Chicks and Coffee
Are you fed up with your job, Dear Reader? Does it come with insufficient remuneration? Is your boss, or your boss's boss totally out of touch with a) the way things work at your level and/or b) reality? Are you good at spotting small, or very small differences? Would you like to work with small, cuddly, animals? Would you like to help your country?
Then look no further, apparently this country is facing a critical shortage of 'chicken sexers', despite a salary of almost £40,000 a year.
In case you were wondering, Dear Reader, a Chicken Sexer is someone who can look at the genital area of a day-old chick and tell whether it will become a hen or a rooster. Bearing in mind the size of the egg production industry in this country, you can see the importance of getting it right. Although the real difficulty is that the shortage of suitable staff is putting chick exports at risk.
So there you are, Dear Reader, you can go train for up to three years, get qualified, then spend five days per week looking at day-old chick's private parts. It's a necessary job, and someone's got to do it. Is it worth £40,000 a year for all that concentration? Come to think of it, by they time you'd trained, they'd probably be paying more than £40,000/year.
And should you be thinking that the job description 'Chicken Sexer' isn't going to get you that many dinner invitations, go East, Dear Reader. In south-east Asia such skills are recognised and valued and Chicken Sexer is a high status job.
While you are maybe mulling that over, Dear Reader, why not have a cup of coffee? A Korean study* of 25,000 middle-aged men and women has found that drinking three to five cups of coffee per day could reduce the risk of heart attack or strokes. The study also warns that drinking more than five cups per day was worse than drinking no coffee at all.
So there you are, Dear Reader, three to five cups of coffee** per day is Good For You. Trouble is the study doesn't seem to specify the size of the coffee cup. Should it be esspresso cup? Or breakfast cup? And what kind of coffee? Black? Latte? Filter? Instant? No, probably the test was done with Real coffee. And I guess that coffee without loads of cream and sugar is better for you than coffee with. Though you could probably get away with skinny lattes (hold the sugar!)
There now, writing as someone who has possibly one mug of coffee per week, and maybe a mug of instant during the week, maybe I could advisably up my intake. Or maybe I'll just stick with water. Hmmm, now might be a good time for a cup. Y'all have a good, and healthy, day now!
* Sorry, no links. As someone with scientific training this is a real bummer!
** Make it Fair Trade coffee and it'll be good for the coffee growers too. Should you be wondering, apparently tea is good for you too. See, we Brits have been drinking it for centuries, and look at what we've achieved!
Then look no further, apparently this country is facing a critical shortage of 'chicken sexers', despite a salary of almost £40,000 a year.
In case you were wondering, Dear Reader, a Chicken Sexer is someone who can look at the genital area of a day-old chick and tell whether it will become a hen or a rooster. Bearing in mind the size of the egg production industry in this country, you can see the importance of getting it right. Although the real difficulty is that the shortage of suitable staff is putting chick exports at risk.
So there you are, Dear Reader, you can go train for up to three years, get qualified, then spend five days per week looking at day-old chick's private parts. It's a necessary job, and someone's got to do it. Is it worth £40,000 a year for all that concentration? Come to think of it, by they time you'd trained, they'd probably be paying more than £40,000/year.
And should you be thinking that the job description 'Chicken Sexer' isn't going to get you that many dinner invitations, go East, Dear Reader. In south-east Asia such skills are recognised and valued and Chicken Sexer is a high status job.
While you are maybe mulling that over, Dear Reader, why not have a cup of coffee? A Korean study* of 25,000 middle-aged men and women has found that drinking three to five cups of coffee per day could reduce the risk of heart attack or strokes. The study also warns that drinking more than five cups per day was worse than drinking no coffee at all.
So there you are, Dear Reader, three to five cups of coffee** per day is Good For You. Trouble is the study doesn't seem to specify the size of the coffee cup. Should it be esspresso cup? Or breakfast cup? And what kind of coffee? Black? Latte? Filter? Instant? No, probably the test was done with Real coffee. And I guess that coffee without loads of cream and sugar is better for you than coffee with. Though you could probably get away with skinny lattes (hold the sugar!)
There now, writing as someone who has possibly one mug of coffee per week, and maybe a mug of instant during the week, maybe I could advisably up my intake. Or maybe I'll just stick with water. Hmmm, now might be a good time for a cup. Y'all have a good, and healthy, day now!
* Sorry, no links. As someone with scientific training this is a real bummer!
** Make it Fair Trade coffee and it'll be good for the coffee growers too. Should you be wondering, apparently tea is good for you too. See, we Brits have been drinking it for centuries, and look at what we've achieved!