The simplest things can make a person take stock of their life.

Today I was given a factory tour. It felt nice to be given the VIP treatment of course. The company, which makes plastic packaging and various transparent films, was clean, well run, and provided ready answers to my environmentally focused questions. From a solvent reclamation center where 95% of the used solvents are reclaimed for re-use to battery powered forklifts where the giant battery blocks also serve as counterweights, most of the processes I saw were pretty good examples of reduce and reuse, responsibly.

The last part of the tour was with a subsidiary firm, which handles how the finished products are warehoused for distribution to customers. Upon entering the capacious warehouse, the first thing I noticed was the smell, because it smelled like plastic, not diesel or CNG exhaust. That of course prompted the discussion which led to the ‘battery as counterweights’ information. I got to ride in the giant super-highlift unit (max height 15 meters or 49 feet) and discuss the computer controlled navigation and obstacle avoidance system onboard.

After my forklift ride I considered the following…

The last time I was in a forklift, a ghastly, exhaust belching unit; I was driving it, as an order picker at a facility similar to this one, in Effingham, Illinois. It was backbreaking work as buckets of paint are very heavy and I had to load my forklift with muscle power. The pay was decent but the shift was late at night and conversation was minimal. When not working, I lived alone in a basement with a load of debt, an unfinished college education, very little achievements to my name and no health or dental insurance.

By contrast, today I was riding in a considerably larger, cleaner and more impressive forklift. I was a VIP, surrounded by people who respected my knowledge and abilities. Between tour stops we walked in warm sunshine and chatted amicably about the facility and life in general. I now possess a university degree, have my own website, a catalogue of mediocre photographic works, and a cookbook I wrote sometime ago but still use weekly. I have ready access to an excellent public health and dental plan and am debt free. Instead of living alone in a basement in nowhere, Illinois, I live alongside four other splendid people in their rambling rustic family house, in Europe.

On the drive home after the tour I heard a song on the radio (wavin flag by k’naan), the chorus begins like this:

When I get older, I will be stronger…

Yeah, pretty much.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 3:23 pm and is filed under cobalisk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.