The Nut Production department was the hub of the Nut-ro-Soft Company. Its capacity was four thousand nuts a day, and it could go as high as five with a little overtime. The room was designed so that it had access to the colossal hardwoods just outside at multiple levels. The elevators were adjustable, so that the munks had access to branches at different heights. There were ten of them, with at least three more under construction.
Climbers rode the elevators up to the branches, each with a praying mantis used to clip the nuts. They used sturdy baskets to send them down on the conveyors. Once at the bottom, Haulers inspected the nuts, sorted them, and transferred them from the conveyors to rail carts, and the carts full of nuts were automatically moved through a tunnel to the Shipping Department. Wheelers powered the machinery at the base of each elevator-conveyor system, as well as the rail cart systems. And there were always a few lizards on the shop floor. They had a talent for maintaining the machinery, and Mr. Filbert considered it well worth the extra expense to relocate them from The Plains. Nut-ro-Soft couldn’t afford to have a line down for too long.
For this reason, the lizards were paid the most. It was hard to find a good lizard. The Climbers were next—it was the most dangerous job, and required good decision-making and quick thinking. Then the Haulers, who had to handle and inspect the nuts, and served as quality control. The Wheelers, while important to the overall success of the department, were paid the least. Any munk could become a Wheeler, as long as he was reliable and fairly healthy. If a Wheeler showed promise or smarts, he could often get promoted to Hauler, and then maybe Climber.
Seedler oversaw the whole operation. The employees were already well-trained, knew their jobs, and took pride in the quality of their work, so there wasn’t really a lot for him to do. He walked the shop floor, made sure everyone got their breaks, and left right at five o’clock. He sometimes counted all the nuts coming out of the department, making sure there were at least four thousand, and there were, every day. He watched the lizards tinker with the machinery, tightening screws and oiling the cogs. He made sure the workers had everything they needed to work efficiently, and he even had to order the Climbers a fresh supply of praying mantises. They tended to get worn out.
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Meanwhile, Plujo was doing well in the Shipping Department. He was always on time, and he never left early. He was shipping nuts to all regions of The Land. He got along great with Fex, and with all the other munks he worked with. He was friendly with all the hawks, and got to know their schedules and how they liked their harnesses packed. Even the dragonflies liked him, because he handled them gently, and always thanked each one when they delivered the next sales order.
After a few weeks, Fex recommended him for a raise. Ms. Hazel was most impressed, and he got it. Six acorns a day. Even Mr. Filbert began to hear about the new superstar in the Shipping Department, and sometimes he ducked into the warehouse just to watch Plujo work. Eventually, he had seen enough. He decided to see if Plujo could handle other jobs within the company, and offered him a job in the Sales Department. Plujo accepted.
The next week, Plujo reported to the Sales Manager, an extra-skinny woodchuck named Snickers, for his new job as an Order Taker. “Call me Snick,” he told Plujo when he introduced himself. He showed Plujo his new desk, which was equipped with a blank order book and a cricket, and Plujo took his seat with the others in the room.
“This is a crucial department at Nut-ro-Soft,” Snick began. “The whole process starts here. If we’re not selling, then we don’t ship, and then everyone’s out of work. We need you to answer the crickets, take the orders, and get them down to Shipping as quickly and politely as possible. The dragonflies are here to help you.” Plujo understood. When he was in the Shipping Department, he simply accepted the orders and shipped them out. Now, he was the munk creating the orders. All the different jobs, all the different departments, were closely connected. One didn’t succeed—or even exist—without the other.
Snick continued, “This is a commission outfit, Plujo, you’ll get one acorn for every order you take, so if you work hard, you can earn a lot of acorns on this job.” Plujo mulled this over. If he didn’t take any orders, he wouldn’t get paid. Not good. But if he worked hard, did a good job and took a lot of orders, he could earn plenty. His pay was directly related to his output. He would definitely give this job his all.
Plujo sat down at his new desk, and his cricket chirped. Snick glanced expectantly at Plujo, and then at the cricket, indicating that Plujo should answer it and get started. He picked up the cricket and said, “Hello, Nut-ro-Soft Company, how can I help you?” Snick gave Plujo an encouraging pat on the shoulder and left him to do his new job.
Plujo was polite to all of his customers, and cordially asked them how many nuts they needed. Some callers just asked him questions, like how much they charged, or how long it would take to deliver. Plujo was on his cricket all day long, taking orders and answering questions. It wasn’t easy. In fact, even though his chair was comfortable, and he didn’t have to lift heavy bags of nuts, he thought it was just as hard a job as the one he had in Shipping.
Plujo took ten orders his first day, so Snick would pay him ten acorns. If he kept it up, he’d finally be able to save a few nuts for the winter, and maybe even have enough left over to go out on the town for a little playtime. He worked even harder the next day, and took eleven orders, making eleven acorns, and eventually he began to take fifteen orders, and earn fifteen acorns, every day. That was more than he made in Shipping, and it was even more than he could gather back in The Tiny Grove.
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It was obvious to Plujo that the Nut-ro-Soft Company had it right. Back in The Tiny Grove, he had worked all day gathering nuts all by himself. Nobody helped him, and he could usually find about ten, which he shared with his fellow munks and Seedler. Unfortunately, with only himself doing the gathering, he saw that there just wasn’t going to be enough to go around.
Mr. Filbert, and Nut-ro-Soft, on the other hand, employed hundreds of munks, some woodchucks, and even a few gophers and lizards. Each had an important, specialized job, usually one that he, or she, was good at, and each employee contributed to the gathering, selling, and delivering of the acorns in some way. Contribute more, get more acorns. The harder the job, and the better you did it, the more acorns you got. The more acorns you got, the more you could do with them. You could buy a few things to make your burrow nicer, go out for some fun in The Woods, save for a cold winter, or share them with your fellow rodents. You could do almost anything. It was up to you.
Mr. Filbert was wealthier than anyone in The Woods. He started out gathering, just like Plujo. But then he had an idea. He didn’t like waiting for the acorns to drop to the ground. It took too long. So he made a pulley and basket out of grass and sticks, and he had a partner pull him up to a branch, where he could reach the acorns that hadn’t dropped yet. He found that he could gather double the acorns, so he and his partner split them. He used some of his acorns to buy more grasses, and made another pulley and basket. He taught two more munks how to do it. More nuts. He did it again and again, investing in more pulleys and baskets, employing more munks, and gathering more nuts.
Then he came up with a way to do it even better than that. He realized how tired he was at the end of the day, and how tired the employees who worked the pulleys and baskets were too. He also realized that they could probably gather more nuts if the pulleys were stronger and faster. He asked everyone how they thought he should do it, when eventually a couple of lizards suggested the conveyor-elevator systems, powered by the wheels on the ground. One wheel could lift more munks to the branches and haul hundreds of acorns to the ground. Mr. Filbert saved up his own acorns, and used them to buy a big oak tree in The Woods. He hired the lizards to build the system, and it worked so well that he built another, and then another. He thought of a catchy name for his company, Nut-ro-Soft, and put a big sign on the front of the tree.
Eventually he had more nuts than he knew what to do with. So he began to trade them for grasses and stones from the gophers and lizards in The Plains, far to the east of The Woods. He set up the Sales Department. At first it was just a couple of counters that traded bentgrass for acorns, but then he found that most gophers didn’t want to leave The Plains, so he set up the phone center. He signed a trade agreement with the hawks, from The Peaks to the north, to transport the acorns to The Plains. He also set up the Shipping Department to load and unload cargo. With good ideas and sound investments, Mr. Filbert became the biggest employer in The Woods, and paid everyone that worked for him on time.
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Plujo’s promotion created a job opening in the Shipping Department. Fex recognized that Plujo had been the best Shipper he had ever had, so he requested two munks to replace him. Mr. Filbert understood and agreed, and in the meantime, he could use two of the Wheelers from the Nut Production Department. Seedler would need to hire their replacements. He asked Ms. Hazel to place a classified ad in The Woodland Times, and at the Employment Bureau.
Ms. Hazel’s job was to schedule interviews the following week. She had received several applications in the mail, and several more from the Employment Bureau. The process was for Ms. Hazel and Seedler to look over the applications together and decide whom she was to interview. It should have been simple.
She called Seedler to schedule a meeting, but he wasn’t there, so she left him a message. Mr. Filbert’s state-of-the-art crickets could remember a hundred messages for thirty days. Seedler never called her back. Over the next couple of days, she walked by his office a lot, but the door was always closed. She knocked a few times, but he didn’t open the door. She assumed he was in a meeting and didn’t want to be disturbed. Once, she was even brave enough to try the knob, but it was locked. A few times, she took a peek in the Nut Production Department, but she supposed her timing was bad, because she never found him there, either.
After a week, they hadn’t talked with anyone, and the Wheeler jobs were still open. Ms. Hazel was at her wits end. Then, finally, on a Tuesday—or maybe it was a Wednesday—at about two thirty in the afternoon, she ran into Seedler ambling down the hallway, munching on a bag of almonds.
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to meet with you for a week.”
“I’ve been very busy. It’s not easy, making sure all the employees get their breaks.” He burped a little.
“Have you been in the break room all this time?”
“Of course not. Sometimes I allow the employees to go out. On Friday, I took everyone to The Macadamia Room for a group lunch.”
“A group lunch?” she sniped. “Well, I’ll be looking forward to seeing your expense report.” She was visibly irate. “When are we going to pick out applicants to interview for the Wheeler jobs.”
“Wheeler jobs?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“Of course not,” he lied. “But it just so happens that I’ve found two fine munks for the Wheeler jobs.” He was really thinking on his feet, now. “They start on Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?”
“Yes, the problem is solved,” he smiled.
“Well, can you give me their names? I have preparations to make. They need badges, tax forms, and we need to do a background check.”
“You will have their names first thing in the morning. No need for a background check. I can vouch for them.”
Ms. Hazel was a little concerned. She always interviewed new employees herself. She was pretty good at it, and could usually spot a slacker a mile away. Well, if Seedler says it’s okay…she thought, and she headed back to her office..
Seedler went back to his office and locked the door. Where was he going to find two Wheelers by Tuesday? That was less than a week away.
Just then, his cricket rang. He picked it up. “Hello?”
Fate smiled on Seedler that day, and he knew it as he listened to the caller on the other end.
“Why, yes, we do have two openings at the Nut-Ro-Soft Company.”
He paused again while the caller spoke. Then answered, “We need two Wheelers. We need them quickly.”
Another pause. Then he answered, “Yes, we do have a dental plan. When can you start?”
Pause…”Excellent, I’ll see you on Tuesday…By the way, what are your names? Cuffy and Carol? From The Tiny Grove? Yes, this is Seedler…I’m glad you remember…I’ll see you then. Goodbye.”
Whew! he thought. That was close. What a stroke of luck. He would have had some real explaining to do if Tuesday came and he didn’t have two new Wheelers at the front door. Luckily, it had all worked out. The next morning, he stopped by Ms. Hazel’s office and told her the names of the two new employees—Cuffy and Carol—munks, from The Tiny Grove.
Ms. Hazel smiled, although she was still a bit leery of the whole situation, and replied, “Thank you, Mr. Seedler. I’m sure they’ll work out.”
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