Underemployed and Enjoying Every Minute

During the last couple years of my career, I’ve strayed from professional roles to recapture my love for material handling. There are a variety of reasons that range from being tired of the b.s. and politics in the office to getting myself back into good physical condition. I may capture my experiences in more detail with additional research down the road but want to share my findings so far.

It all began in the Spring of 2020 when the pandemic began. I was working as a buyer for Proos Manufacturing at the time, and we had half of our workforce desert us when the pandemic started ramping up. Most of us in the office were working from home, yet the remaining shop floor workers were left to struggle through the massive backlog in material handling orders we had at the shop.

I begged my boss to let me dive into the trenches to help the troops out. I told him about my extensive material handling background in my twenties while I was working my way through college as a hi-lo driver and crane operator at Gill Industries, and I felt compelled to use those skills to help our company while still maintaining the key functions of my purchasing responsibilities. Paul agreed but was extremely concerned (what an awesome boss and great friend still!), and I told him I wasn’t afraid of the virus. I was more concerned about my friends struggling to survive at the shop while I was sitting at home on the sidelines.

I was placed in our welding department to cover the forklift responsibilities for large steel weldments used primarily in Amazon distribution centers. I loved it, and the welders loved me. I gathered the components they needed for their weld booths and hauled the large finished components out to our shipping department. In my spare time, I organized the materials in our department, established a disciplined scanning procedure of all the parts (hours of wasted time searching for skids that were physically moved but not scanned to the proper location), and helped the other departments out where needed, especially with housekeeping.

The operations manager at Proos called me a “machine”, and it was such a huge compliment. I told him how I was raised on lean manufacturing at Gill, and we were fanatics at being process-driven, continuous-improvement soldiers who went where the battle was the hottest. I was just living out my training on the floor at Proos working with some really cool people who I became very close with.

That’s where it all began in the Spring of 2020. Since that point, I was able to continue working part-time on the floor at Proos while I was there, I took on a blast of a material handling role at BlueLinx unloading railcars and semi trucks full of product like lumber, particleboard, and MDF, and I am currently serving as the 2nd shift crane operator at Jireh Metal Products. It is so awesome to get back to my first love in metal stampings in a fast-paced, lean environment feeding stamping presses with steel coils and receiving coils from awesome suppliers like Magic (Steel Summit), H&H, Mill, and Lee (Mak) who I have known for 35+ years.

Some people think I’m crazy for doing this, and maybe they’re right. I was told by a recruiter awhile back that I was making a mistake going “backwards” in my roles from the years I spent as a “professional” in the office climbing the ladder to “success” (whatever the hell that means…). “What are you doing taking forklift jobs with two masters degrees and over thirty years of operations and supply chain experience?” Good question. Maybe there’s more to my work than making money and having a fancy title. I don’t know, and it certainly isn’t some altruistic ego venture either.

All I know is there is a much greater need for people in direct labor positions within manufacturing now than there is for buyers, planners, and engineers. When I was searching for professional roles a few months back, there were three pages of prospects. When I searched for material handling positions, there were over thirty pages. I guess I’m going where the need is which is what I’ve done for my entire career. Where this will all lead in the future I have no idea. I’m sure I’ll get back into the professional realm again in hopefully some hybrid role where I can spend part of the day in operations, too.

I’m just enjoying the ride for now, I’ve lost 25 pounds since I started working in material handling, and I have hopes that I will be able to enjoy many more years in this exciting industry!