Is it like Willy Wonka?

Truthfully, our candy company does not look anything like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The headquarters, where I work, is in Round Lake, Minn. (population roughly 500). Our office building is long and low, with corrugated tan siding. The inside is nice enough, always very neat and clean, but there are no chocolate fountains, oompa loompas or bright colors. In fact, we don't even make candy here anymore. We warehouse fruit snacks and samples of our other products, and we have a lot of people in cubes.

Each department has an area of cubicles, and mine is right by the break room, which is convenient for fetching coffee throughout the day. In consumer relations, we answer calls from consumers with questions, complaints and, occasionally, nice things to say about our products.

Following is a short list of things that happen to you when you work in consumer relations at a candy company:

You eat candy as a training tool. If someone calls about a product, and you don't know how it's supposed to taste, you won't know if anything is wrong! (Note: This is a perk, and a downfall. You may not realize it, but you can reach a daily limit on candy.)

People get upset with you. It turns out, some folks are very passionate about our products. They may even swear.

Being trusting becomes harder and harder. You find yourself thinking that people might be exaggerating, or fabricating things altogether. Usually they aren't, but sometimes they are.

Jelly bean taste tests appear on your Outlook calendar.

Eating out of the bulk candy bins in the lobby becomes less of a treat, and more of a habit. That's what happens when you combine stress with readily available chocolate.

You find candy is actually pretty interesting. There's panned, tableted, enrobed and deposited. Chocolate and non-chocolate. Seasonal and everyday. Private label and bulk. So much to know!

Questions you never before pondered, such as whether artificial flavorings contain gluten, become something you can answer without thinking.

You learn how to count grams of sugar alcohols for diabetic carbohydrate limits.

You explain things with gestures, even though you know you're on the phone. This actually comes in handy when you can't resist rolling your eyes at someone.

SmartBrief updates from the National Confectioners Association become extremely fascinating. Read about new flavors of Twinkies, advanced candy marketing campaigns, cocoa shortages on the Ivory Coast and more!

You buy cheap candy and give it away to your friends and family, or maybe keep some in your apartment. Then your husband gets sick of you complaining about stomach aches and tells you no more candy. You continue to buy it and try to sneak it past him.

Finding out how much candy other people are consuming a week shocks and amazes you.

You finally get why Target puts out seasonal candy so freakin' early: Our first ship date for a holiday is months ahead of time. (I still don't forgive them for hurrying out Christmas by putting up Valentine displays, but I can accept it a little easier.)

Deciphering heavy accents and obscure descriptions of candy you may or may not still produce becomes a survival skill.

You accidentally tell someone an item is discontinued, and then later find it in your product inventory. (That one is very embarrassing.)

People get sidetracked and start telling you long, unrelated stories. Or they realize something else that's wrong in their lives, and tell you about that even though you can't fix it. Like how they suspect the UPS of losing their mail.

You find it weird knowing that if consumers didn't call to complain, you wouldn't have a job, but you still wish they wouldn't sometimes.

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On the whole, I like my job: I didn't realize how much fun it would be to learn about candy. And I've started to get over my fear of talking to strangers on the phone, as I now take about 20 calls a day. At the least, consumer relations is challenging me to develop skills in new areas and learn about a different career. And there's always plenty of candy.

Front Page News

The going has been rough lately. Too many complainers, more remodeling work than could possibly be accomplished by two people, flopped recipes for supper, and garden plants with curling, blighty leaves. And the weather. Monday and Tuesday were hot, so dense and uncomfortable it was all I could do not to sweat standing still.

But then there was Wednesday. I got home from work, and the cool air outside the car felt like a sigh of relief. I hurried to check the plants in my garden, hopeful that at least they had profited from our temporary tropical climate. Lo and behold, the seeds had sprouted! Green beans, peas, zucchini and cucumbers were bravely reaching tiny green leaves toward the sun. I fawned over them, inspecting their little shoots and marveling at how something as simple as poking a seed into the dirt with my finger could produce these wonders of creation. I checked my "cheater" plants, too - the ones I had purchased in pots at the garden center. The tomatoes' leaves still seemed to be suffering, the edges curling and gray in some places, but they were getting bigger and looked a little healthier I thought.

Heading home to my apartment, I decided it was the perfect night for chocolate cake to celebrate my small green accomplishments. With each window flung wide, birdsong and sunshine streaming through the screens, I set to work. A recipe from the Barefoot Contessa was too good to pass up, with a cup of fresh brewed coffee stirred in right at the end. The scent of warm chocolate permeated the corners of the apartment, chasing out musty, humid smells locked in while the hot air forced us to stay closed tight.

Content, I sat at my computer reading emails. Junk. Junk. Junk. A note from my editor in chief: Two of my stories are on the front page this week, above the fold! "Thanks for all your hard work — it is being noticed and appreciated by the community." How could he have possibly known that I've been feeling like maybe I can't handle freelancing for the paper with everything else that's going on? It's like he has ESP and knew exactly what to say at the right moment. Now I'm smiling from ear to ear and in love with the idea that I have business cards that say "Staff Writer" on them. This guy is good.

When my cake was cool, I whipped chocolate buttercream frosting until my arms were tired, and spread it on the cake an inch thick. Perfect.

And then, not wanting to ask too much of just one day, I went to bed. And the breeze blew through the curtains, frogs singing me to sleep.