Happy Seigner is one of those individuals who did that as a career. I can attest that he, and others like him, are the linchpins of the seafood industry. Happy started his career as a dock worker and unloader in 1978 for J.S. McMillan. Like being a fisherman, being a plant worker is a demanding and dangerous job. The hours you work are based around the amount of boats that arrive. If there's another one to be unloaded; you unload another boat. Plain and simple. Fresh fish waits for no one. As a greenhorn in the company, Happy was once instructed to be lead unloader for a boat full of rockfish. Just a young man of 24 and not experienced enough to argue with the people around him, he did what he was told and filled up the hold of the boat to allow the suction machine to work unloading the boat.
As Happy continued to work in the industry, he gained skills and responsibilities. Seafood plants can be large companies and have many roles to strive for. Like many jobs, being in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing can be crucial. Having your boss show up late for a shift and missing a crucial unload was one of those times for Happy. In one conversation he went from forklift driver to charge hand or lead hand of a 200 person operation. All with a twist. Happy decided the best way to control and efficiently operate all his staff as well as keeping the vessel content was to continue driving the forklift. By doing so he found he could be involved in every aspect of the operation. From being near the boats, to moving the fish from the graders, to delivering the fish to the gutters, then filleters and finally to the ice plant or the freezers. A fish plant has many moving parts. Each step is crucial to the next. If any one of those steps fails, one of two things happen. First and best case scenario - the mistake is caught and the fish discarded. Though this costs money, time, effort, and is wasteful, it also prevents the customer from receiving poor quality fish. Also the previous problems still apply but with greater consequences. The customer, sometimes the final customer, has to deal with an inferior seafood product. Causing a ripple of problems in its wake. Happy’s job was to see that these problems did not happen on his watch in his plant. Ever. His attention to detail was that of constant diligence. Happy did this job to the best of his abilities and to the delight of the owners for 15 plus years. Through advancements in offloading procedures, refrigeration innovations, NAFTA, vessel catch increases and countless workers coming and going, the whole point to all of this was to get the customer the best product possible.
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