The Five Worst Jobs - #5 - The Factory
Because I was feeling ill yesterday and was unable to provide you with entertainment, I've decided to make up for it with the first in a new series of informative pieces describing some of my more unpleasant jobs. I'm starting now with the fifth worst, counting them down 'til we reach number one., like I'm the Casey Kasem of anecdotal essayists or something. Anyway, without further ado, here's ...
#5
In my life, I've visited four different factories: one that made toothbrushes, two that made candy, and one that made razor blades. Three of those four were in foreign countries. I've only worked in one factory, and that was a factory only by the strictest definition. In reality, it was some guy's living room.
I was spending the summer with my cousin and his then girlfriend (and now wife) in the foothills of Santa Fe. I won't go into the details of my time there, other than to say things got mildly ugly, and came to a head that fall, when I was back at school and some snide comment I'd made in a letter to him was taken more seriously than I'd intended it, and garnered the classic response (in the body of his return letter) that, "maybe great, smart Rob isn't so smart after all." Which, of course, is true, but then I hadn't been the one making such claims. Not that I hadn't believed them. Not that, when the wind is right and the shadows are low, I still don't,,,
Anyway, the real root of the ugliness (which, for the record, is under the bridge--albeit still polluting the waters a bit) was my typical inability to find a job. I'd been living comfortably off of Daddy's credit card, which my parents made no real effort to take away from me. To my credit, I was not a prodigal spender that summer; my extravagences were limited to two or three CDs (I believe they were "A Quick One" and "The Who Sell Out" by the Who, and Ween's "12 Golden Country Greats." Just so you know), and, well, what my cousin referred to as "Gucci food." Which is to say, prepared items and Odwalla juices purchased at the local Whole Foods (or whatever the 1996-or was it '95?--Santa Fe equvalent was). I can see now how this might have been seen as an affront to a young couple working hard for their money, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. At least, it seemed like a thing I was able to do, and so I did it. In retrospect, it was an act of amorality rather than immorality, and undoubtedly not my vilest transgression that magical summer.
I did actually try to find work. I'm sure it took me a while to get going, and when I did, I probably only filled out about five applications and made no effort to follow up on any of them, but that should count for something, right? Right? Anyway, it ended up not mattering, as my friend Graciela, who lived in nearby Espanola (aka, the Low Rider Capital of the World) hooked me up with a job at a place where she was about to start working. She'd met this guy, see, who'd started a business out of his home, designing and manufacturing hash pipes. They were awful looking things. At the core, they were your garden variety pipe, but instead of a simple, colorful rubber sheath encasing the stem to protect to the delicate fingers of the modern doper, these were all emballished with thick, gaudy, platicine figurines, most of the space alien motif. The only one I remember specifically was one of a large breasted alien chick with pale green glow-in-the-dark nipples.
The guy who ran the place was, needless to say, a geek, it was a long commute from my cousin's house, and the pay was horrible, as it was piece-work, and I was by no means a fast hand at it. Still, I after a couple days, I started to get the hang of it, and expected to continue my improvement. Besides, I really didn't need to make much money at all, as far as I was concerned. And it was an okay place to work; the other workers were nice, we could pretty much show up when we wanted, we could listen to whatever music we wanted, and we were free to get high at our leisure. On top of that, Graciela was always fun to be around. On the whole, I was content.
On the fourth day, the work switched from molding the plastic pieces to painting them. I was very bad at it, slow and not very precise. The guy who ran the place seemed to be around more than usual that day, and I kept catching him checking out Graciela and giving me the evil eye when she and I were talking. Later in the day, she and I went to my car to smoke a joint. I'm not sure why we didn't do it right out in the open, but we didn't. As some point, I saw the boss staring at us through a window. It made me uneasy, but I didn't think much of it. The day finished up and I drove back to Santa Fe. The phone started ringing almost as soon as I stepped in the door. It was the bossman, calling to fire me. He didn't give me much reason beyond saying I wasn't good at detail work, and I told him I understood. For some reason, this stunned him, and after a silent moment he thanked me enthusiastically for taking it so well. He told me I could pick up the money owed to me the next day, which I did. It couldn't have been more than fifteen dollars.
Not long after that, my cousin woke me at around 8 one morning, asking me if he'd done something to make me mad. I didn't know what he was talking about. He proceeded to scold me for sleeping so late, and after similar one-sided conversation, asked me to leave. He was friendly enough about it, and I was in no position to put up a fight. A week or so later, I packed my bags and drove back east. Apart from one very unsettling incident in an Indiana rest stop men's room, the trip was without adventure.
#5
In my life, I've visited four different factories: one that made toothbrushes, two that made candy, and one that made razor blades. Three of those four were in foreign countries. I've only worked in one factory, and that was a factory only by the strictest definition. In reality, it was some guy's living room.
I was spending the summer with my cousin and his then girlfriend (and now wife) in the foothills of Santa Fe. I won't go into the details of my time there, other than to say things got mildly ugly, and came to a head that fall, when I was back at school and some snide comment I'd made in a letter to him was taken more seriously than I'd intended it, and garnered the classic response (in the body of his return letter) that, "maybe great, smart Rob isn't so smart after all." Which, of course, is true, but then I hadn't been the one making such claims. Not that I hadn't believed them. Not that, when the wind is right and the shadows are low, I still don't,,,
Anyway, the real root of the ugliness (which, for the record, is under the bridge--albeit still polluting the waters a bit) was my typical inability to find a job. I'd been living comfortably off of Daddy's credit card, which my parents made no real effort to take away from me. To my credit, I was not a prodigal spender that summer; my extravagences were limited to two or three CDs (I believe they were "A Quick One" and "The Who Sell Out" by the Who, and Ween's "12 Golden Country Greats." Just so you know), and, well, what my cousin referred to as "Gucci food." Which is to say, prepared items and Odwalla juices purchased at the local Whole Foods (or whatever the 1996-or was it '95?--Santa Fe equvalent was). I can see now how this might have been seen as an affront to a young couple working hard for their money, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. At least, it seemed like a thing I was able to do, and so I did it. In retrospect, it was an act of amorality rather than immorality, and undoubtedly not my vilest transgression that magical summer.
I did actually try to find work. I'm sure it took me a while to get going, and when I did, I probably only filled out about five applications and made no effort to follow up on any of them, but that should count for something, right? Right? Anyway, it ended up not mattering, as my friend Graciela, who lived in nearby Espanola (aka, the Low Rider Capital of the World) hooked me up with a job at a place where she was about to start working. She'd met this guy, see, who'd started a business out of his home, designing and manufacturing hash pipes. They were awful looking things. At the core, they were your garden variety pipe, but instead of a simple, colorful rubber sheath encasing the stem to protect to the delicate fingers of the modern doper, these were all emballished with thick, gaudy, platicine figurines, most of the space alien motif. The only one I remember specifically was one of a large breasted alien chick with pale green glow-in-the-dark nipples.
The guy who ran the place was, needless to say, a geek, it was a long commute from my cousin's house, and the pay was horrible, as it was piece-work, and I was by no means a fast hand at it. Still, I after a couple days, I started to get the hang of it, and expected to continue my improvement. Besides, I really didn't need to make much money at all, as far as I was concerned. And it was an okay place to work; the other workers were nice, we could pretty much show up when we wanted, we could listen to whatever music we wanted, and we were free to get high at our leisure. On top of that, Graciela was always fun to be around. On the whole, I was content.
On the fourth day, the work switched from molding the plastic pieces to painting them. I was very bad at it, slow and not very precise. The guy who ran the place seemed to be around more than usual that day, and I kept catching him checking out Graciela and giving me the evil eye when she and I were talking. Later in the day, she and I went to my car to smoke a joint. I'm not sure why we didn't do it right out in the open, but we didn't. As some point, I saw the boss staring at us through a window. It made me uneasy, but I didn't think much of it. The day finished up and I drove back to Santa Fe. The phone started ringing almost as soon as I stepped in the door. It was the bossman, calling to fire me. He didn't give me much reason beyond saying I wasn't good at detail work, and I told him I understood. For some reason, this stunned him, and after a silent moment he thanked me enthusiastically for taking it so well. He told me I could pick up the money owed to me the next day, which I did. It couldn't have been more than fifteen dollars.
Not long after that, my cousin woke me at around 8 one morning, asking me if he'd done something to make me mad. I didn't know what he was talking about. He proceeded to scold me for sleeping so late, and after similar one-sided conversation, asked me to leave. He was friendly enough about it, and I was in no position to put up a fight. A week or so later, I packed my bags and drove back east. Apart from one very unsettling incident in an Indiana rest stop men's room, the trip was without adventure.
posted by Rob at
12:15 AM
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