As part of becoming an "insider" at Great Harvest--that is, I have access to recipes and other methods refered to as trade secrets--I had to sign over my ability to talk about them in any detail. This concerns me. What also concerns me is that I am encouraged to innovate within the bounds of my new job (I am not sure where the time for that is going to come from), but any innovations become further inside information that I cannot take with me outside of Great Harvest. What does that mean? Well, even if I make some delicious new bread, I can't bake it anywhere but at Great Harvest. In other words, I don't even "own" my own recipes if I make them at work. Ouch.
How do I feel about this? It seems counterintuitive to simultaneously support creativity and innovation (things I wrote my thesis on) while suppressing the ability to use that knowledge beyond such limited bounds as a single company. Now, I do understand that recipes and other "trade secrets" (a term I find somewhat disconcerting) is tricky stuff. Given one serious leak of information, any other company may begin to sell similar products and gain a major foothold. Then again, that sort of impetus places all the more importance on innovation and one-upmanship between businesses--though such competition is unfair when businesses have vastly different sizes and resource bases. What I come to, though, is that this policy of claiming employees' recipes and work styles retards the potential for innovation. I would be perfectly willing to share and develop new recipes with Great Harvest (for example, I made a dry dough of Dakota on accident which I think would have made great crackers; in the end, the loaves still tasted pretty good), but I am reluctant to work within such confines.
I am anxiously, but happily employed. The schedule baking demands is exciting and orienting for me. I wish that I had some more time for yoga or tai chi in the morning, and my body is figuring out what stirring a dozen pounds of dough with a wooden paddle means, but overall this has been really fantastic. I work, and by midday, I have performed admirably. For some reason, I have had difficulty Friday and today, but tomorrow is another day, and with quality sleep and more focus, I can get it together again.
...
Also, Miss Emily Kuenker and Miss Gretchen Gardebring called me the other day, for which I was very thankful.
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