Cruzio customer service has a challenging job. We need to help you with your computer, even though we aren’t in the room with you. That means our staff needs to be very good at explaining things.

What does that have to do with Peanut Butter and Jelly, that classic of American Cuisine?

To keep staff up-to-date in our fast-changing industry, we spend a lot of time in individual and group training sessions. Last month, Tech Services manager Chris Frost used a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich exercise to help us learn to be precise. Everyone had to write instructions on how to make a PBJ.

It seems easy. Peanut butter on one slice, jelly on the other, slap them together. But Chris explained the pitfalls. What if I don’t know to use a knife to spread the jam and I use my hand? What if I put the fillings on the outside when I put the bread together?

Here are some steps you might not have remembered to include in your instructions (and, whose sandwich would you eat?):

“Take the lid off the jar. Using a knife, spread the desired amount of peanut butter on one side of one piece of toast.” — Adia

“You will need a surface to work on that is as clean, dry, well-lit, and level as possible.” — Mike

“This assumes normal values of atmospheric pressure, temperature, inertia, gravity and wildlife.” –Mike

“Place the ingredient sides of the bread together to complete the sandwich (note: ingredients will be facing each other). Corners and edges should line up evenly so as to maintain the overall aesthetic of the sandwich.” — Bob

“Step 1: Create a Universe. If Universe has already been created, skip to step 2. Step 2: Wait for Universe to cool enough to form atomic particles… If Universe has already cooled, skip to step 3. Step 3. Wait until intelligent life has evolved and has developed technology to harvest and process peanut plants into peanut butter, and process Jelly from fruits.” –Colin

“Step 1. Wash your hands.” — Jessi

“There are a variety of bread, peanut butter and jelly/jam varieties available. There isn’t a wrong choice.” — Melissa

“Press [bread] gently together to avoid peanut butter and jelly from squishing out the edges (if this happens remove excess before serving). — Rebecca

“Spread jelly on bread slice evenly with the knife. Clean knife. Using knife, scoop some peanut butter onto other slice of bread.” — Riley

“Grip the body of the jar of peanut butter in one hand and, using the other hand, grip the lid. Unscrew the lid by rotating it counter-clockwise.” — Sandi

“Wield your glorious, Peanut Butter-covered knife down towards the toasted piece on the left, from the top right portion of the bread, draw the knife across ensuring an even smear across the surface. The goal is to completely cover the face of the bread with an even layer of Peanut Butter. Be extra careful not to apply too much force and rupture your toasted bread. Once this is complete, lick the peanut butter off of the knife and wash it thoroughly.” — Sean

“Pour a glass of milk. Take a seat at the table. Take one bite of sandwich for every one sip of milk, proceed along this schedule until the sandwich is eaten.” — Zac