All About Mick's World

"By the end of November 2015, Mitsubishi will end production at the plant in Normal." Shock, disbelief, denial. No, scratch the denial. They told us flat out it's happening. Can't deny that. Why I had been so sure this was not going to happen: 1. In my area of the plant, the company two weeks before had just installed $100,000 of upgrades to the equipment that installs the wheels. Why would they spend so much on something that would only be used temporarily? 2. During the month of the announcement we were working overtime, ten hour days to meet demand. Overtime adds cost to production costs, so why not work standard eight hour shifts to keep costs down? 3. Four days previously the company had hired a group of full time employees to keep manufacturing at full staff. Why pay more personnel? 4. On a monthly basis the company has put out memos bragging of sales increases. With sales on the upswing, wouldn't it make sense to continue productio...

Well hello there! I'm Stewart....Stewart T. Squirrel, but if you like, you can call me Stew. All my friends do. Very pleased to meet ya'. This is a little odd, but I'm talking to you all from the grave. I don't understand exactly how this is happening, but take my word for it. Weird, eh? I'd like to share with you all a little story from my last days there on earth...and maybe even a little beyond that. My year begins as they all do, with me coming out of hibernation. With three months of sleep behind me you'd expect me to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (literally), but more than anything else, I was hungry. Famished. There are no nuts in the trees this time of the year, but being the genius squirrel that I am, all I need do is dig up the ones I'd buried last fall. Um...so, does anybody know just where I had done that? Nope? Dang, thanks anyway. I’ll just start poking around….nothing here, ooh, that smells familiar! Yes, score! An acorn right where I b...