(64th Entry) More to talk about…

Another adventurous week in factory life! We now have 18 employees, two factories and our warehouse where we pack and distribute our products. We also wholesale items made by others in Mexico. All of the products we sell are hand made which means there’s always room for human error, inconsistencies, etc.

So this week we discover in our new candle factory that we’ve had open for five weeks that we’ve had a little learning lesson again in what it means to make our own products and what it means to make hand made products.

Mary (my office manager) and I thought that we had learned good lessons from our experience of opening the Grabado factory (glass carving) and wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice. Fortunately I don’t think we have… we just have made new mistakes in a new factory.

You always hear… “If it doesn’t kill you; it’ll make you stronger.” I’m still waiting for the outcome.

Our candle making process is much more complicated than I ever imagined. I hope to have short video clips soon to show the process. This week I discovered that the color of the candle is different than what I thought. Every batch of candles is hand-mixed; hand poured and thus is truly hand made. They always vary slightly in color. The question is… to what degree of difference is acceptable?

OTHER ISSUES…

In the grabado factory we’re in the process of making additional equipment that people in wheelchairs can roll under so that we can continue our quest of hiring disabled individuals. As of now all of our disabled individuals are capable of walking and work on the original equipment.

I have seven employees carving glass at this time. Three of them are physically disabled and one is mildly mentally challenged. There seems to be a little prejudice from some of the physically disabled individuals and non-disabled individuals towards our one person who is mentally challenged. They don’t seem to want to help her.

This isn’t a surprise… Often there tends to be prejudice even within the disabled community towards other disabilities. After all we’re all only human at the end of the day. I’ll have to help everyone work through these issues.

I think it again illustrates just how difficult it is to bring together individuals through what we have in common as opposed to what we have in differences. It’s not just the issue of disability that can’t pull together… just look at the world of politics within the U.S.

It’s so much easier to focus on our differences… say your different than me… than it is to look for the things that we have in common… the things that might bring us together. As long as we focus on our differences… we don’t have to connect with others. We don’t have to be vulnerable. As long as I’m different… I don’t have to be responsible for anything. I don’t have to get involved.

If I recognize my “same-ness”… I have to get involved, be a part of…

Where and how do I want to spend my energy? How do I want to come across? Who do I want to be? Where do I want to go?