An OSHA Regulatory Cautionary Tale
In the town of Fermentville, behind a chain-link fence with a sign that said “TRESPASSERS WILL BE CULTURED,” stood the mysterious kombucha factory of Mr. Willy Wonkler.
Nobody had gone in.
Nobody had come out.
The neighbors said it smelled like a gym sock that had taken up yoga.
One morning, Mr. Wonkler announced a contest. Five Golden Scobys had been hidden inside five bottles of Ginger Zing. Whoever found them would tour the factory and win a lifetime supply of probiotics.
The town went wild. Grown men fought over pallets at the co-op. A woman in Lululemon bit a stranger.
The winners were:
Augustus Gulp, who drank a bottle in one swallow and burped the alphabet.
Veruca Sodium, whose father bought six thousand bottles and made his interns open them.
Violet Bluetooth, who was livestreaming to her 40,000 followers and had not made eye contact with a human since 2019.
Mike Teavee, who asked if the factory had Wi-Fi before asking if it had a bathroom.
And James, a quiet boy who found his Golden Scoby in a bottle he’d fished out of a recycling bin, and who wanted, more than anything, to see how things were made.
Mr. Wonkler greeted them at the gate wearing a top hat and Crocs.
“Welcome, children! Please sign this waiver. Don’t read it. Nobody reads it. Also, the hard hats are for staff only. Budget cuts.”
James raised his hand. “Are there emergency exits?”
“There are exits,” said Mr. Wonkler, “and some of them are emergencies. Come along!”
He threw his arms wide and sang, rather badly:
“Follow meeee, and you’ll seeee, how I hideeee things from OSHA regulatiooonnnnnssss.”
The first room was the Fermentation Hall, where enormous open vats of tea bubbled beneath the fluorescent lights.
“Do not lean over the vats,” said Mr. Wonkler. “The CO₂ pools at the surface and displaces the oxygen.”
“I’m not scared of a drink,” said Augustus Gulp, and he leaned over Vat #4 to get a good long sniff.
He got a good long nothing.
Augustus slid gently into the vat and sank like a sad dumpling.
“Should we get him out?” asked James.
“The confined-space rescue plan is in a binder,” said Mr. Wonkler. “The binder is in Vat #4.”
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.146: Permit-Required Confined Spaces. No atmospheric testing. No attendant. No retrieval system. Also, Augustus was warned.
Next came the Bottling Line, where a conveyor belt whizzed past at frightening speed, its gears and rollers spinning bare and beautiful in the open air.
“Where are the machine guards?” asked James.
“Guards make it hard to see the magic,” said Mr. Wonkler.
Veruca Sodium stamped her foot. “Daddy said I get a bottle from the front of the line. I want the FIRST one. I want it NOW.”
She reached in.
The line was very efficient. It capped, labeled, and shrink-wrapped Veruca in under four seconds. The label said “SMALL BATCH. LIMITED RELEASE.”
Her father, still on a phone call in the lobby, would later describe her as “a good kid, very driven.”
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.212: Machine Guarding. Nip points unprotected. Emergency stop located on the far wall behind a stack of pallets. Veruca was not wearing hair restraint.
In the Flavor Lab, shelves of unlabeled jugs lined the walls: acids, bases, cleaning agents, and something that just said “DON’T.”
“Guys guys guys,” said Violet Bluetooth to her phone, “I’m about to do a blind taste test for you, hit that follow button—”
“That one isn’t a flavor,” said Mr. Wonkler mildly. “That’s the caustic line cleaner.”
“That’s what THEY want you to think,” said Violet, and chugged.
Violet turned a lovely shade of violet, then several shades not found in nature, then stopped turning altogether.
Her stream stayed live for eleven hours. It got 2.3 million views and a brand deal with a funeral home.
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1200: Hazard Communication. No Safety Data Sheets. No container labels. No training. In fairness, the jug did say “DON’T.”
The final room was the Loading Dock, where forklifts zipped between towering, unstrapped stacks of kegs.
“There’s no Wi-Fi in here either,” complained Mike Teavee, wandering directly into the forklift lane without looking up. “This whole place is mid. One star. I’m gonna—”
The forklift driver had not been certified. The forklift driver had also not been told anyone was coming. The forklift driver was, on further inspection, a raccoon.
Mike was found under fourteen kegs of Blueberry Bliss. The raccoon was not charged.
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.178: Powered Industrial Trucks. Operator not trained or evaluated. Pedestrian walkways unmarked. Load unsecured. Raccoon.
Only James remained.
He had stayed behind the yellow lines. He had asked about the exits. He had not touched anything, tasted anything, or filmed anything. He had simply watched, and learned, and been quietly horrified.
“James,” said Mr. Wonkler, tears in his eyes, “you are the only child I have ever met who listened. The factory is yours.”
James looked at the vats. The bottling line. The unlabeled jugs. The raccoon, idling.
“No thank you,” said James. “I’m going to call someone.”
And he did.
The factory was closed within the week. Mr. Wonkler received 217 citations, a fine of $4.6 million, and a very stern letter.
James grew up to be a compliance inspector. He was never once fun at parties, and he never once fell in a vat.
The End
About the Creator
This OSHA regulatory cautionary tale was fermented by the proprietor of Oolong Water, who would like it known that the top hat is real, the Crocs in the story were a wardrobe choice, and no actual inspectors were sung at.
He is based in Albuquerque. He drinks like a dragon. He files like James.