My Mother always said I was a snoopy kid....

Yep, that's me in front of my county car. I had just finished a day of inspections.

I figured I'd answer all those questions about "What do you actually DO in your job?"

It started off with roughly 3 months of training. We had to read all of the Texas Regulations for Food Establishments (TFER). In tandem, we had to go online and do some FDA modules that were much like a refresher college course.

Then, we started working alongside other inspectors. At first, all we did was observe. Then, bit by bit, we went from observing, to listing the violations we saw and comparing them to the other inspectors' list. The next step was to start entering those violations in the fellow-inspector's computer. Last, we were allowed to do an inspection and write the report ourselves, with the experienced inspector watching us.

I owe a great debt to those co-workers who gave of their time and schedules to do our training. We slowed them down, we asked tons of questions, and they never let on how hard it was on them to add us to their schedules!

On January 2nd, we were turned loose on our new territories. I say "we" because there were 3 of us who were new hires. Three inspectors had retired within the last year, leaving 3 spots unfilled. It's extremely hard to get jobs in this field...folks tend to stay in these jobs for years! Getting this job was DEFINITELY a God-thing. No other way would I have been hired 33 years after getting my degree!

My territory is Burleson, Benbrook, and Crowley, Texas. I teased my boss that if the took a string and tried to find the place on the map furthest from Bedford, he was successful. The good news is that it is a DELIGHTFUL territory. The people are warm and friendly, and the inspector before me was a well-loved gentleman. He also hardly gave demerits, so a few folks are kind of surprised that I do such a thorough inspection. Once I let them know that I'm a nice person, and that we've just been through a standardization process so I have to be more thorough, they relax a bit, and all is well.

An inspection is a long process. At my stage of experience, I probably can do 3-4 inspections per day, depending on whether it's a hard place to inspect, or a simple convenience store.

I'm looking for any sort of health violation. Just as as Christians are to live by God's Word, and try not to either add or detract from what the Word says, as inspectors, we live by the TFER, and try not to add or take away from any regulations.

Violations are things like food workers not washing their hands, not keeping foods cold nor hot according to regulations (Foods have to stay below 41 degrees F and above 135 degrees F to be in the "safe range".) or doing things that would contaminate foods being served. There's lots more, but I could get boring here!

I probably ought to write down some of the funny things that happen some day. Like, the lady who has a cake business that isn't making cakes, and doesn't even have a refrigerator. Needless to say, I had to close her until her place is in order. She, thankfully, agreed and was delightful to deal with.

Today, one of my inspections was a Foodborne Illness inspection. People can call in reports of suspected illness, and we do an inspection to investigate the possible problems that might lead to foodborne illness.

Well, that's the basics of the job. In one family member's words, after we were talking about the fact that I was probably going to be a little over the top for a while on germs, "Yeah, I noticed you were even a little weirder than usual!" :-)