HWI Cape Girardeau, MO Part 1

I want to talk about the center and the management team in this chapter of “HWI Cape”.

 

It is important that we understand the center was not complete. The front wall was missing and the front office was not built. More importantly there were no restrooms for the employees to use. I don’t know if there was such a thing as port-a-potties in those days but if there were we didn’t have any on site.

The male employees went out behind the building when the urge hit and the female employees were allowed to go to the truck stop which was about a mile from the center.

Our small team of staff were unloading and checking merchandise into a building that was not secured. That same security person that gave me to tour was all that protected the building. 

The Cape warehouse (we called it a warehouse in those days; they are now known as Retail Service Centers) was more than a warehouse, it was also a manufacturing facility. The city of Cape Girardeau passed a bond to help construct the building and HWI Cape had to be a manufacture to get the bond. What did we manufacture, doors. 

As time passed I was put in charge of the manufacturing and recording the inventory. I would take a blank wood door using a router cut the appreciate size opening in the door then I would insert a window into the opening. I would subtract the blank door from inventory and add the door with the window into inventory. That was our manufacturing company. This process was continued for a few years until HWI paid the bond back to the city. 

HWI Cape was the first expansion for the company and the management team consisted of a warehouse manager (Jim) a warehouse supervisor (Pete) and an office manager (Ann). The office manager was married to the supervisor. Ann, the office manager was needed in this first start up because no one had any idea what to do or what problems to expect.

After Ann left the center, the position of office manager no longer existed at any of the centers. We now knew what to expect in a startup and we could train the office staff prior to the actual startup.

Pete was a people person and could get staff to do just about anything but the manager was not a people person. Ann was a friendly person and took care of many problems.

Of the initial employees hire to work in the Cape warehouse, three became Center managers; Don Ford, Lonnie Carter and Dawson Young in that order.

Mike Whitson (the fellow I helped on my first day) was a person that liked to snoop. As I have stated, we were working from the receiving office and the only file cabinet they had was there. Mike while snooping through the files found a note that said they were going to promote me to the receiving lead person position, which they did.

As the building was nearing completion and we were getting ready to start shipping Lonnie Carter was promoted to shipping lead person.

One last comment about staffing; the manager hired a lady to work in the receiving office. She was going to work in the front office when it was completed. This lady was an older person. There was no PA system in the building so the office lady was given an air horn (a horn attached to a can of air) and if she needed to have the manager come to the office she would step out of the office and one blast was for the manager. Others had a different number of blasts.

This office person would answer the phone and take notes. The problem was these notes were then taped on the desk. Some would be in the middle and others were near the phone. I used that desk as much as the office person did so I suggested that she could stop taping notes on the desk and simply put them in a folder for that person.

For some reason my suggestion seemed to upset her so she went to the manager to protest telling him, “I know what I am doing and I am not going to listen to what that young man is telling me to do, I will quit before I listen to him”.

The manager told her he was sorry she felt that way and she could leave, she didn’t need to stay the rest of the day. She left the building.

 

 

Don Ford

 

All rights reserved; any reproduction or distribution without written permission is strictly prohibited.