The Dreaded, but Beloved, Routine

I thought I would share with you exactly what I've been doing every day for the past week or so. It's a lot of prep for a whole of garbage, but what's new in the food industry, really? Here it goes:

1. Find 15 1,000 mL beakers.
2. Take beakers to analytical labs and turn on the magical reverse osmosis water machine.
3. Measure 1,000 mL into each beaker using 500 mL graduated cylinder (remember, there are 15 beakers and the water comes out at an extremely slow rate).
4. Bring beakers back upstairs to sensory lab and label with tape.
5. Measure out allotted amounts of salt, sugar, and citric acid for each of the samples.
6. Stir in powders to the correct beakers with a spoon.
7. Print off labels for all of the samples (15 samples x 20 people = 300 labels). References say what taste they are (Sweet 10, Salty 4, etc) and unknowns have 3-digit codes.
8. Put labels on 2 oz. souffle cups (remember, 300!!)
9. Lay out cups for selected sample and fill with about 25 mL of solution (remember, times 20 and then times 15).
10. Put lids on all of the cups.
11. Lay out 20 empty trays all around the sensory lab.
12. Place one of each solution onto each tray.
13. Clean up mess that has been made because spilling is inevitable.
14. Put tin foil on the beakers and the remaining 500 mL and place into fridge.
15. Next day, repeat steps 7-13 again, 300 little tiny souffle cups.

And that all takes about, oh, four hours working at a steady pace. Can you say tedious? Then, turns out, only about 11 people show up for panel and I just dump the rest of the samples. All that work for nothing :( The paradox of my day.