Some Blog Site

My wife bought a bag of gluten.

Side note: if you ever wonder what they do with all the gluten they take out of things to make them gluten-free, apparently they put all the gluten in containers and sell it separately. I bet they get to charge more for the gluten-free stuff, plus they charge people to buy bags of gluten. It’s a win-win for the company, I suppose.

But that was not the point of this post. The point was the marketing stuff they put on the bag. maybe not so much marketing, but the character or personality they’re trying to portray for the company.

Here’s a photo of the back of the bag:

The part that I noticed was at the top, in prominent letters, almost like they wanted you to notice it most. So I suppose it worked.

I, knowing they wanted me to wonder was was so forbidden about the underside of the bag, did not give in and went about my normal business, ignoring the bag.

But my younger son was not so good at self-control and has not learned to insulate himself so much from marketing. He picked up the bag and said “Look, dad!” So I looked, and that prompted a dad lesson from me, which I’m going to start after I show you the bottom of the bag.

As you might be able to guess, my complaint is their furthering of disobedience. They are saying they like people who don’t follow directions? Then they say to store in a cool dry place. Does that mean they’ll like it if I store their product in a hot tub?

If they ever send me recipes, I know those’ll be worthless.

And the person who decided to put that stuff on the bag – what if his boss told him to do something? Is the culture at that company such that he would get promoted if he went against some simple clear instructions from his boss?

At least these people ended up somewhere where it doesn’t matter too much. Can you imagine if they worked somewhere else, like at a tax-preparation place or a hospital or airplane maintenance? I get that sometimes you have to disobey orders or instructions, but you should at least have a good reason and it should not be your default attitude.

Or maybe they’re saying they like incompetent people. I suppose that’s slightly better, as it’s not willful disobedience. But I doubt that’s what they were trying to convey.

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