Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010 9am to 3pm
Today was very exciting.
Concrete Technologies is a company that hires immigrants from Tacoma Community House (TCH) and responsibility (as the Communications Intern for TCH)to highlight them in our upcoming centennial publications. In doing their profile, I interviewed the HR manager, but I also got to take a tour of the company plant.
Concrete Technologies creates giant concrete structures, like bridges, docks, stadiums etc. They are located in the tide flats. Finding them was extremely difficult, because they are really in the heart of the Port of Tacoma (near the water and not near the city center).
With my reporter's notebook, camera, hard hat, glasses and bright vest I felt like a reporter and toured the facility. I met a lot of the workers and saw the interactions. The family owned (third generation immigrants from Norway) business treats their laborers like family and desires only success for them.
When I got back to the office, I wrote up that profile and worked on profiles for other success stories (previous TCH clients). A woman who I did a profile for came into the office to show me pictures of when she was at TCH. You could tell TCH meant a lot to her, because she fondly shared memories with me of how her teachers uplifted her after her self-esteem-busting migration to the states. She told me it was like starting over again. Two pictures she shared with me stuck out in my mind.
One picture is of her family in Austria upset, with all their clothing and cases. Their hotel they were supposed to stay in in Austria was full, so they had to wonder the streets for a few days.
Another picture is of her at Tacoma Community House's summer job smiling with her managers.
Today I learned two things:
1. The importance of the visual elements that show people's faces (working at their job sites, etc) which gives a dynamic story and elements writing can't.
2. The importance of work. The importance of feeling needed, being employed and the importance of company's hiring you and respecting you.
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