Perspectives on Food

Today at my factory, we had an important announcement. Our factory manager announced to the whole work force about a major conquista (conquest) that we had recently in our factory. I was a part of the group working in the project & it was a big accomplishment for our factory. To recognize all the work of the 2,000+ employees, there was going to be a special lunch today.

"Wow," I thought. "That is going to have to be good!!"

When I went to the cafeteria and saw the "special lunch", I had to chuckle to myself. The pieces of meat were a little bigger and the real special part was every employee could also have a can of Coke or other soft drink. Normally, employees have two options - Watered down mystery juice or just water. Today, they got a can of refridgerante (soda). I really had to chuckle to myself about it.


In the US, we would give people at the factories " free pop and coffee"  for special recognition, as in - unlimited, get-high-off-all-the-FREE-caffeine special! Here, they just gave people a can of Coke. Let me tell you, I sure saw some pretty happy employees leaving the cafeteria. Maybe it was because they also got a free chocolate bar (Brazil version of Snickers, Nestle Crunch, or Mounds bar) as they left the cafeteria as well.

Maybe our two cultures aren't that different after all....Free soda is free soda globally and so is free chocolate.