Let me pitch to you a scenario. You are walking down the street one day, perhaps you've just left a particularly grueling jazzercise class. Ms. Stevens really put you through your paces today, and as you stride down the pavement, your rolled up yoga mat clutched under one arm, you feel your body still flushed from the exertion - but, try as she might, Ms. Stevens will never break you. A cool breeze blows through your sweat-drenched clothes. It feels refreshing. As you are walking along, reveling in the satisfaction of exercise completed, an unmarked vehicle suddenly pulls up beside you. A group of uniformed people jump out and, grabbing you by the arms, quickly drag a burlap sack over your head and bundle you into the back of the van. The last thing you see before the burlap blocks your vision is one of them stamping on your rolled up yoga mat.
You feel the vehicle lurch away and, to prevent you struggling further still, they force your hands together behind your back and cable-tie your wrists. As the vehicle judders down streets, turning sharply, disorienting you, you become aware that you can hear the uniformed people doing something. It sounds like they're unwrapping something. Suddenly, the burlap sack over your head is lifted, slightly and, before you can speak, something is rammed into your mouth.
One of them speaks, it is the first time any of them have spoken to you, "What dya think that is?" Once the shock and initial disgust subside you realise that the thing in your mouth doesn't taste unpleasant. In fact it's sweet, rich, almost creamy. "Huh!?" You spit out the remainder of the pulpy mass in your mouth and, your voice trembling, begin to say, "Umm, is it a Curly Wurly". With that, they loosen the ties, remove the burlap sack and congratulate you, as the newest member of their chocolate taste testing team.
While the above scenario may not resemble how Mondelez Chocolates hires chocolate tasters - I simply can't stress enough just how much I've been legally advised to hammer that point home - the end result could prove to be the same for you. Mondelez Chocolates, owners of Cadburys, are looking to hire a part-time chocolate taster.
They are looking to hire someone to work alongside some 11 other chocolate tasters who will all answer to a panel leader. While these group dynamics exactly mirror those of Jesus Christ and his 12 disciples, it is difficult to say whether there would be anything other than this superficial overlap in your role as a part-time chocolate taster as there would have been for one of Jesus' disciples. As far as are aware Doubting Thomas never wrapped his chops around a Double Decker, though if he had we imagine he would've been sceptical about it.
Though they say that no previous experience is required, they do list the responsibilities which will be inherent to the job.
1) Be able to taste chocolate products and give objective and honest feedback. So if you have a functioning tongue and aren't a compulsive liar, consider yourself eligible.
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2) Work within a team of panelists to share opinions and collaborate to reach an agreement on taste. Be a keen diplomat who would never let their furiously passionate views on the supremacy of the Crunchie cloud the greater will of the group to strive for consensus.
3) Use a clearly defined vocabulary to describe products and aid in the discrimination between products. Be composed enough while eating chocolate so as to be able to articulate your experience in one of the several hundred known and understandable languages used on this earth. They do however later stress that they would ideally like this language to be English.
4) Be consistent in the results given. If you eat your way through a bag of Buttons and describe a different sensory experience after each brown dollop, then you may as well absent yourself from this process post haste.
5) Know the ethical and legal compliance responsibilities of the position; raise questions and concerns when faced with an ethical or compliance issue; apply integrity in all aspects of professional conduct. Do you want to become a part-time chocolate taster to fuck around? Do you!? Well if so, this is not the company for you. Perhaps it might've somehow skipped your attention, but there is no greater bastion of virtue and integrity in this society of ours than part-time chocolate testers. Judges, lawyers, politicians, doctors all doff their caps and look on in envy at the evident ethical superiority displayed at all times by part-time chocolate tasters. If you are not ready to take on this burden then, I'm sorry, but you must simply look to part-time taste test another foodstuff my friend.
If you feel that you would be able to, with grace and dignity, subscribe to each of those responsibilities and do them adequate justice, then feel free to apply here. Also you'd need to be willing to relocate to near Wokingham in England for this part-time job, but don't let that deter you.
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