R.P. - A HERO’S BIOGRAPHY
The following took place twenty years ago when I was still working, at that time as a Q A Manager at FACELLE, the tissue paper company. Over the years of working there because of my ability to draw and flair for writing I was often asked to do miscellaneous odd jobs that were not really a part of my regular routine. I always complied, regardless of who was doing the asking. Many times the requests entailed humour, practical jokes, a retirement or out of plant transfer of someone well known and well liked, et cetera. But not always.
This particular incident occurred when one of our employees hit upon the idea of creating a safety mascot for the Roll Product Department where he worked. Right up my alley! I very quickly came up with a cartoon character based on a roll of toilet paper whom we christened R.P. (short for Roll Product). The plan was to feature a new cartoon of R.P. monthly doing something related to our plant safety program. Each cartoon would be printed on good quality art board and hung somewhere in the manufacturing area to help keep all our associates aware of important safety issues. Nothing had higher priority than safety!
As it happens FACELLE was undergoing major changes at the time. Our plant had been bought out by another concern and they were in the process of “shaking up” the current management. By shaking up I mean they were offering generous retirement packages to older managers, if you were older than 55 you got an offer for sure. Age-wise I wasn’t quite there yet…but I was close enough to be hopeful.
We managed to have two cartoons hanging before I was finally offered the golden handshake I was looking for and which I accepted immediately. Shortly afterwards I received a request for a third cartoon by e:mail from the safety coordinator who was unaware of my decision to move on. A copy of my reply (which speaks volumes about the mood I was in at the time) follows along with one of the R.P. cartoons.
MY RESPONSE MEMO
Re your request for another R.P. cartoon.
It is with deepest regrets I must inform you that R.P. has quietly passed on. His demise, coincidentally, came shortly after I was offered an early retirement package (I will be leaving at the end of January). He lived a brief but happy life and we shouldn’t feel sad.
R.P. went the way of all good quality bathroom tissue, one sheet at a time. Although safety was always his main goal in life, it was one simple misstep that caused his downfall.
Concerned as always with the safety of his fellow workers, he was investigating a wet washroom floor safety issue when some unthinking coworker in an obvious act of desperation slipped a hand out from under an adjacent stall. The evidence suggests that he was then grabbed and overpowered, and skinned alive, so to speak. Once the outer layers were removed he was no longer recognizable, nor was he able to call for help. As the day wore own others similarly abused him, and probably totally unaware on who he was, flushed him, a piece at a time, down the john.
“Flushed with victory” we like to think, for although as humans we might considering this way to be undignified, to R.P. it meant he went the way he was intended to go, his raison d’être, his ultimate purpose for being. His brief term as a safety mascot was, I am sure, nothing more than icing in the cake.
We found him at shift change the next day. His skeleton, the bare core of his being, was still hanging from a roll dispenser on the wall. The remains were identified immediately for, true to his unselfish nature, our little hero had used his final few minutes of life to write these last words on the inside of his own core, next to his little, (yet gargantuan) heart.
He must have been choking back tears as he wrote:
“Always remember to work safely…nothing we do is worth getting hurt! My love to you all…R.P.
Sorry R.P. can do no more, we honour his memory. R.P., R.I.P.
Noel
