Last week, Sun Microsystems

Last week, Sun Microsystems had a volunteer week where they encouraged employees to help in the community in an organized manner. Teams were formed to take on various high-visibility tasks (this is a corporate gesture after all, might as well help and get some good PR at the same time!) and off we all went. I had the pleasure of working at the Merrimack Food Bank, doing yard work and sorting out food.

Sorting out food was a unique experience. It seems the food bank gets donations of money as well as food. Every so often they buy food from salvage companies at pennies per pound. The salvage company will collect from grocery stores things that have gone past their expiration date or are otherwise undesirable and stash them into boxes stacked 7 foot tall on pallets. The food is all kinds of stuff, all mixed up. Our job was to take one box at a time and put the cans all in one area, the glass/plastic in its own spot, the dry goods over here, etc. Some things were no good at all, which we set aside to throw away.

When the day started, the two gals working on it were moving along at a steady pace but not going all that fast. After all, it was unfamiliar work to those of us who bang on a keyboard all day long. I and a couple other guys started outside with brooms, rakes, and shovels cleaning up but once we finished that we came in and helped on the food. The two already doing it had to slow down and show us how it was done, but once we got the hang of it we were unloading boxes at a furious rate, way faster than before.

If you're curious about the food, I know I was, let me tell you about it. Cans that were bent or dented from being dropped. Boxes that were a little crushed (but the food inside was in plastic bags). Jars of overstocks, or things without labels, or leaked on by other broken jars but themselves just fine. Things you probably buy yourself, just about any brand name you can think of, as well as off-beat oddball brands of things that none of us had ever heard of Some of it had Spanish labeling, as well as Greek, Italian, and even Chinese without a speck of English to clue you in on what the contents were.

My coworkers never complained, but I kept making biblical comparisons and I want to share some of them with you. First off, when I saw how much we had to do, I mentioned that the fields where white, and here are the workers! When they needed someone to do the grungy outside work, I said here am I send me! We were all there of our own free will, by choice, which means that even those among us that were not as able as others to get lots of things done (and worried about it) I encouraged by saying were still finer than those who chose not to come at all!

The two gals working on the food were like the apostles. They were working along at a steady pace, until we outside guys showed up and needed learning. They had to deliver the message to us, but once we got it and jumped in the work grew and grew at a better and better rate. When other people doing other tasks were done early and looking for things to do, we in turn showed them the way it was done and they pitched in, too. The task looked like too much for us, but we did the best we could and the lady in charge of the food shelter was very pleased with us. Before the day was over, we had finished several whole pallets!

As for the food. Well, I had a few things to say about that too. I mentioned it was kind of like people. Sometimes from past experiences they are not as desirable looking as you might want. They may be dented a little on the outside, but inside they are just fine. And they may be Spanish, or Greek, or who knows what, but they are still desirable. In the end, the good food parted ways with the bad. My coworkers were excellent, and we all worked hard, but in everything we did, all day long, it wasn't about US, it was ALL About The Food, Baby!!!

Randy