I know diversity has been a much discussed issue of late. It’s something I’ve always taken for granted as it was just natural for me being with, playing with, living with working with people of different cultures and backgrounds. My odyssey into diversity has been fun, exciting, interesting and has touched every level of my life from personal to professional but it didn’t start that way. When I was 7 years old my parents sent me to a summer day camp. Early every morning, Monday to Friday, rain or shine, I stood there at the assigned pickup spot, along side other happy and unhappy campers. With a change of clothes rolled up in my towel tucked under my arm and my lunch bag in the other hand, we waited for the yellow school bus containing perky counselor Daisy and driver, Mr. Rick who then transported us from the steamy concrete jungle of the Bronx to the open wilds of Mother Nature while serenaded by our angelic voices singing bottles of beer on the wall and you can’t get to heaven.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, my summer was NOT an epicurean adventure as for the entire summer my lunch consisted of only one baloney sandwich, (baloney, lettuce, mustard between two slices of wonder white bread), all neatly packed in my lunch bag between two cans of scotch ice along with a Twinkie, devil dog or yodel, and the fruit of the day. No other variation. No other deviation. It was like being in the movie GroundHog Day – Sandwich edition. Sadly this was also an example of my mom’s cooking in general, bland, tasteless as she did her best to feed us but it was not one of her best qualities. She was a big fan of and whole heartedly supported the many workers of Campbells and Swanson frozen meals. If you’re are wondering, I have not had a baloney sandwich since then, 65 years ago.
However, that summer did not totally disrupt my curiosity and adventures in food, in fact it only awoke it as it made me curious and open to new flavors to find delicious and tantalizing meals and I was in the best place to be exposed to a great diversity of foods as well as people, my hometown, New York City. There were pizzerias on every other block, Arthur Avenue, (Little Italy of the Bronx) was not far away with great restaurants and bakeries but my first taste of homemade Italian food was in third grade courtesy of our neighbor. They had recently moved into our building from Italy and her son was my classmate. To thank us for helping them and her son settle in they taught us about their culture and she made us tagliatelle with chicken livers. I had had chopped liver my grandmother always made around the holidays but this was different, very different and delicious.
Later on, Gilbert who would become one of my best friends and his mom invited me over for dinner, and after my first taste of her homemade chickpeas and rice I never turned down a future invitation. I also had fried plantains for the first time as well as chicken stew. She loved cooking and the fact that I gobbled up her food made her enjoy cooking even more. Soon after that I got my first taste of home made Chinese dim sum courtesy of my classmate Richard and his family. They had a small restaurant and every Friday at 3:30 p.m. right after school we would all go over to his house and finish off the assortment of leftovers they had brought home. I never had dim sum before, sure I ate Chinese spareribs, egg rolls and chicken chow mein but these steamed gelatinous packages and doughy creations were mind blowing and a new delicious experience for me. The only cost for this weekly feast was listening to some great stories his grandfather would lovingly tell about his culture and homeland.
To no surprise, I was not the most athletic kid when I was young, in fact my mother took me to the ‘husky section’ to buy my clothes, I was always the last kid picked to play in the neighborhood games. Along the line I met Ernest, another classmate who was Puerto Rican and he taught me a very valuable lesson that I have never forgotten! Confidence in one’s abilities, talents, and self can never be underestimated in how much it improves your performance. We’d get together at the school’s ball field during the weekends and play softball or tag football. Ernest knew I wasn’t the best at fielding or hitting but he selected me for his team. He saw something in me that I didn’t know existed at the time. He pulled me aside and said, you have the basics down but now, you have to do the hardest part and need to believe in yourself, have confidence in your talents, that YOU can do it, and with that gave me a hard knuckle-shot in the arm. For such a young kid he sure was aware of many things. What he instilled in me lasted for the rest of my life, personally and business as I had no fear pushing myself outside the box, no matter how uncomfortable I felt and took care of business. I went on to play JV Baseball, Varsity Football and the Physical Fitness Team. That’s right, this fat boy in High School could do 200 sit-ups in 2 minutes and 100 pull ups. What did I did? That’s for you Ernest.
Many years later I was treated to my first home cooked Indian dinner courtesy of my staff. I was a plant shift superintendent and had an extremely diverse crew which also included Hindi, Punjabi and Sikh employees who would make a fabulous pot luck meal once a month and as their new superintendent (or boss as some called me), I was honored by a invite to the festivities. The fantastic aromas would fill the lunchroom as they prepared portions of the meal, blending spices, cutting up vegetables and all the other ingredients. Yet another delicious diverse culinary experience that I looked forward to every month. This is where a manager can win people over by treating them with respect and allowing them extra time to prepare and make the meal without affecting production by working together to keep the lines going while preparing this wonderful celebration that ultimately helped built a team second to none.
So, yes you can say that I’ve had positive experiences with diversity but it all wasn’t about food. The experiences in my work life, helped in building strong productive teams. At The One company I was originally hired as a warehouse superintendent and after our new owners completed the merger/purger of the company by consolidating departments, only one other warehouse superintendent along with myself were absorbed into the packaging department. So, poof! Now I was a new Packaging Superintendent. The head packaging superintendent didn’t like either one of us very much after having several run ins with him defending our side of the wall and warehouse workers. Packaging problems he thought were warehouse generated, were actually created by his team and he didn’t like hearing that since he was a professional blame shifter. He would have laid me off if he had his druthers after the merger but upper management was impressed with my work in the warehouse and so now I would become his fair game in packaging.
Bob was told to have us trained in the ways of the packaging department. After a rushed two week training course that mainly consisted of following the head sugar controller around the 9 floors of the refinery, barely able to hear what he was explaining most of the time amid the loud machinery while his back was to me in addition to his heavy accent. We covered all the different packaging lines, and their associated pieces of packaging equipment, the materials, sugar crystal sizes and shaker screens, the flow of the sugar, the many storage bins, and the silo. Bob deemed me ready to management so I could go forth and produce but to further ensure I wouldn’t succeed he gave me a shift crew that had the least amount of seniority and experience along with a few of the disgruntled senior employees who were disgruntled thanks to Bob and some were very close to being shown the door. The team was a varied mix of male and female White, Black, Indian, Latino, Filipino, and Chinese most of them lowest on the company seniority list. As time went by, if an employee acted up on another shift, or was deemed unacceptable to Bob, they were transferred to my shift. I think you get the picture.
I was shocked, but not surprised when I was told that I’d be on my own for production startup, during graveyard shift on the first production day of the new year after four days off. The only other more dreaded shift assignment was shut down on swing shift concluding a 10 day run. Startup is a monster as the only sugar to package during the first 4 hours or so was pulled from the silo, which can have issues in itself, more on that in a later blog. The packaging schedule always began light as the new sugar was still hours away from hitting our bins so most of the time was spent preparing the packaging machines, cleaning. set up of the shakers screens per schedule and bins inspected.
It took some time to gain their trust and respect, there were a few who wanted to test me, they did, and we all learned together. They realized I was serious about their safety, not just talk, as I held them accountable for safety lapses but also pushed safety issues they brought to my attention to the forefront and to the dismay of some. I always kept them informed. I strongly believed in cross-training and expand their knowledge on operating other machines. I made sure they always left their work stations proper for the next incoming shift but we were always not given the same courtesy from the previous shift. When my staff complained as to why they couldn’t get away with doing the same, I told them we do it right, all the time, but I also knew that $$$ speak louder than voices and I had them document the amount of down time they spent cleaning up the previous shifts mess. After the top brass saw that it didn’t take long for the messes to come to a screeching halt. My staff now became comfortable with me and started to suggest ideas to improve production, work safety, training, they had different points of view and even if I didn’t use their whole idea, I could string together several of their thoughts into one cohesive money saving suggestion.
Through treating the staff with respect, listening to their suggestions, utilizing their talents and being consistent in positive and negative feedback we developed into the best producing team, as we not only met our daily production goals we exceeded them. Unfortunately there are those who when they see management and employees working well together and being successful can become jealous and surprising or not, that fellow employees, union business agents and upper company management staff would not want to see the success continue.
You have now become a threat. Unbelievable, right? More in the next installment.
Witzshared 
Leave a comment