A New Chapter

Today begins a new chapter of life. Today, I began working for the company that, if all goes well, I will likely retire from/die working for. At 26 years of age, I think that's sort of an accomplishment.

Sweetie's parents own a company that makes things from recycled rubber. Next time you're stuck in a construction zone, look at the black things holding the orange cones to the road. There's a decent chance you'd be looking at one of our products. Ever tried to lift one?! They're really heavy. Some are over twenty pounds, just for the black base. When you start thinking of them in pallet sized quantities you'll understand why shipping, and the rising cost of fuel for the trucks that do the shipping, is a major concern for us. In an effort to combat fuel consumption, they decided that they needed a second location. Since we do a lot of shipping to the Chicago area, we decided to set up our second facility nearby in northern Indiana. This puts us a few hours away instead of a few days away.

Naturally the person they first looked toward to run this new factory is the eldest son, the enginner, the man who has spent nearly a quarter of his professional career in China helping them fix their factories... Sweetie. Since we come as a matched set, that means formulating a plan for me as well. While he runs the shop, I'll run the office.

Under normal circumstances, a person would go to work and go home. Rarely do you hear of a  company relocating upper management positions without prior experience in the matter. Neither is true for us. Since the current factory is a two hour drive from our home, we have packed up our clothes, our food (I'll try to get a post about our strange eating habits sooner or later), and the dog for four days and three nights each and every week at the factory. Yep, we sleep in the office. Really odd, but we're making it work. The only kinda terrible thing is that the shower is across the parking lot in another building which means trying to get our timing right so showers happen during the half hour of down time between shifts. Fortunetly, Mr. I-am-used-to-travelling has been doing this for six months already and has a system already in place that I can just slide right into. He's even willing to make a few adjustments to accomodate me so we can sleep in a little longer on Monday and come home mid-day Friday instead of late Thursday night. We'll see if the change actually happens, though. :)

This setup will go on for about three months, while we pack up our belongings at home, put the house up for sale, and get ready to move to Indiana in January. Only twelve short months in this house. It made a good practice house, and I have to say, I think we'll do better the second time around.

In January we start a mirrored version of the life we're living now. We are actually going to move into the office full time, then look for a house. No sense in paying rent when the company can build an apartment in the office as part of a capital expenditure they can do magic tax tricks with! Besides, if we having nothing else to do, we'll likely get more done on office projects.There's certainly no shortage of those.

In the meantime, I get to learn the company top to bottom, inside and out. Today, that meant helping Sweetie sort the tooling we use to make the product. Being a family business, passed down from his grandfather, there is a lot of remnant items and practices that all need looked through as we become a modern company. I think it's a critical time in any business when growing pains could get the best of them. I believe we have success in the future, and I am excited to watch a slumbering beast shed its 70's skin while keeping the heart of a 40 year strong presence in the industry.