Chapter 13 My Hands and My First Real Work
When I left school, I had no grand plan for the future. Like so many young men of my generation, I was expected to begin working. Not because I knew exactly what I wanted to become. But because it was simply the next step in life. I had been hired to work in a factory. Everything was arranged. All I had to do was walk through the gate and begin my first day of work. But when I arrived at the factory entrance, something happened. I stopped. I looked at that gate. At the people going inside. And deep within me, I felt something I could barely explain at the time. This was not my path. I did not yet know what my road would truly be. No other job was waiting for me. No certainty.
No grand plan for the future. But I knew one thing. I did not want to go inside. So I turned around. I never worked in that factory. Today, it may seem like only a small moment. But when I look back on my life, I realize how important that decision was. For the first time, I was not choosing the path that had been prepared for me. I was choosing the uncertainty of a road I still had to discover for myself. It required no grand words. Only the courage to turn around and keep searching. My father and oldest brother had chosen technical training for me. They believed electromechanics would offer me a secure future in the Liège region. I understood their reasoning. But my heart was drawn to languages, commerce, and human contact. I did not have a diploma that would bring me security. I had only my curiosity, my willingness to work, and my hands.
Those hands wanted to understand how things worked. They wanted to try, repair, and improve. They learned by actually touching objects. Not through theory, but through practice. Later, I often discovered that a person is not shaped only at school. Work teaches us too. People teach us. Mistakes teach us. And sometimes a single decision teaches us more than an entire school year. At that factory gate, I learned to listen to my inner voice. I did not know where it would lead me. I only knew I must not pretend I could not hear it. My hands had not yet found their trade. But I had made my first personal choice. The road that followed would first lead me to Rubens. Then into a world that would change my entire life. The world of FAEMA and espresso.
My first real step toward the world in which I would later work began at a company called Rubens. Rubens supplied equipment and solutions for institutional and commercial kitchens. Restaurants. Hotels. Businesses. Schools. Hospitals. For the first time, I discovered all the technology, planning, and expertise hidden behind every professional kitchen. That is where I met Benoit. He became far more than a colleague to me. I admired his calm, his professional knowledge, and the seriousness with which he carried out every assignment. He taught me that work done well begins with attention. Not only attention to a piece of equipment. But also to the person who would have to use it. During those years, many installations were converted from town gas to natural gas. It was precise work that carried real responsibility. Every burner had to be adapted and then checked. A small error could have serious consequences. So I did not only learn to work with my hands. I learned to think ahead. To verify. And to accept responsibility for what I left behind.
Some assignments demanded almost the impossible. I remember one period of work that began on a Sunday around six in the evening and did not end until Wednesday morning at about ten. We had been at work for nearly forty-eight hours. The fatigue was immense. But the installation had to be completed and operate safely. We continued. That work was hard on my body. I had to move equipment. Bend. Lift. Stand for long hours. My back began warning me more and more clearly. I was young and thought the pain would eventually disappear on its own. But it kept returning. Looking back, I understand that this was the first time my body reminded me that even perseverance has limits. Nevertheless, Rubens gave me a great deal. There I learned to listen to customers. To search for the true cause of a problem. And I learned that service goes far beyond simply delivering a piece of equipment.