Entry #10

 

Professionalism in the Workplace

Most of us have had moments at work where we have had to refrain from being anything but professional. Whether it’s someone you’re speaking with over the phone or someone that you work with directly. It can be challenging to hold your tongue when you know you’ve done nothing wrong or didn’t deserve to be spoken to in a rude or unprofessional manner. Having great leaders in the workplace and make all the difference when it comes to handling issues like this. In my opinion, those in supervisory roles set the tone for others and lead you down the right path. Leaders motivate you, push you to do your best, guide you to success and prepare you for greater opportunities. Then there are what I like to call “managers” who only manage and do not lead. Over the years of working in a professional career I have had good leaders as well as managers.

Leadership

Recently, I found myself in a rather uncomfortable situation with a fellow colleague where this person relayed inaccurate information to a leader in a higher role then us. I was approached by upper leadership regarding the incorrect information and explained I had not made the error in fact it was the colleague that provided this information. There have been minor situations with this same colleague in the past, so I knew not to ask her why she provided the wrong account of what happened. Instead, she approaches me. I was asked why I provided incorrect information and advised her it was valid info. You could feel the tension in the air and could cut it with a knife at this point. I can hear her tone raise and how she was speaking to me as if she was above me when in fact, she was not. She then starts to bring up her experience and how long she has worked there as if that would make a difference as to who’s error it was. Her tone continued to raise, and she started to become very rude. Upper leadership has now returned calling her back into the office. At no point did I give in to her unprofessional and rude behaviors. I stayed cool, calm, and collective and was professional the entire time. Keeping a calm tone and responding respectfully is key to getting your point across or helping someone understand your point of view. It also helps de-escalate potentially bigger problems that could be prevented while putting you in control of the situation.

Calm 

People will test you and try to take advantage of you or a situation and it is solely up to you on how you handle yourself in the workplace. How you handle yourself will be how a company and other colleagues see you as a person and an employee. Luckily, I have had great leaders guide me and prepare me for issues like this but I have also have terrible managers who have shown me what not to do or say. As much as you may want to fire back and go willy-nilly on someone you just can’t. When you think people aren’t watching, they are. Being professional and always treating people with respect, while under pressure will take you to higher grounds. You also won’t feel awful for wrongfully accusing someone in the end. I’ll end with - I think we all know who got a promotion recently!

Entry #9

 

The $40 Billion Food Fraud Economy

Fake Food Fraud 

Have you ever thought to yourself while eating something “Is this real food?” or “What’s in this?” You probably have many reasons why you would even consider wondering about those questions. Fake food is real and so is food fraud. Food fraud is when manufactures or laborers intentionally hide stuff from us and consumers buy something although it’s not what they think it is. There is $40 billion dollars worth of food fraud where only 10% of food in the food industry is actual real food. Anything outside of that 10% is fake food that is commercially adulterated. There is a public safety concern where fake food that is also known as Economically Motivated Adulteration (EMA) robs consumers of nutrients and can potentially kill them.

Fake food

In this video you see a woman who talks about olive oil. She starts to pour olive oil straight from the bottle that reads “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” and as she is pouring it into a small bowl, she “You think this is olive oil? Wrong.” She explains that in the process of making olive oil a cheaper oil is mixed in with the olive oil and how the label still reads “100% olive oil.” A second example given in this video which is parmesan cheese. Foods that say it contains parmesan cheese were found by the FDA to be false. A third example given is spices. Spices are known to be vulnerable to food fraud because they contain high levels of heavy metals and can be mixed and diluted with other ingredients like plant stems as shown in the video. Why is the FDA doing more the try to prevent food fraud and fake food from being sold to consumers? The FDA is only mandated by law to inspect 2% of imported seafood which is very low seeing that 85% of seafood in the US is imported.

Fake Olive Oil

The FDA uses intentional and unintentional means of tracking safety. Food fraud is motivated by the economical gain where’s the unintentional is motivated by any harmdoing of fake food consumed. Other than that, there is no way for the FDA to estimate how often fraud can happen and neither can they estimate the dilution and substitutions of food. During the pandemic there was an astonishing 21% increase in food fraud and the more companies can defraud consumers the more it will cost us. So why is the FDA not doing more to protect consumers from food fraud and contracting life threatening illnesses from fake food? The FDA says, “It’s only their job to make sure food doesn’t hurt you not police the laborers.”

FDA Approved

Before watching this video, I was completely unaware that fake food was a real thing and how dangerous it is. When I go to the grocery store to buy extra virgin olive oil, I expect it to be just that not diluted olive oil. When I want to purchase things like spices, fish or something that is stated on the packaging, I expect it to be those things as stated on the label. Not things that are loaded with high levels of heavy metals or a cheaper type of fish instead of the real thing. I don’t think consumers are completely aware of what is going on in our food industry and what they are buying and ingesting. This is not fast food so why is there such a large amount of food fraud and fake food sold in grocery stores? These are now concerns we all need to be aware of when buying groceries for your next meal. I know I'll be doing more research on fake foods and how to spot them!

Entry #8

 

The struggle was really REAL!

When I started this semester, I was confident that life would slow down a bit and not be as crazy as usual. Who was I trying to fool! Started off strong then of course this thing we call life has no limitations or remorse. It just butts right on in and does not hold back. Being a single parent of 3 kids ages 15, 12 and 11 is already a full-time job. Little did I know I was about to be tested to THE MAX!  If this was the Oprah show and she was throwing out struggles, I was the one catching them all. I had no idea how hard life would get until I knew.

You got this!

October 1^st comes and not only are bills due, but now my soon has a broken ankle. It required emergency surgery then a SECOND surgery. He has 2 pins and 6 screws. He’s young and is expected to make a full recovery, however, he is still in tons of pain and limited on what he can and cannot do. I don’t believe I have recovered from the downward spiral I was about to fall into. Shortly after that, my daughter is at cheer and has an accident. She falls hits her head and is now on concussion protocol. Now I have two kids home from school that need attending to. I work remotely and start to fall behind at work and in retrospect fall behind on homework. Eventually, they both can go back to school and return to our everyday routines. So, I thought! Here comes another injury. My other daughter slips on the basketball court at school and hits her head and now we have another concussion protocol.

Keep Going

This being my first semester and all the injuries and inconveniences thrown at me I believe I handled it the best that I possibly could. I give all the praise to parents choosing to continue their education because these last couple of months and the many situations that arose tested my every last nerve and patience. Remembering my WHY and not forgetting the goals I have set for myself to provide a better life for my children has kept me going when I was so close to throwing in the towel. I am now confident that a glass of wine and daily affirmations can get me through what may come in the following semesters because I CANNOT fall or fail. Soon we will look back on these hard times and know they happened for a reason, but we made it to the end!

Finish Line

 

Entry #7

 

Consumers Beware

    I’ve never actually sat down and gave deep thought as to how we get our food. The film Fresh matters and has made a huge different in how I see things when grocery shopping. This film sheds let on the farming industry and is targeting consumers to try to persuade them to buy from local farmers. It is important to shop local from your local farmers markets because the quality of meat is worth the higher price then it would be buying from a large grocery store. After seeing the care these farmers give to the cows, chickens and pigs makes perfect sense why we would benefit from purchasing from local farmers instead of feed lots. Hearing about the horror that goes on in the feed lots is terrifying and sickening.

 

    The sanitation problems that come from feed lots and how many different diseases like E. coli, salmonella, and mad cow disease and that these diseases kill people is unsettling. Learning that cows were fed dead cows that lead to the mad cow disease is heartbreaking to hear that animals must endure this kind of treatment. Not only are the animals not treated properly, but farmers are also having to use pesticides to be able to grow the most produce as possible. The idea of pesticides on the food we eat is concerning as it is not good for the environment, the farmers, consumers, and rural communities. Not only are there sanitation problems, diseases spread throughout the livestock but now these issues fall into an even bigger issue which is pollution.

 

    It is critical that Americans are made aware of all these concerning conditions when it comes to the meat and produce that we eat. Things like added hormones and antibiotics given to animals in feed lots should be taken seriously the next time consumers go grocery shopping at large branch chain grocery stores instead of buying from local farmers. Americans should care about what is happening to the raise the food that we eat and how it can affect consumers. The known fact that these issues can kill a consumer should be enough for Americans to make a change on who or where they buy their meat and produce from. Joe Salatin made a very important statement that he says his father would say which is “if you’re committed to healing the land then you can do something different” and that could not be more accurate.