About a week or so ago, I had a dream that I found interesting. I had forgotten about it until I read a post by
@Camille58S.
In the dream, I had moved to a very small impoverished town. The place was almost abandoned. There had been a large factory in town that made car parts, but when it shut down most people moved away to find work. The town had a few small shops (barber shop, diner, gas station) and a post office.
I moved there because it offered a place that I could afford, but I had no real income so worked as a day laborer to make ends meet.
We worked in pairs and I don't remember what we actually did. What I remember was that each time I got paid, I used it to pay bills and had very little left over.
I was paired up with a young black man, more like a kid - I think he was about 15 or 16. We had been working together for about a month and he offered to introduce me to some of the people in town. He suggested we eat at the diner, but I couldn't afford it and he assured me that it would be taken care of.
First, we went to see his uncle who owned the barbershop. He was an elderly man with severe arthritis in his hands, but he had three women working the chairs cutting and styling hair for men and women. After some introductions and small talk, the boy handed his uncle an envelope and we left and went to the diner.
At the diner, he introduced me to the man and woman who owned the diner. He handed the woman an envelope then we took a seat and ordered lunch. As we were eating, he told me about what had happened to the town, but he had a plan to revive it.
He made a deal with the barbershop and diner that he would donate a cut of his pay every payday to help them keep their business afloat. He managed to recruit a few other workers to do the same.
The barbershop had been closed for a long time because his uncle's hands would not let him cut hair. My partner started donating cash to help him make ends meet. He then found three women in town who enjoyed cutting and styling hair, so the uncle put them to work. Before long the business was up and running again.
The diner was in a similar situation. The diner was struggling to stay open because there were not enough customers to support it. They laid off staff and considering shutting it down. My partner made the deal that day laborers would give them a cut of each paycheck and the diner would supply their lunches. This worked for a while, and now with more people employed in town at the various businesses, they had enough traffic to hire another cook, and then a waitress.
I was so amazed that this young man had such a keen grasp of the situation and was able to work out solutions that benefitted everyone. The next step in his plan was to re-open the factory. It had been sitting vacant for a number of years and he managed to locate the owners and made another deal. Instead of rent or lease, the owner would be paid in commissions once the factory was up and running. The town would take care of getting it cleaned up and ready at no cost to the owner.
The reason he told me all of this was to get my help. I agreed to participate in giving some of my pay to these businesses that were giving me "free" services. What he wanted help with was to find a company that would agree to use the factory. I had no contacts like that!
Then I remembered that there were a couple of guys who lived near the edge of town that did woodworking and carpentry. We talked to them about converting the factory from producing car parts to making furniture. They not only agreed but they belonged to a Woodworking Club and could get more workers. When I asked them where they get their wood, one of the guys had another relative who owned a sawmill and had contacts with several logging companies.
The entire plan came together and within two years the town was growing.
This young man taught me that it was not about what the town produced that made it valuable. He invested in people. He found people with unused skills and then found them a place to use those skills. The people who could not work supervised and taught new workers who were able to. People who did things as hobbies found a place to earn a living from doing things they enjoyed doing.
Production was merely a side effect.
