Socchan and the Quest for Sugar

[soc_puppet]

I meant to get milk before I got home last night, I truly did, but I forgot until I was parked out front, and at that point a part of me was dearly hoping that one of my parents had spontaneously picked some up at some point during the day. It's happened before!

No such luck, unfortunately, and I was too tired to go out and get more. A quick glance in the fridge showed me that there was enough for one bowl of cereal in the morning, but not two; good enough.

I get up this morning, remind myself that I'm either re-using milk, or supplementing one bowl of cereal with a sandwich or something, and go upstairs. The last of the milk is gone, the empty jug sitting in the sink. "Sorry, I drank the last of the milk," Mom informs me.

Okay, no problem! I was already thinking of having some sort of sandwich for part of breakfast, I'll just make it a slightly heavier sandwich. And I still have my sweetened iced tea to bring to work!

Five minutes away from work I realize that I have forgotten my tea at home. It is far too late to go back and get it. I resign myself to settling for soda instead.


In other news, we are in Cookie Packaging Season at work right now, and since it's a job I actually rather enjoy, I get to do a fair amount of it! This effectively means that I was paid to listen to an audiobook for over three hours today while I put cookies into plastic bags. A good day overall, I think 😁

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

IFF you have the free time, I'd love to learn how cookies are packaged.

[soc_puppet]

We have cookie-sized plastic envelopes with a sticky seal on the opening flap, covered with another, smaller plastic strip to keep the stickiness fresh. I put a cookie in the bag, remove the strip, fold the top over and seal the bag closed.

Only in this case, we're doing this with a lot of cookies. At least five different flavors, an 420 of each perfect for when you get the munchies. Each tray of cookies holds twenty-four when baking, so they're spaced out evenly and bake thoroughly. It seems silly to put only twenty-four packaged cookies on each tray, though, so I decide I'm going to aim for one hundred.

I stack four full trays of cookies at a slight angle on top of each other, so the weight of each tray doesn't smash the cookies underneath. I set these up to my right on the table in front of me, with a rack of more baked cookies next to it and within reach. On the table and to the left is an empty tray, where I will put the bagged cookies, and on the floor to my left is another empty tray rack. Directly in front of me on the table is some parchment paper to catch crumbs and the like. I get to work.

I start by putting all of the cookies in bags, but not sealing them; I lay the cookies out in columns of five on the empty tray, shingling them. After bagging around fifty cookies, I rotate the tray on my left 180°, so I don't have to reach as far to shingle more cookies. As I empty each baking tray of cookies, I collect the used parchment paper on its own tray on a rack to my right, and any other empty trays on other rack slots. Once I've gotten through all of the trays on the table, I bag four more cookies from a specific tray from the rack on my right, getting 100 cookies exactly. I move the full bagged cookie tray out of the way and repeat the process until the cookies are all in bags.

Now I switch things up! I place an empty tray on the table to my right, and pull a full cookie tray to a spot in reach on the table at my left. In front of me is an empty tray with all of the used parchment paper from baking the cookies stacked on it. The parchment paper is very important, because I'm a high-static individual, and the plastic strips from the cookie bags love to stick to me—but I can get them to let go by giving them parchment paper to cling to instead! I peel the plastic strip off of the cookie bags one at a time, and shingle the now sealed bags on the tray to my right in the same manner as I shingled them before they were sealed. Once I get all of the cookie bags sealed, I store the trays in the freezer, and I'm done!


I like doing this sort of thing because it doesn't require a lot of brain power, and I get to sit down while doing it, unlike a lot of other jobs in the bakery 😛 If I'm on my own, or if my coworkers don't mind/don't need me, I can put on an audiobook or a podcast to listen to while I do it!

Thank you so much for the details

[jesse_the_k]

...because I love a well-thought out process.

(MyGuy is an industrial engineer seg)

I'm a high-static individual

Any idea why?

Sure thing!

[soc_puppet]

I've wondered a few times if it's very difficult to get into official instruction manual writing, since I think I have the basics down 😉


Not a clue about the static. I think that some people just have higher natural levels than others, since my boss has no problem getting the little plastic strips to let go of her, but reports that her boyfriend will often subject her to static shocks.