Tis As Irrelevant as A Henway

Adulting can be hard, kids, jobs, bills, honey-do list, kids, and much more. Knowing this we try to make our workplace a little less tedious and mundane by throwing the occasional curveball. Whether it be an entirely too clever game of the week or something as simple as “don’t leave your computer exposed to the vagabonds and criminals lurking around every office corner just waiting for you to walk away, where you then happily and unknowingly declare in an email to the entire office, “Hey everyone, lunch is on me this week!” … this seemingly never gets old.

It may be here that we found ourselves when the great food debate was born into existence. Let’s fully stop for a minute here and explain what is the great food debate? Well, ummm.. honestly, I have no idea… I guess that we just decided amongst ourselves that it is our responsibility to put “like” companies up against each other and determine where you, the unfaltering yet unknowing reader should spend your hard-earned money. So, chicken… yup, the chicken was the topic this week, and again, don’t know, it just is so we go with it.

So how does this play out? Who decides? Who won? Who cares, and if you do, Why? Read on….

I’d love to give a little more backstory as I feel the setup should be important, but it wasn’t a dark and dreary night and there really is no real villain (or is there? Possibly more on this later) So, back to the chicken…. The first step was to lay down some ground rules and get a plan together. The most logical place to start on this endeavor was to emulate the success of others (no reason to put in the extra work) so, we watched a few movies to get the creative juices flowing. After much debate we settled on “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Ratatouille, both good movies… but ultimately really no help at all. After a brief discussion on our misfortune at the total whiff with the whole movie idea, we dove headfirst into planning our magnum opus the good ole fashioned way. Chicken scratches on a piece of paper with a sharpy, (that’s just how we roll!). Hindsight being 20/20 the whole movie idea was a bit much, but again we are only fledgling critics and you gotta start somewhere right?

The Rules

We really don’t do rules and kind of pride ourselves as “tabacca spittin’ chap wearing rule-breakers” in some fashion or another. Now I’m not so much on the Tabacco spittin’ myself as tabacca makes my tummy hurt, and the chaps, (have you ever worn chaps?), not the most comfortable, even if the trendy factor is off the scale. So there it is, no rules. It was to be as blind a taste test as you’d have seen in any small town in the American West circa 1895, who also I guess in hindsight would have had to have the three chicken restaurants as of yet un-named as part of their municipalities to properly pull this off. On this point, it would be highly doubtful as I believe Popeye’s is more of a southern thing, but again, we’re going to just roll with it.

The Panel (The people who are qualified to make this call. Really)

The panel was composed of a diverse cast of characters ranging from an almost but not quite distinguished gentleman with a penchant for yelling “get off my lawn” to a fledgling author who composes hard-to-read blogs in hopes of one day striking it big. Other people too…, lots of them, but ultimately you know. just more people. I’m sure they each have their own story to tell, and someday they just might. Today they are “the chicken judges.”

The Contestants

I think the contestants were pooled together from a few hungry employees with a good idea for a free lunch, but the real answer here has been lost to time if ever really known at all. What we do know however is that the contestants ended up being:

• Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Popeye’s
• Maryland

All local chicken eateries, all eager to give us the meat in the form of 12 succulent and mouthwatering pieces of poultry. Both Kentucky Fried Chicken and Popeye’s appeared to have the chicken on hand as they came in a surprisingly quick time of 7 minutes 53 seconds and 6 minutes and 21 seconds from the time of order to the handshake and a small hug goodbye before happily driving off. Maryland on the other hand must have had some other things going on in the back as it took a whopping 11 minutes and 23 seconds from the time of order to the boss doing a one-wheel peel just wanting to get the heck out of there. Just kidding, no one wheel peel, but also… sadly, no hugs either.

On a side note and to be transparent and upfront, there may have been other factors that affected the above observations, but this has not been agreed upon as of now and therefore thrown out. Regardless, Popeye’s extra ask was a side of Red Beans and Rice while KFC fulfilled the request of Mac & Cheese with some creamy potato goodness. Maryland received a pass at this time and no extra requests were given here.

The Categories

Sight

Identify those thighs. Yeah, get your mind out of the gutter.  Each employee was asked to place the chicken in their respective restaurant by sight alone. I could give you the breakdown, but honestly, do you care? Maryland won with a whopping one wrong guess. Yes, it was me… Yes, they somehow cheated, and yes I’ll appeal this later.

Taste

Out of this whole contest, I’m guessing this would be the one thing you would truly care about so I’ll refrain from telling you the winner until the end. Can’t have you too satisfied now and go wondering off can I? (insert suspenseful words here, this should get them)

Sound

This one was just confusing and I got a lot of blank stares so we skipped it. I had some ideas but apparently, not everyone understands dumb.

The Aftermath

This wasn’t part of the competition but as my office sits closest to the bathroom I quietly just observed for the remainder of the day. And no, there appeared to be no extra “events” and I’m happy to say that all employees survived the poultry challenge just fine if not a little lethargic. Note to self, they laughed when I mentioned the kinder mat under my desk. We will not forget. We never forget.

Wrap It Up with one final thought and a word of advice

So there it is the great food debate of 2021. Considering the climate we live in I suppose this could have been written a whole lot worse. Hmmm, good job me. Oh yeah, who won on the taste challenge. I never did tell you did I. The real winner, well as I said early on. The real winner is irrelevant as Henway. The real winner dear reader is you. The bottom line, it’s hard to find people in life you can count on, we want to be those people to you. Remember, when others are steering you wrong you can count on our white label marketing and consultation for straight honest answers. Ok, now I’m just sounding like a car commercial…