- One evening I approached an old friend- an aged man,
who was struggling with a muddy tractor wheel on the edge of a field. I
sat back a little way in the brush, and cracked a few twigs so he would
know I was there.
-
- "Hey, Shadow," he called, frowning at
the muddy mess in front of him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out
an incredibly crumpled package of cigarettes, and turned, arching his back.
I could tell he had been at this for a long time. He looked very tired.
He took a few steps and sat down on a rotted tree stump at the edge of
the woods.
-
- "I want to tell you about something I saw
once." He lit a cigarette, and coughed a few times.
-
- "I used to work at this school bus factory. We assembled
the drive train and exhaust systems for fleets, and public transit and
school systems - we shipped buses all over the world. I won't say the name
of the company, or what country it was in. That's not important. I want
to tell what happened there, all in a single day, a long time ago."
- "One morning, one of the assembly line workers came
up to me. He was as white as a ghost. He was stuttering and his face was
covered with tears. I was shocked, because I had known this man for a long
time- he was usually very level headed. He led me over to the assembly
line, and pointed to the partially assembled buses that stretched the length
of the factory."
-
- "I dropped my daughter off at school today. I noticed,
for the first time, that the exhaust from our buses is exiting at the exact
height of a grade school child's face. We are poisoning our own children,
and others all over the world."
-
- "I didn't know what to say to him. I looked down
at the floor."
- 'I figured out how to fix it,' he told me, 'Im just going
to start chopping up the pipe inventory and have them reroute it through
the top, back here, like a tractor trailer..."
-
-
- My friend flicked his cigarette off into the open
field, and lit another one immediately. I could see, in the fading light,
that there were tears on his face.
-
- "I just stood there, Shadow. I was shocked at how
easy it was- the solution, I mean. What could I say? All of the workers
around us were grinning, and had already began to refit their workstations.
They had a strange look in their eyes. Without the loss of a SINGLE second
of time, or any productivity issues, we began to make a safer school bus."
-
- "Everybody came over and stood and watched, amazed.
The offices shut down upstairs, and white shirts stood around,talking and
pointing. Everybody that realized what we were doing laughed and asked
how to help."
-
- "I have never felt the way I did that morning, for
a few hours, in the 30 years I worked for that company. It was the most
beautiful feeling I have ever had. Nothing I have ever done before or since
has given me that feeling."
-
- "After a few hours, one of the young executives
came down, and took one look around and knew what was going on, in about
30 seconds. This man actually started crying, and grabbed about 15 of his
staff, and told them to go upstairs and order a few million dollars worth
of pipe, and to recall a shipment of 300 buses we had just sent out that
last week, for retrofitting. He actually came over to us, and said the
extra pipe was only about four bucks, and he had three kids that rode a
bus to school every day. He shook all of our hands."
-
- "All over the floor, there were smiling faces and
bright eyes, and people were whistling. I have never seen anything like
it. It was very surreal. Everybody worked right through lunch that day-I
don't think anybody even remembered there was supposed to be a lunch."
-
- "At about 2 that afternoon, a few black limousines
pulled up in front of the factory, and a few of the owners got out, along
with several well dressed foreigners. Customers."
-
- "Everybody started putting things neatly in order,
tucking in shirts and picking up loose tools. We all knew that the owners
demanded we keep up a certain level of professionalism- particularly when
there were customers in suits walking around with them."
-
- "The little group approached our assembly line,
and we saw the owners' faces immediately change, but just for a brief
second- things were different, and they could tell right away. They looked
at our new buses....and were speechless."
-
- "I walked up to one of the strangers and shook his
hand, and looked him in the eye. 'Hello,sir,' I said, 'we make the safest
school buses in the world,' and shook his hand. He grinned, and looked
at our work, nodding his head. The owners frowned and shuffled everybody
upstairs where it was even more chaotic than the assembly line floor."
-
- "The accountants and managers were ordering thousands
of feet of pipe, and it was chaotic and frantic up there. The place was
a mess, but everyone was happy. None of our customers seemed upset at the
recalls, and most thought it was a good idea. We even had two very large,
new orders. The whole place was happy and excited- people were talking
calmly to each other, and everybody looked younger for some reason."
-
- "Before long, the assembly line was suddenly powered
down, and everything came to a stop. The bosses came down with their visitors,
who were all frowning. As the guests sped away in the limos the bosses
began to argue with some of their execs, right out there in the parking
lot. We could heard them screaming ,' FOUR BUCKS!! its only FOUR BUCKS
A BUS' and other such things."
-
- "Then two of the older owners started having a fistfight,
right there in the parking lot. These guys were dignified ,sober men,that
i had known for years wearing thousand dollar suits and Italian leather
shoes, fighting like kids in the schoolyard. Everybody who worked there
stood and watched them, shocked."
-
- "After a while, everybody went back inside. The
assembly line was still down, and the workers were milling around, looking
very confused."
-
- "The owners and all of the rest of the white shirted
workers went back upstairs, and before long, there was yelling and cursing.
Suddenly a man came running out. He looked terrified. It was the young
executive that had ordered all the pipe. He ducked a flying ceramic ashtray
that smashed against the wall, missing his head by inches. Then he ran
to the door that led to the parking lot."
-
- "Outside in the lot, a few young teenagers were
destroying his car. They were beating it with baseball bats and metal pipes.
They saw him approach, and ran over and pushed him down, kicking him.
We noticed one of the owners watching the whole thing from an upper window,
peeking through the shades. The man struggled into his smashed car, and
sped away."
-
- "A strained voice came suddenly over the PA and
echoed through the place. 'Put it all back just like it was. Anybody who
even mentions this again will be terminated immediately.' Then a low mumbling
sound went through the workers for a few minutes. The assembly line started
back up, and it was just like before, as if it had never happened."
-
- "The next day, everybody acted as if things were
normal- everybody avoided talking about what had happened. We never talked
about that day after that- I don't think anybody did. I left my job a few
years later."
-
- My friend stood up, and looked towards his house.
I could smell the food that was waiting for him there.
-
- "Tell them that story, why don't you," he
said, and turned to walk away, disappearing into the growing darkness.
-
- Shadow
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