Palette’s Chocolate Black Market Revisited
AJA’s Palette staff is being strung along to write articles by being offered chocolate rewards. But when the funds dry up, and the staff members are left starving for a reason to write, where has the chocolate gone?
Over the past few years, Palette has paid its staff in chocolate treats, which come out of the pocket of the Editor-in-Chief (currently senior Oliver Mason). This year, staff at Palette have only received a meager portion of chocolate coating on top of donuts, marking a decrease in both the quality and quantity of the chocolate.
At one of the most recent Palette parties, where the writers receive the wages they have been promised for writing articles, staff members didn’t receive the chocolate that they had been anticipating.
Walking into this year’s issue one Palette party, “I was expecting Twix [chocolate],” said Ariel Oami, a freshman staff writer. He was taken by surprise to discover that “there were Krispy Kreme” donuts provided instead. According to the law, employers cannot retroactively change agreed upon wages. Changing the expected chocolate to donuts is a clear breach of contract. In Georgia, when breach of contract can be proved, the damaged party may be entitled to compensation.
In the past, chocolate wages were often distributed in the form of Hershey Kisses and other similar treats. Due to the unlawful switch to donuts, however, the numbers and value of the staff’s salaries are slightly different.
To determine the value of chocolate on the donut, a similar donut can be weighed to calculate the percentage of its total weight composed of the chocolate. After scraping off all the chocolate from the donut, the dough alone weighed approximately 42.52 grams. Dividing that amount by 53.86 grams, the weight of the treat with both chocolate and dough, then it gives you the percentage of chocolate in the donut: 21.06%.
For the Palette party, Oliver purchased 24 Donuts at $31.98 (excluding tax). That puts a single donut at $1.33. Using the above percent mass of chocolate, the cost of the isolated chocolate is $0.28.
Theoretically, since Palette has twenty students in employment, each should get 1.2 donuts. With that figure, the value of the chocolate per staff member is $0.34. For all the work of a single issue, disregarding time spent.
That is not minimum wage. Not even close. Moreover, it’s only a marginally greater worth of chocolate than the Hershey Kisses or Twix Bars were. However, if you account for the fact that only half of the donuts contained chocolate, a staff writer earned only on average $0.17, which is far less chocolate compared to the systems in the past. Since beforehand, writers expected the $0.26 in chocolate, this also means that staff writers would only be entitled to nine cents for the missing amount and would gain only a measly portion if they sued for damages. The money and effort it would cost to hire a lawyer and pursue legal action would not be worth the reward.
In addition to breach of contract, Palette and its higher ups may have committed another crime. According to Title 39, Chapter 2, Official Code of Georgia Employment of Minors, “No minor under 16 years of age shall be permitted to work for any person, firm, or corporation between the hours of 9:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M.”
Staff writers at Palette are certainly working after 9:00 P.M. “As I was going to sleep, I checked my phone for updates when I saw a text from Oliver. He had asked me to finish my edits. At 9:11 [P.M.]. I then Spent 33 minutes finishing my article edits,” said Max Coon, a fifteen-year-old staff writer. Many other Palette writers have had similar experiences, as well. This very article, in fact, was worked on at 9:51 PM on December 16th.
With these crimes committed by Palette management, it’s no surprise that its leadership doesn’t care about the chocolate as a system. Past and present Editors-in-Chiefs don’t believe that the lack of payment and chocolate is an issue. “I bring chocolate to honor [a] Palette tradition and to celebrate our hard work after the milestone of an issue,” Oliver said. “I don’t bring chocolate to pay a team that I am part of myself.”
Of course the despot would argue that way. Chocolate is important, and yet he tries to keep it away from those who deserve it by using his ideals to hide the truth. “I think it is our collective responsibility to report on our school and community,” he said. “The satisfaction and duty of our important work is priceless and requires no chocolaty reward.”
He hides behind the sake of tradition and a superior title. His arguments are similar to those made by Asher Lytton, last year’s Editor-in-Chief of Palette. “The Editor-in-Chief, whoever that may be, should have the right to decide where all chocolate goes… Now that Oliver is in charge, it’s really up to [him],” Asher said. He also claimed that the Editor-in-Chief should have the right not to give out chocolate. “[The] editor in chief’s word is law.”
Although the establishment disagrees, maintaining this chocolate system is vital. It allows for Palette to function and not fall into disarray. “When I was a writer, we did not have chocolate,” Asher said. “Enjoy the chocolate that you have, because it doesn’t last forever. It melts.”
Could that be part of the conspiracy, too? The chocolate’s melting leaves the writers with nothing if they don’t consume it. It has virtually no value or worth and cannot last to be invested, left in the bank, or savored.
The Palette writers have nothing they can do. The entire system is rigged against the writers, without any way to rebel.
Morpheus from The Matrix illustrates this well. “You are a slave … Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch.”
We can’t taste the chocolate. It’s kept from our lips. We can’t hold or touch it. It’s taken from our grasp.
We are slaves for the system. The Palette.
And all the chocolate is melting.
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