I work at Hershey’s HQ in the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Take a guess as to what my company’s coolest perk might be.

Hint: It’s probably the first thought that comes to your mind:

Yes, unlimited candy of all sorts and then some!

All our conference and meeting rooms have big glass bowls full of an assortment of the freshest Hershey bars, Kisses, Reese’s pieces, Twizzlers, Mounds, Icebreakers, Yorks, Jolly Ranchers,etc., most of which are hot off the manufacturing lines. Early morning every day, there are people who go around the office spaces refilling any such bowl that is anything short of full, like Santa’s minions.

Besides this, we also get “desk drops” of upcoming candy releases or even some that will never see the light of the day in the markets at large. Some of these can range between delightful and outright weird-tasting. Oh, and the company also has perennially ongoing chocolate taste-tests that any employee can register for and then spend time critiquing chocolate (flavor, texture etc.) while mentally making a stern reminder to hit the gym downstairs later.

My pursuits in corporate Data Science are fun in and of themselves, but get amplified even more when done in the perhaps the closest version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory that the real world has to offer!