science. Art!
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| Elmer Phd |
ANYWAY back to ILP. He confirmed what I mentioned above, that doing things on an industrial scale with food is more chemistry and engineering than haute cuisine, and he had seven years experience in the processes for making TMG. Examples he gave:
- Adding emulsifiers at the wrong temperature, even if out by only a couple of degrees, would cause the batch to separate into oil and slurry.
- If the mixers spun too fast, the starch bonds broke and the batch would turn to water.
- If not pasteurised long enough, it became bitter tasting.
Then the Vice President of Operations retired. He had known ILP all the time he'd worked there and was wise enough to leave him alone. Then he retired.
Enter She Who We WIll Named Karen, hereafter SWWWINK. Art!
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| SWWWINK on a good day |
SWWWINK came from a logistics background, knew nothing about industrial catering and had an impressive collection of buzzwords that went with her MBA. Like all manglement, she immediately sought to both make her mark and cut costs, which meant her beady little eyes were focussed on ILP and his two assistants. Within 2 weeks she was querying why he spent so much time working The Midnight Glaze line instead of creating wonderful new sauces.
'Because it's a temperamental recipe that needs babying" was essentially his response. There was no immediate fallout from this. Not until ILP's annual review, where he'd prepared a presentation. This involved breaking down how much TMG made in profit, the 60-hour weeks he pulled, the fact that he wasn't getting market rate and a request for a 20% raise. Art!
"Bad annual review'
SWWWINK's reply to this was NO! because, in her words, 'You just stir the pot. Anyone can do your job.'
This is one of the problems with manglement. They know nothing about the job and what it entails and never bother to do anything sensible or logical such as work-shadowing.
SWWWINK did not appreciate ILP arguing back, flying into a rage and shouting 'YOU ARE JUST AN OVERPAID COOK!' and firing him on the spot. Actually that sounds very South Canadian, manglement ignoring HR and policy. SWWWINK also made the hideous mistake of getting personal and demanding ILP remove all his own files from the company server, calling them 'junk' and threatening legal action if he failed to return every bit of paper he possessed. Another example of manglement not knowing what the background to the job entails - SWWWINK probably gloated afterwards about cutting the wage bill. This is the man who babied The Midnight Glaze for seven years, the golden goose product pulling in 45% of all that company's revenue, and suddenly he and his institutional knowledge is gone. Art!
The thing is that this criteria meant ILP deleted all of what he called the 'Art' files, which detailed not merely the ingredients BUT HOW TO USE THEM. Company management had ignored ILP's pleas to formalise his notes into operating procedures to remove the Bus Factor 1 danger, stating that it would require too much paperwork. Oooops.
You can probably guess where this is heading, and it's nowhere good.
Which is where we shall halt for today, since were I to complete this tale it would be the whole of today's blog. Which I don't want to make a habit of.
NO I WILL NOT CLICK YOUR BAITY ITEM!
Yes, Conrad is quite happy using click-bait titles and images to bait in the unsuspecting traffic, but others using the very same technique irks me. Thus - Art!
This is a still from "The Guns Of Navarone", so now you know. Second from starboard is Anthony Quayle, who carried out this kind of work in real life as an agent of the Special Operations Executive. Third from starboard is Lieutenant-Colonel David Niven, who personally served at the sharp end of the Second Unpleasantness.
Eye Eye
Another not-quite Darwin Award, as the participant survived. Art!
This is a Karcher Power Washer, and as you can see it has a hose attachment. The water is projected out of the nozzle at speeds of at least 100 PROUD IMPERIAL miles per hour, and up to 440 m.p.h. in some model configurations. Dangerously fast.
The anecdote was told by the son of an OSHA inspector, who visited sites to check on industrial compliance. A young apprentice janitor had been told to clean the workplace with a Karcher. It didn't work first time so -
He looked in the nozzle and pulled the trigger. This time it did work, and Hey Pesto! he lost the eye. The company were fined for failing to tell him not to do what he did.
TLDR: A Karcher Power Washer is not a water pistol.
I Saw This And It Seemed Topical
Of course - obviously! - the snow has all gone when I need it to act as an apt background. The principle still stands. Art!
Thank you IWM
It looks like a communication trench as it doesn't have any traverses, duckboards or revetments, and it would be unwise to cluster like this in a front line trench. Plus the Teutons would be liable to shell a camera out of sheer curiosity as to what it was.
Stick A Pin In It
Another from the 'Museum Of Failure' website. They described the debut of the Humane AI 'Pin', which was a screenless AI device. No screen? you ask. Quite true; it projected a message onto any surface held in front of it, such as your hand. Art!
The MOX article was dated 2024, which is when the item debuted. It had, supposedly,
a camera, a rechargeable battery, microphones, speakers and a cellular data plan and phone number for making calls.
Except the battery charger was a fire risk. The software was rubbish. Plus, it cost $700. At the press launch, Humane was careful not to invite any proper IT media, who might have asked awkward questions, which company employees were warned not to ask. And were fired if they did.
Conrad checked online and -
Humane shut down Pin servers in February 2025 and stopped selling them, almost a year ago and have been trying to sell the company to anyone willing to risk it. Hewlett Packard bought some of their assets as fire-sale prices.
Hardly the pin-nacle of AI gadgets. Ha! Do you see wh - O you do.
Finally -
Aha! I have seen this quote before but didn't know to whom it was attributed. Now I do -
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- from Albert Einstein. Now we all know, and you're welcome.
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