Taste Testing, Taste Taste Testing

It's tough to find work these days. I scour craigslist, newspaper listings and websites that offer work. I peek in windows, looking for needy employers who could use a cute, talented, charismatic girl like myself. Application after redundant application is filled out with all the boring details of my work history, oftentimes followed by what I was once told are illegal personality questionnaires. (Seriously...employers aren't allowed to insist that you must fill them out. It's an invasion of our oh so private privacy.) Rejection after rejection rings lovely in my inbox and voicemail, which, still, are better than those who never get back to me on top of giving me no way to contact them, either. And then there are those who seem to want to hire me, but never give me quite enough information for me to drop everything and move to where they are. *cotridentugh*

Suffice it to say, I am taking whatever I can get it this point. Two jobs is not quite doing it for me right now. Part time work makes for a rough schedule...full of emptiness and not enough money. Today, in desperation, I did a taste test to supplement my income. It took about an hour total and I was paid $35 at the end of it. Being sworn to sacred secrecy, I can't tell you what I tasted, but the process was interesting, and there's nothing either sacred or secret about that, so I am going to write about it.

The taste testing was held in a church. We checked in by showing a photo id and redoing all the paperwork they had already had us do over the phone. Everyone sat by themselves, some with magazines or books to occupy them and others simply staring blankly into space and trying not to make eye contact with anyone else. After (almost) everyone arrived (there were at least eight people who didn't show up) they escorted us into the next room and assigned us to sit at chairs designated with our personalized numbers. We were immediately instructed not to talk to our neighbors, which had already been made clear by the fact that each paper and plastic place setting was divided from its neighbor by an upended white piece of cardboard.

Overall the job felt like a standardized test. An awkwardly shaped, but friendly and surprisingly energetic woman read instructions to all of us from her packet, instructing us to open ours and informing us of the strict process of look at cereal, answer question, pour milk, taste cereal, answer questions, taste cereal, answer questions, taste cereal again to see if it got soggy. Three samples and a printed stop sign mid-test later, we were well on our way to passing. A few more questions and instructions later and we were all handed a check and fairly pushed out of the door. Easiest $35 I ever made in my life. Granted, once upon a time I made $100 for helping someone buy a plane ticket on the interwebs, but that was in Alaska, and there are different rules in Alaska than there are in the lower 48.

There is more I would kind of sort of like to say about the taste testing, but I think that would actually get into the product and I would rather not get an email or phone call one day telling me I can't get any more free money/food because I divulged too much information on the interwebs.

Also I think I hurt my wrist pretending to be a boxer the other day. Owie.

...this is my life...