Days Since Last KitKat
A workplace safety sign for the only hazard that actually threatens this operation.
DAYS SINCE LAST KITKAT
18
INJURIES: 0
DEATHS: 0
NEAR MISSES: Several
Every workplace has one of these boards. Big laminated sign by the door, counter reset to zero the moment someone drops a pallet on their foot.
Turns out I need one too. Different hazard, same energy.
The injuries and deaths columns are easy. Nobody’s been hurt. Nobody’s died. It’s a chocolate bar, not a chainsaw.
The near misses column is where it gets honest. That’s the fridge door, open, hand actually reaching, brain already halfway through negotiating terms, before something — willpower, guilt, the dog needing to go out, anything — interrupts the transaction.
Several. I’m not going to be more specific than that. Some numbers are for internal reporting only.
Most of them involve the two-finger KitKat. Whoever invented that size should be answering some questions. The four-finger one is a proper commitment, you can see it coming a mile off. The two-finger one doesn’t even pretend. It just leans in: it’s only two, go on, you know you want to.
And the annoying part is it’s right. I do.
The only reason the two-finger bastard gets ignored is that it’s not bloody worth it. Four, or none. That’s the actual rule.
And somehow, two separate two-finger bars is worse than one four-finger bar, even though it’s exactly the same four fingers of chocolate either way. I don’t have a good explanation for that. I just know it’s true.
Eighteen days is genuinely fine as a number. I’m not pretending otherwise.
But the sign isn’t up because the number’s impressive. It’s up because a workplace only puts a sign like this next to the thing that could actually still go wrong.