Bay Leaf Performance Review
What Exactly Would You Say You Do Here?
Thank you for coming today on such short notice. I want to be transparent that this review is happening because your role is under active reconsideration. While you continue to be included in recipes out of habit, leadership is increasingly unclear on your role in those recipes. You have been noted as arriving to dishes late in the process, being removed before completion, and colleagues have highlighted your sense of arrogance throughout. This is not the attitude we strive to achieve here at Soups and Bases, Inc. “This is the way we’ve always done it” doesn’t work in the modern workplace anymore either.
Your actual contributions remain intangible at best. Various stakeholders were unable to identify what you do. In fact, I have a list here of things that you do not do, including: be edible, enjoyable on your own, or noticeable with any sense of flavor. When you are present in the kitchen, our partners have described your dishes as fine. Just fine. We don’t strive for just fine here at Soups and Bases, Inc. And even when you are not at work, the dishes are also described as just fine. This has raised difficult questions about whether you are enhancing flavor or simply dead weight.
There is also concern around your user experience. Encountering you mid-bite is universally regarded as a negative outcome for all parties involved. At least twice in the past year we have been called down to the floor as coworkers argued over who forgot to take you out of the final dish. We have not had this trouble with other ingredients in your cohort. While we appreciate subtlety in the kitchen, being a liability when noticed is not a sustainable performance model.
At this time, we are placing you on a flavor performance improvement plan. You may wish to clarify your value proposition, consider dissolving, or otherwise prove you are doing something that resembles added culinary value. Please understand this is not personal. But if this substandard performance continues or if I bite into you one goddamn more time while enjoying my pumpkin soup, then your position may be eliminated entirely, replaced by AI or another clove of garlic.
Bay leaves are a scam! You want some real flavor? Try water hemlock!!
My father told me that someone died once from choking on a bay leaf, so we always called them “deadly bay leaves” and yet we still cooked with them.