Sunday, July 9, 2017

I Work in Hell

Yes you heard me right. I believe I work in Hell, actual Hell on Earth.

Those of you who are not familiar with the LDS understanding of Hell- it's a little different. See, to us, hell is looked at two ways:
First ~ A spiritual death, a separation from God, possibly only temporary.
Second ~ A a permanent residence out of His presence.

After the Final Judgment, there will be a few select people who have earned a spot in a place we call Outer Darkness. Yes, we believe it takes pretty deliberate intent to get relegated to Outer Darkness! From revelation, we understand this to be a place completely removed from God and all He has to offer us- love, light, knowledge, power, etc. And I don't think that's just figurative light.. maybe it's literal light.

If we look at that the name of this place/condition in a literal and physical sense, it's darkness. Dark. No light. No electromagnetic radiation of any kind, visible or otherwise. None of this:


No radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation (aka heat), visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, etc. No visible light, no heat! Those there are essentially blind and frozen! The horror!


Yeah, I'm not digging it either!

So now to explain how "I Work in Hell."

See, I work at a place that processes and packages meat for commercial use. Handling meat safely requires certain conditions to maintain the quality and safety of our product. The meat comes to our plant frozen. We thaw it, cook it using a variety of different methods (fry, bag-steam, etc), then chill it back to something safe to transport. These temperature changes are done as quickly as possible to keep the meat out of the danger zone (40-140*) as much as possible. Because humans handle below-40* better than above-140*, I spend most of my time at work in the below-40* range: I work in a fridge, always cold... or moving so I stay warm.

I also work second shift: I go to work in the afternoon, and get done in the middle of the night.

Some of the meat smells oh-so tasty! Seriously, fried chicken.. but you're at work, so you aren't going to be eating any of it. Who remembers the story of Tantalus? Always out of reach.

The fryer sometimes produces huge lumps of steaming charred stuff that is unusable, so it is tossed. Barrels (like the one on the right, but in red) filled with steaming sizzling cinders! Fire and brimstone, anyone?

I work Second shift: I go to work in the afternoon, and get done in the middle of the night.

So there you have it: the cold and darkness of Outer Darkness, the torture of Tantalus, the fire and brimstone of traditional Hell. Yup, that about covers it.