One day, a year and some-odd months ago, I was doing inside sales at a location. One of the outside salesmen was near my desk and asked, “What are you doing with that white hat? Or should I say yellow?” He was referring to a sweat-stained cap with the company logo on it that hung on the wall behind me.
“I keep that to remember where I came from.” He gave me a blank look and left.
Almost seven years ago I started working for The Company as a forklift operator. Ironically I had seen the job offer through a temp agency and refused to take it, applying for the job directly at a later point when I was more desperate for work. It made a huge impact on the next seven years, and probably will for the rest of my life. Within months of hiring on The Company closed that location, and because I was an actual employee and not a temp-hire I was able to transfer north as a forklift operator for another location. It was a bigger operation and I learned a lot. I also offered a lot of suggestions, tried to learn everything I could, and threw my hat in for every position that opened up. The result was always the same; they patted me on the head and told me to get back on my forklift. During this time I tried to go back to school and flunked out due to the massive amount of overtime my supervisor demanded.
A year or so later a chance came for me to transfer north again as an assistant yard foreman. I was initially very excited and optimistic. My hopes were in vain. I entered the darkest days in my time with the company. Looking back time has revealed and clarified some of the things that made my life hell and caused lasting repercussions for years. The foreman was using me as a scapegoat for anything and everything that went amiss in the yard and/or with deliveries. The people inside the store treated me like I was a leper. During this time I heard about a purchasing position that opened at the district office (the same kind of position that I have had for the last year.) Without talking to anyone at the location, I threw my resume into the ring. I was given a courtesy interview, patted on the head, and told to get back on my forklift.
I had finally come up with the money to try to redeem myself at the University and had been trudging my way through some classes. That spring I had an educational epiphany, a sort of realization of the difference between becoming educated and getting vocational training. I abandoned the training I was pursuing for the purpose of impressing The Company and set about trying to educate myself. In the darkness there grew a distant light.
The result of my new mentality and my interview was that the store manager started looking at me differently. A counter position opened and she asked me to fill it. I told her I would like to have more freedom to schedule school classes; she conceded. I was off of the forklift.
And then The Company decided they didn’t need that store and closed it down. With a full load of classes scheduled all over the place and a family to support I was in terror of what kind of job I would have to get. There were no sales positions open anywhere. Then one of the drivers took an unexpected position. I transferred east to drive truck for The Company. It had been one of my duties as assistant yard foreman, so I knew what it would mean, and it put me back under my nemesis who transferred there as well. However . . . the manager agreed to support my school schedule, so the foremen (including my nemesis) had to be satisfied.
Help came in the form of a mixed blessing. One night early in the fall I was crossing a campus street on my way to class when a sun-blinded driver turned the corner and took me out. While this long chronicle is in honor to my days and findings with The Company I think I will digress and briefly tell about this experience. The car struck me on the left side and sent me flying. The inertia must have caused me to black out briefly. I came to with a relaxing sensation of weightlessness; time moved slowly; I could see nothing but the blue of the sky; “Oh hell,” I thought as it occurred to me that I hadn’t hit the asphalt yet. The pain was amazing. I landed on my hip and elbow. My bag cushioned me in such a way as to keep my brains from smearing the road. Also amazing was that in the end there were no broken bones; a decent amount of muscle, ligament, and tendon damage, but nothing broken. Amazing.
Because of my previous counter experience I was put on the counter while the doctor had me on light duty. By the time the allotted period was past the Manager decided he needed me more inside than out. He canned one of his old people to make way for me.
Within months I had been moved up again into inside sales support. It was a grueling, high-stress position. But I did it for several years, and transferring way south (my archive has some comments about my commuting days) to perform it while I finished school. I kept the hat close by to remember that the actions I took resulted in some person working and sweating long hours in heat and cold. If I typed up 800 sticks instead of 80, it would result in someone besides me going out, possibly at the end of a long day, to pick up the excess 720 boards and bringing them back to the yard. Salesman throughout The Company screw around and screw stuff up continually without giving a damn about the extra burden they inflict with the justification of “It’s their job.” It is a shame that the consequences are so out of proportion.
I graduated a year ago and stepped into the purchasing job I wanted all those years ago. I hung the hat on my cube wall, even though in purchasing my actions rarely had any physical consequences for those at the store level.
In a way these seven years have been like a manifestation of the American Dream. I started at the bottom and ended part of a district support team. I don’t often feel that way though. In my climb up the ladder I passed people of greater intelligence, people who worked harder, and people who deserved more than me. My time with The Company destroyed my ideal that anyone who was willing to work hard and give it their all could be successful. The deck is stacked. I am grateful for what I was blessed with. It got my family through some trying times. I’m more grateful for the lessons I have learned.
Thanks for reading.
Riotimus
2 comments:
A good, thoughtful post. That's the American dream, all right. You've seen the good and the bad sides of it.
We're told that anyone can achieve whatever they're willing to work for, but that's not really true. It's theoretically *possible* for anyone to do or become almost anything, but not every one *can.* Like you said, sometimes the deck is stacked.
But this is America, which means you can always try again. Or move on to something else. :)
Life is about relationships. It's about "who you know." That can be disappointing or comforting depending on your point of view.
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