It happened eight times and I was there eight times to avert disaster. Without my intervention, poor healthy people would have noticed years from now that something was wrong.
Recently, I agreed to go to a place where I joined with other volunteers who were packing green beans into cans. These green beans would eventually be given to people who temporarily could not afford to buy their own green beans. I know I shouldn’t brag, but I am pretty sure that in four hours our group of unpaid workers filled enough cans to meet the entire planet’s demand for green beans until the end of the century or the end of this next presidential election, whichever comes first.
I think I may have been accidentally selected for an executive-level position because I was higher than my co-workers as I stood on a metal walkway and because I didn’t get a speck of green beans on me during my whole shift.
My job was to watch literally thousands of open empty cans go by on a conveyor belt and if one tipped over, I was to spring into action and quickly put it upright before it jammed up the machine and briefly cut off the supply of green beans. In the beginning I wondered if I would be able to rise to the occasion if I was ever thrust into the middle of a tipping-can scenario. When it happened the first time, I’ll admit my heart raced. Eventually I would intervene eight times in just one four-hour shift.
After I had successfully dealt with several can downturns, I became quite confident in my ability to think on my feet and deal with emergency situations. I adopted a sort of Bruce Willis, Die Hard, been there, done that mindset without taking off my shirt and getting all bloody and sweaty. I figured such unsanitary behavior would not be tolerated since we all had to wear hair nets that made us look like we were gumbys in a Monty Python sketch.
(In the Monty Python world, gumbys are people who have had frontal lobotomies but still try to contribute in the workplace. You’ll note that I’m resisting the urge to write about certain presidential candidates here.)
It was an odd job because no one talked about synergy, proactive behavior or the need to get outside the box. Forget getting outside the box, I wasn’t even allowed to go over and show off my clean shirt to my splattered friends who were still in the box.
That didn’t stop me, however, from trying to introduce some office politics into the equation just to see what would happen. When the guy I was working with briefly walked away from his post to do a quick work-related chore, I called over a supervisor.
“I really hate to tell you this but Darwin has been holding secret meetings with my co-workers,” I said to the supervisor who was clearly not experienced in office politics. “I think he’s trying to organize a union. You know, I can sort of understand where he’s coming from. I’ve been working here for two hours now and I’ve never gone on vacation.”
Another time, I called a supervisor over to offer the bright and innovative suggestion that we stop because clearly we had canned more green beans than the world would ever consume. I did the math. About two out of every 10 people like green beans. I’m one of those people. However, if you give me a full can of green beans, I’m good for six months or maybe a year. Who was going to eat all these green beans? I tried to explain that to a supervisor.
It’s probably a good thing it was hard to hear by the can conveyor belt or I might have been demoted to a more slippery position.
I think because I was a green-bean executive I couldn’t stop analyzing and looking at the big picture. I began to suspect something was amiss.
For example, I observed that if I looked up from my can-alignment job there was a giant clock on the wall. I noticed several times that 20 minutes or more would go by before the clock would budge a minute. I assume someone was tinkering with the clock and observing us because they made us take off all of our watches and leave our cellphones behind. I’m guessing we were probably unknowing participants at a green-bean psychological test facility. I’m sure they were playing mind games with us.
I respect people who work real jobs in factories that demand that they stay put and produce things all day, especially those things we need to eat to stay alive like Cheetos. They don’t get enough credit. I thought just four hours of work with no phone and a broken clock was difficult enough.
The experience changed me. Now I’ve seen the harsh reality of good cans on their side. I’ve gone four hours without a cellphone so that others in need can experience green beans. I don’t want thanks or praise. Just do this for me. If you ever decide that you want to go give green beans to those who can’t afford them, just make sure the cans are right-side up. If such cans are to fulfill their purpose properly, then we all must be vigilant. The truth is, saving just eight cans is not enough.
Steve Eaton lives in Logan, Utah. He can be reached at Eatonnews@gmail.com