In Wenatchee...

Over the weekend, had been to Wenatchee, the apple capital of the world, accompanying Lakshmi on a Teacher's Conference. America is known for associating such ad-campaign statements for towns and cities. However, I found Wenatchee, otherwise a very small town, not to be as much hype as it was apple orchards all the way on either side of the road. They did a tour of an apple packaging industry and the WSTA was kind enough to allow me tag along with Lakshmi free of cost. (The conference itself costs about $150 for the sponsoring school).

It was a very good learning experience in the end and I was surprised at the amount of technology implemented in such a small town. Inventory management in the company is done with Oracle Applications. A separate R&D division explores how taste of the apple can be measured by using Infra Red cameras without cutting the apples. Picking and boxing is done by robots (though the manager asserted that his Hispanic employees did a way better job). The GM of the company (who is also a member of the board for this family owned company) did the tour for us and gave a lot of insightful details. For example, he said a majority of his workers are hispanics and his company would support every move of the government to bring more workers from Mexico. During harvest season his company would require 2000 additional workers (to a regular workforce of about 1500 - so more than double) and in a small town like Wenatchee, he said we will be "scraping the bottom".

He also made a comment on students who come in and work in the company for short terms during harvest season. After a couple of days at work, the students claim this is "real work" and are reluctant to return (sorting apples, is harder than we thought it was and is not cool)! I remembered the statement made by one reporter in CNN who commented on Lou Dobbs' tirades against illegal immigration, saying that some companies have no other way out because to stay in business they have to employ a large amount of short-term workers and the boys and girls who work at Starbucks are not ready to pick peaches. This experience was a live demonstration of that comment (or rather lament)! I don't know what kind of workers work there but if I was the director, my options really would be to either let the worker from Mexico earn the honest buck and stay in business or let him get a certificate from the US government that he is not a terrorist and shut down part of my operations. You know which one would be my pick.

For a manager (and originally a grower), the GM was surprisingly technology savvy. His tour talk were filled with technical details. You know, I am from the IT industry where managers and technical talk are like Hitler and world peace! I thought all managers were like that, but was glad to be proved wrong.

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Wenatchee, a little town that it is, invited us with some funny encounters. Wenatchee, lies on two sides of the humongous Columbia river. The eastern side is called East Wenatchee and the western side is just Wenatchee. When we reached there, we didn't know all these tidbits. It so happened that we went to Wenatchee instead of East Wenatchee (where the conference was). We stopped at a gas station (petrol bunk, as I used to call it) and enquired a couple where Eastmont High school was. The couple gave us back shocked looks and gasped "Oh, that is in East Wenatchee. You are in Wenatchee." I thought we were screwed because we were already late for the conference. I explained to them that there were no good directions available on the internet and asked them how long it would take me to reach the long-and-distant East Wenatchee. They said I had to go along that road until a bridge came and then cross the bridge to the other side of Wenatchee. A total of around 10 mins drive. Until now, I haven't figured out why they exchanged shocked looks for us missing our destination by about 10 mins! Maybe it was just a rural/semi-urban facet of the town and its people.

Later, when I was in the town library killing time, the guy next to me was browsing something objectionable (I think porn) on the library computer. I saw the librarians see it and they were involved in hush-hush discussions on what to do. Later one of the courageous lady of the lot stepped over to talk to him. She approached him and said "You have to leave now for doing this". The guy responded "Arright" in a very non-chalant way and started closing all the open windows (the Microsoft ones, I mean). The lady was as surprised as I was at the response. But she was also probably disappointed that her so-called strict voice and manner did not evoke the necessary reaction in the boy. After a pause she said in what looked like a continuation of the previous sentence "... And you are not allowed to come back again in the library". The boy again replied "Arright" and left.

With a look of confused bewilderment the lady went back to the main desk where other librarians looked up to her for solving the matter so easily. I could hear a "Well, that was easy" from the lady!