(85th Entry) Recess is over…

The Holidays are close to being over… The New Year beginning, the old year fading away… Yet!

This past year… What an awakening! My father dying, opening factories, having 4 times as many people working for the company… working towards goals and dreams!

But… Recess is over!!!

I’m a little slow… It takes time for things to sink in with me, for me to realize certain things about life, etc. Even though it looks as if I’m doing things… am I? Sometimes I just drift along, just “going on with Life!”

And then… an awakening, a jolt, something that makes me realize that there’s something greater… My Dad’s death talked about in earlier entries… and recently two other events.

What makes me proud, happy… these two events…

Last summer Mary, my office manager, hired a woman to work in our Grabado factory. As it turns out she is a little slow… If I had to guess I would say her IQ is somewhere between 70 and 80. She’s a very kind, sweet person. She has a son who was mis-diagnosed with cancer. Over time, a couple of people in our company were telling us that she would never really be able to be productive… at least to the point of profitability. Mary and I were at the point of letting her go when other employees said… “No, she really hadn’t been given a fair chance.” So… Mary and I kept her. Since that time last summer, she has come so far. She’ll never be in the top tier of carving glass, but that’s not what we’re always about.

We are a company that needs to be profitable, but we’re also about hiring disabled individuals. In the beginning it was thought that we would just focus on hiring physically disabled individuals, but things happen… Because this person had such a great attitude and showed such respect and loyalty Mary kept her on. It’s paid off.

Recently at our company Christmas party, we watched as the other employees interacted with her. We’ve made great progress in how our employees interact with one another based on disabilities, but now… guess what? We’re having to deal with all of the normal problems that people have when they work together… In other words, we’re just a group of people working together like any other group of people.

The second event was a wedding of two of our employees… I’ll talk about this in my next entry… and then a little about our Christmas party.

Recess is over. Times are difficult, but we’re going to survive. Not only do I think we’re going to survive, but I believe we’re going to thrive this year.

Recess is over… It’s time to get back to basics, business and hard work! Worrying and wondering about things hasn’t helped. It hasn’t changed the world, the economic situation or the pain of this past year.

Recess is over… This past year has almost come to an end. It was an incredible year with highs and lows, pain and triumph!

Recess is over… It’s time to go beyond just “going on with life!”