Well here we are back in the frying pan and working on helping folks with their go to market strategy across Asia.  While waiting for the paper work to come through we went off to the cottage in Cha Am for a few days of rest and relaxation before the calls and inevitable travel started.

Imagine my surprise when I went to make some breakfast and found a twin yolk in the first egg I cracked into the pan (and managed to break one of the yolks).  Happens I guess.  Now imagine what happened when I cracked the second one and lo and behold another double yolk.

It was odd enough to illicit fears of global mutations from my friends on Facebook.  But It was just something to post and didn’t actually pique my curiosity until the next day when I was again over the fire and cracking eggs. Wouldn’t you know it but 3 more eggs were twin yolks.   So of course I started wondering if the mutant apocalypse was starting in my kitchen or at the very least on the farm my egg supplier uses.

So first the odds.  Well according to several sources twin yolks are rare about 1 in a 1000.  So having 2 would be 1000 x 1000 or one in a million which meant that having 5 of the eggs with double yolks with  made it 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000.

After assuring myself that there should be no side effects from consuming these unique offers and learning that it is more common among hens when they first start laying, I started to wonder if this was a quality problem or potentially an upsell opportunity for the egg industry.

I had to admit I couldn’t tell the difference in my 2(4) sunny side up or the omelet  I made with the 3 eggs the second day. I didn’t suffer any side effects.

But what would the company have done had I raised it as an issue and if so what would my complaint be. Of course I could be a little worried that they are pushing some sort of hormone into the hens that increases the chances of double yolks.  I could also wonder if there was some stress induced into their hens though they claimed to be free range.  In the grand scheme of things this could just be an anomaly that I picked a package of 10 eggs where half of them had double yolks.  But I have to wonder.

It also led me to research some of the myths around double yolks ranging from the portents of wealth to the doom of death. I of course just settled on the science that mutations and variations happen but am still curious as to what drove this level of anomaly.

What does this have to do with anything well simply put we will observe what we perceive as abnormalities in the delivery of our business every day.  The challenge will be for us as managers to understand if its something to worry about or not.  And where to take this information once we do get it.  And to ensure that we do get the facts and supporting information before we decide to toss the rest of the eggs out of the basket.