Lesson learnt

When I finished school, I thought I had learnt enough. I was too boring and now I wanted to live the real life.

 

I was 17 and got my self a job in a factory producing cardboard packaging. The cardboard was cut and folded and sometimes stitched together at various machines. Print was added. Afterwards it was bundled and loaded on pallets for delivery to the clients. It was in the 70's, and automatising was not at the level that it is today. The physical effort was quite hard for a boy just released from school.

 

I was working with a guy, Bob, who had already been at the factory for several years. He was in his 50s. He had worked on the farms, until tractors and other machinery made him and many others redundant.

 

We had job sheets for the various orders we had to process. One morning when we had finished with all the job sheets we had he said, "You come with me. We have to see the manager to see what we have to do next."

 

We went up into the big office with the big windows overlooking the entire factory floor. The Manager, Mr. Smith, told us to sit down and offered both of us a cigarette. He then fetched a bundle of job sheets and started explaining. "First you run this lot for the fridge manufacturer", he said. "That should take a couple of hours. And then Carl can start loading them onto the truck. Then you can do the lot for the wholesaler in Copenhagen and finish off with 100 boxes for the auction hall in the harbour."

 

He looked at Bob to see if he had made himself understood. The instructions were quite simple I found, but Bob looked a bit hesitant, and the Manager offered us both another cigarette, and while we leaned back in our chairs and smoked our cigarettes, he went over the instructions once more.

 

We went to see Carl, who was the fork-lift driver who would take the cardboard from the store to the machines on the floor, and when the job was finished he would load it onto one of the trucks.

 

Bob shoved him the new job sheets. "First we have to do the lot for the auction hall", Bob told him, "then you bring us the 100 by 100 for Copenhagen and then we do the lot for the fridge factory".

 

I protested vaguely. "We had to the ones for the fridge manufacturer first", I ventured.

 

"No", Bob said, "that should be the first delivery. You can only unload there until five in the afternoon, so it has to been at the back of the truck. Then Bill - Bill was the truck driver - can make it to Copenhagen. It's only a small lot for the wholesaler, and he will be able to make it to his sister for dinner. The auction hall he can do when he comes back. They will be there all night."

 

"But", I insisted", the Manager told us to do the lot for the fridge manufacturer first."

 

"Don't be daft", Bob retorted, "Mr. Smith is a not a fool. He has been to high school and everything. He would never say anything as stupid as that."

 

The goods very delivered on time and to everybody's satisfaction. And Bill had dinner at his sister's in Copenhagen.

 

The next time we had to see the manager for new assignment it all worked out in the same way.

 

And by that I learned the importance of having a staff that's dedicated to making things work in the most rational and efficient way.

 

I also learned the importance of good managers - because with time I came to realise that Mr. Smith was very well aware of how things worked.

 

I also learned that by playing stupid, you can sometimes earn yourself an extra cigarette and a few more minutes of rest.

And, most importantly, I learned that there are things more boring than schools, so after a year a started High School.