Back In The Saddle

After a lengthy absence, I have returned. It took over half a year after the death of my savannah monitor, Basil (see last post), to regain my confidence. I'm back in Bend for a scant few days to visit my family and friends before heading back to school in January. So let's see, what do I have for updates?

As of May I was working for Pacific Coast Fruit Company in Portland, Oregon, one of the most god-awful, bleak, depressing, and oppressive establishments I've ever come across. No care for their employees at all. Anywho, I worked there for the last 6 or 7 months, and got fired last Monday for a reason which falls into the sketchy, fuzzy grey area between legal and illegal- after having just suffered a rather painful fall at work due to a foot-bath mat slipping out from under my feet, I proceeded to clean myself up and continue work. I apparently (but to no memory of my own, I only have my Boss's word on this since she supposedly saw it through the security camera) forgot to wash two cases of broccoli before pouring them into a bucket for use in our products. My supervisor, a great Cuban guy named Manuelo who I greatly respect and look up to, after checking to see if I was okay and not injured, did the exact same thing. Now, this is where the situation gets dicey. At PCF, most vegetables are required by GMP (don't ask me what that stands for, we've never been told at our GMP training meetings) standards to be soaked in "perasan," a solution made of heavily diluted Peroxyacetic Acid and water. This is a general, consumable-safe cleaning agent that we dip most vegetables in(though a fair few are not dipped ever, such as snow peas, green beans, peppers, etc.). Normally, our cases of Broccoli are supposed to be dumped into a bath of perasan and then dried and emptied into a barrel. Obviously, having just fallen, this slipped my mind. And having been worried about me because I had fallen, it slipped my supervisor's mind as well. So, upon checking her security cameras when the report of my having fallen was filed (no doubt to ensure that I didn't file for worker's comp), my boss noticed our indiscretion. We were immediately suspended for three days, every product that had used broccoli from that day was recalled, costing the company a few thousand dollars, and my boss would use our days suspended to decide whether or not to fire us. Well, long story short, she did.

So yeah, that's the story. Now, free of job, I'm heading back to school at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, to major in Journalism and use the next two years down there to set up shop and take care of my lizards, the right way. All that's beginning as of January 1st, and I will update you all then, with full measurements and updates on my animals.