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A life of work and food
Oct. 15th, 2011 08:58 amWell, I survived my first two weeks of taking calls. It wasn't truly terrible, and I don't mean to make it sound that way, of course. But often I appreciate not taking calls more than taking calls. I was quite happy on Friday, when I got to spend the whole shift doing a research project for a client instead of being on the phones. The research we're allowed - nay, encouraged -- to do to help our clients with their requests is amazing. No company that I've worked for before has ever given its employees such freedom. We're perfectly entitled to say, "That might require some research. Rather than you waiting on hold, can I call you back with the answer?" It's a level of freedom in my job that I'm still marveling over; I'm not sure I'll ever truly get used to it, since I spent so long in so many jobs where the emphasis was on giving as many people minimal service as possible instead of giving fewer people exceptional service.
Starting on Monday, we're all back in supplemental training for four weeks. No calls through that entire time, hurrah! I'm told that what we're learning is going to take the full four weeks to master, but unless it's far more complex than some of our quality mentors make it seem, I can't imagine how that could be true. I don't doubt that we have things to learn, but I don't know that we'll need a full month to grasp it. Of course, the company has been doing this for years, so I'm going to assume they know better than I do how long it will take.
I have few plans today. Mostly I plan to spend the day relaxing and catching up on reading, though I do need to go out at some point and buy a few groceries. I'm out of milk and bread, and I don't think I have many vegetables at the moment. I can't afford much at the moment, but much is relative...
There's a woman nearby who is on a hunger strike until she fills up a 52-foot long trailer with donated goods for the local food bank. If I can, I'll certainly donate a few things, because I know what it's like to have to rely on the charity of others in order to get by, and I know that the local food banks are always looking for donations because so many people need and so few people give. But hearing about it made me think that it's a shame I can't donate the things that were instrumental to me finding foods that were both cheap, plentiful, tasty, and most of all not bad for a person. Most donations are boxes of Kraft Dinner, cans of cheap soup or pasta, white bread. Things that are high in additives and low in cost and nutrition.
When I had even less money than I do now, I had to get creative with what I bought to eat. Kraft Dinner may have been relatively cheap, but it wasn't always filling. What I did learn, though, is that if I went to a bulk store and just bought elbow macaroni and cheese sauce powder, I could buy the equivalent in cost to a box of Kraft Dinner but walk out of the store with twice the food that the box would have given me. Bulk stores did wonders for helping me get through lean times. Rice is cheap. Beans are cheap. Flour is cheap. Potatoes are cheap. And there are countless ways to flavour them and make delicious meals using mostly only those four things.
But there are two problems with this. The first is that most food banks don't accept food from bulk stores, because they're in unsealed packages. Packages of these things cost more, in no small part because you're paying a portion of that price for the package, the brand name, the image. So fewer people will donate food like that, food that could be a great step and inspiration to a person finding their way out of the poverty diet, because of the risk that the food may be tampered with.
The second problem is that so many people don't know how to cook. There are myriad free ways to obtain recipes now (the Internet, libraries, friends, coworkers, or just experimenting in the kitchen), but there's a general reluctance to try. Or else people come home from work so bone-weary and worn down that it's easier to heat up a can of soup than it is to make something more nutritious, something that might work out, in the long run, to be cheaper and healthier.
One thing I've gotten quite good at making is baked beans. For the equivalent of $1 worth of navy beans, 2 $1 cans of tomato soup, and a $1.50 package of breakfast sausages, I can make enough food to last me for four meals. Less than $5 for 4 meals is a bargain. $5 to feed a couple and their 2 kids on a Saturday night is far better than the $10 it would cost to get the equivalent from cans. Or the $40 it might cost to go to McDonalds because it's easier than cooking anything. Baked beans are easy. Most of the work involves waiting, stirring, and then waiting some more.
Or split-pea-and-ham soup. $2 worth of dried split peas, $0.50 worth of potatoes, and the leftover scraps from a $10 from a previous night's dinner, and I've got another 4 meals right there. Meals which can be easily frozen and then thawed when I want it again in a week. Using leftovers instead of throwing them out has also been key to improving my life. Dark meat from a chicken or turkey goes into soup or stew or homemade sausage instead of being thrown in the garbage or compost. I learned never to underestimate the value of leftovers. They're not just the things that nobody wanted. They're another meal in another form.
I hate thinking that some people are honestly too worn down by trying to make ends meet to make the changes that could improve their lives in so many ways. I can understand it, too. I've done it before. Any change takes work, and when you have no energy, whether it's from working all day or being sick or because you haven't slept in 2 nights because your child has the flu, baking a loaf of bread or making chicken stew is the furthest things from your mind.
Cooking helped me a lot. It helped me to relief stress, it helped me by giving me a creative outlet, it helped me ensure that I ate food that was better for me and yet cost less. I feel bad that I can't pass on this inspiration, the tips and tricks and motivation, to people who need it as much or more than I did.
Starting on Monday, we're all back in supplemental training for four weeks. No calls through that entire time, hurrah! I'm told that what we're learning is going to take the full four weeks to master, but unless it's far more complex than some of our quality mentors make it seem, I can't imagine how that could be true. I don't doubt that we have things to learn, but I don't know that we'll need a full month to grasp it. Of course, the company has been doing this for years, so I'm going to assume they know better than I do how long it will take.
I have few plans today. Mostly I plan to spend the day relaxing and catching up on reading, though I do need to go out at some point and buy a few groceries. I'm out of milk and bread, and I don't think I have many vegetables at the moment. I can't afford much at the moment, but much is relative...
There's a woman nearby who is on a hunger strike until she fills up a 52-foot long trailer with donated goods for the local food bank. If I can, I'll certainly donate a few things, because I know what it's like to have to rely on the charity of others in order to get by, and I know that the local food banks are always looking for donations because so many people need and so few people give. But hearing about it made me think that it's a shame I can't donate the things that were instrumental to me finding foods that were both cheap, plentiful, tasty, and most of all not bad for a person. Most donations are boxes of Kraft Dinner, cans of cheap soup or pasta, white bread. Things that are high in additives and low in cost and nutrition.
When I had even less money than I do now, I had to get creative with what I bought to eat. Kraft Dinner may have been relatively cheap, but it wasn't always filling. What I did learn, though, is that if I went to a bulk store and just bought elbow macaroni and cheese sauce powder, I could buy the equivalent in cost to a box of Kraft Dinner but walk out of the store with twice the food that the box would have given me. Bulk stores did wonders for helping me get through lean times. Rice is cheap. Beans are cheap. Flour is cheap. Potatoes are cheap. And there are countless ways to flavour them and make delicious meals using mostly only those four things.
But there are two problems with this. The first is that most food banks don't accept food from bulk stores, because they're in unsealed packages. Packages of these things cost more, in no small part because you're paying a portion of that price for the package, the brand name, the image. So fewer people will donate food like that, food that could be a great step and inspiration to a person finding their way out of the poverty diet, because of the risk that the food may be tampered with.
The second problem is that so many people don't know how to cook. There are myriad free ways to obtain recipes now (the Internet, libraries, friends, coworkers, or just experimenting in the kitchen), but there's a general reluctance to try. Or else people come home from work so bone-weary and worn down that it's easier to heat up a can of soup than it is to make something more nutritious, something that might work out, in the long run, to be cheaper and healthier.
One thing I've gotten quite good at making is baked beans. For the equivalent of $1 worth of navy beans, 2 $1 cans of tomato soup, and a $1.50 package of breakfast sausages, I can make enough food to last me for four meals. Less than $5 for 4 meals is a bargain. $5 to feed a couple and their 2 kids on a Saturday night is far better than the $10 it would cost to get the equivalent from cans. Or the $40 it might cost to go to McDonalds because it's easier than cooking anything. Baked beans are easy. Most of the work involves waiting, stirring, and then waiting some more.
Or split-pea-and-ham soup. $2 worth of dried split peas, $0.50 worth of potatoes, and the leftover scraps from a $10 from a previous night's dinner, and I've got another 4 meals right there. Meals which can be easily frozen and then thawed when I want it again in a week. Using leftovers instead of throwing them out has also been key to improving my life. Dark meat from a chicken or turkey goes into soup or stew or homemade sausage instead of being thrown in the garbage or compost. I learned never to underestimate the value of leftovers. They're not just the things that nobody wanted. They're another meal in another form.
I hate thinking that some people are honestly too worn down by trying to make ends meet to make the changes that could improve their lives in so many ways. I can understand it, too. I've done it before. Any change takes work, and when you have no energy, whether it's from working all day or being sick or because you haven't slept in 2 nights because your child has the flu, baking a loaf of bread or making chicken stew is the furthest things from your mind.
Cooking helped me a lot. It helped me to relief stress, it helped me by giving me a creative outlet, it helped me ensure that I ate food that was better for me and yet cost less. I feel bad that I can't pass on this inspiration, the tips and tricks and motivation, to people who need it as much or more than I did.
