Have you ever made a mistake and it feels like the whole world is ending? Yea… me too…
Now, it was my job to get a hold of the “Oil Guy” as we have him listed in our WhatsApp and get him to agree to do a refund/replacement. It was a lot of back and forth.
“You gave us bad oil, the moisture content was too high,” I said.
He would reply in his very Indian accent, “NoO, we gave you good oil. Send me your tests.” (Please read this in your most frustrated Indian accent)
And back and forth and back and forth.
Finally, after several calls consisting of the same conversation, he handed off the situation to his supervisor.
I called him as soon as I got the number and he started the investigation into what we needed.
As I was gathering the documents he requested, I noticed that our invoice said blended palm instead of pure… that's strange.?.
The next day, when we spoke again, he confirmed what I thought that they gave us the wrong oil. What happened next, I thought was the coolest thing.
“I found out you are from Riverside,” he said, internally I was mildly concerned as he spoke, why does he care where I’m from? “I have a special interest in making sure you get what you need because, I am also Adventist!” That was not the turn I was expecting. Craig, my director, told me that was rare because most of the guys here that run the oil companies are not Adventist, but God brought us to someone who would help us through this process!
Like I said, they gave us the wrong oil. Instead of pure palm oil, they gave us a blended. Later we would find out it was not the moisture content, but rather they had removed a lot of the fats that bond with the lye in order to make soap. This caused our soap to not soap and rather turn into a very weird, semi soap mess.
We arranged it to pick up the new oil that week. I got a text from Craig about loading the flow bins ahead of time. I talked to all the right people, my week was set. I was so excited to finally be moving forward. We cleaned up the factory and the curing containers. Thursday came and I texted Craig a question about preparing the flow bins bright and early at 7:00 AM. I kept discussing my different plans for sales with one of my coworkers Kabwe, and then I got a text back that said roughly that the bins were supposed to be loaded the night before… um, what? To say the least I was devastated and in that moment, my world seemed to end(spoiler alert it didn’t). This was the first major mistake I’ve made and it was the simple issue of misreading a text. I felt terrible! I then immediately planned what we could do for a week, while waiting on the truck that went that way again… I was going to continue educating Isaac in Excel and Katie in typing. We were going to plan an entire sales training and sell to different agents and shops. That was what I tried to use to bounce back. But to be completely honest, I spent a lot of the day crying and cleaning. My mistake would put us another week behind production and it was all my fault. However, by the end of the day we had a new plan to pick up the oil Friday, the next day, it would cost a couple thousand Kwatcha more, but it would be less bad than stalling another week in production.
Friday morning, a truck came at 6:45 and we loaded it with the bad oil and an empty flow bin for sunflower oil. Isaac hopped on and they headed away. They were supposed to be back around 12, but ended up getting back around 18:45. The loading process was a mess, to say the least. They wanted documents that no one had told us about and were very slow throughout the whole process. By the time they got approved to pick up the oil, it was 1300 hours and the employees at the company all went for lunch. At 1400 they were still slow to unload the bad oil and by that point it was 1500 hours. The loading station was 2 hours away from Riverside… they would barely make it back by sunset. I spent my day texting back and forth with Isaac, Craig and the oil company. By the end of the day, we had no oil and Isaac and the truck had to come back. We arranged for it to be picked up Tuesday, hoping and praying it would be a better process.
Monday was spent prepping and planning, getting ready for the next day. This time the truck would leave at 6:00, in the morning. When they made it back at 1300 hours, with the new oil, I was so grateful. We finally had oil that would work!
As I reflect on this massive supply chain issue and series of unfortunate events, I found a couple of patterns and ways I could learn. One, always learn from your mistakes, take responsibility and make a plan to fix it. It’s been hard remembering that it is ok to make mistakes, and that some of the most successful people make the biggest mistakes. My parents were instrumental in affirming my value was in Christ and not my performance. I know I will make mistakes, but I don’t want to make the same mistake twice. Two, Satan comes for things that are planned by God. He can cause problems and delay all he wants, but ultimately God will prevail.
The amount of things that have gone wrong while I’ve been here (construction delays, oil issues, power outages, soap machines breaking, soap being sent to random places and more) prove that something is fighting against Akuna and what we stand for. God is holding me and this company in his hands. Three, I have to let go. I cannot control circumstances outside of myself and I have to let go and let God. He called me here for a reason, even if that reason is something I might struggle to accept. He has a greater plan than mine and I have to trust him.
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