April is Earth Month, a time that might get a lot of us thinking about how to reduce the amount of garbage we send to landfills. That can begin with a simple change of behavior: Buy less and re-use what you already have.
An easy place to start is by looking at your footwear. Americans create a large amount of waste each year discarding old clothes and shoes. So I thought I’d try a job that helps people breathe new life into the shoes they already have.
My workday as a cobbler at Alpine Boot and Shoe Repair started right awaythey put me straight to work.
We got started nailing shoeswhich I didn’t even know was a thing.
It’s done by machine. Learning how to operate the equipment was a task in and of itself.
I think I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Too quickly maybejust as I started ‘nailing’ it, it was time to moved onto a new task and new machine.
I was handed a pair of heels to trim, then polish.
I learned a big part of this job is taking an old shoe and making it new again. Seeing the shoes I was working on come back to life was like doing a magic trick.
A little extra polish and stain, and I couldn’t believe it:
If you couldn’t tell, this was a job that suited meand Alpine Boot and Shoe Repair thought so too! I’m hired.
If you have a job you want me to try, send me an email at hiringheidi@kgun9.com.