Working in Factories

Factories are very loud.

N.B. A couple of years later whilst laid up with the flu I saw a programme about Engelbert Humperdinck and in his garden was one of the comedy dog's arses in the air that we used to make. This is possibly the flimsiest claim to fame that I know of.

The second factory was one where they bottled bleach and washing up liquid, and I had to screw the caps onto the bottles and pack them, twelve at a time, into boxes. These plastic bottles came hurtling along a fast-moving conveyor belt, and were always falling over before you could get the tops on. The noise of the machinery in that factory was almost deafening - everyone who worked there quickly became expert at lip-reading because you couldn't actually hear what people were saying. I'm sure Health & Safety wouldn't allow people to work under those conditions today. I had to wear cotton gloves while packing the bottles - the gloves would be soaked with washing up liquid by the end of each day, which left your hands red and sore (the soap was worse than the bleach in this regard). Ghastly job.

Last factory experience was in my final year at Uni, where I worked in a place where they made/froze/packed pizzas. That was great fun - they put all the students on the same production line, and it was very noticeable that we had significantly fewer pallets filled with boxes of frozen pizza at the end of each shift than the regular workers did. I think this was mostly because we would chuck the frozen pizzas at each other all day like they were frisbees.

Not in Canada, though its hard to get a job if you don't have some offical training in it.

Shit, this is sounding like a fucking po-mo Bryan Adams song.

Let me start again. After finishing university rather than look for a decent job, I just fell into where I'd been working on-and-off during holidays, which happened to be a local factory manufacturing a variety of board games, notably Trivial Persuit.

Jobs ranged from the afformentioned conveyor belt jobs where you wouldn't be allowed to have a break for stints of upto 6 hours at busy times, to sweeping up bits of paper from machines cutting the packs out of sheets. It would be so loud you would only pick out a split second of the radio every 5 minutes, and it made me so glad to leave when I eventually did, and so depressed thinking that some people will live their life with jobs even worse than that.

Hey, this is making me feel really unusually happy about my current job. Thanks guys!

In America you do.

My first jobs were either babysitting (which wasn't a real "job" per se) or working at a nursing home in a "candy striper"-type position. I would help out with various activities, cut people's meat, read people's cards to them (when they got cards in the mail), etc. It wasn't as bad as regular manual labor but the environment was pretty depressing. The administration tried their hardest to make it a cheery place, but most of the nurses just treated it as though they were working in a hospital ward and you just couldn't help but notice the very ill lying there in their beds, maybe days away from death. And the halls smelled of death, even the ones in the pricier wings. It just about made my day when I encountered a resident who was still able to be up and about and make friends with other residents.

Chapter Four of Deanna's Autobiography are in the works, yes. ;)

Eyes are mean but the walls are clean
In the factory
Patience now they're gonna string you out
In the factory
I'm so tired I never go outside every night I sleep
Days are long but the minds are gone
In the factory

We got a kid that's two, we got another one due
We get by the best we can do
The factory's got a good medical plan
And, cousin, I'm a union man
Saying, Yes sir, no sir, yes sir, no sir, yes sir, no sir

I was born in Mechanicsburg
My Daddy worked for Pontiac 'til he got hurt
Now he's on disability
And I got his old job in the factory
Saying, Yes sir, no sir, yes sir, no sir, yes sir, no sir

Early in the morning I feel a chill
The factory whistle blows loud and clear
I'd kill my wife or she'd kill me
But we gotta go to work at the factory
Five days a week at the factory
Up early in the morning at the factory
I've been working in the factory
Johnny, I've been working in the factory
Kickin' asbestos in the factory
Breathin' that plastic in the factory
Punchin' out Chryslers in the factory
Makin' polyvinyl chloride in the factory

But no you gotta, you gotta [relate, babe,]
You gotta find the rhythm within
Floor boss slides up to me and he says
"Hey sister, you just movin` too fast,
You screwin` up the quota,
You doin` your piece work too fast,
Now you get off your mustang sally
You ain`t goin` nowhere, you ain`t goin` nowhere."
I lay back. I get my nerve up. I take a swig of Romilar
And walk up to hot shit Dot Hook and I say
"Hey, hey sister it don`t matter whether I do labor fast or slow,
There`s always more labor after."
She`s real Catholic, see. She fingers her cross and she says
"There`s one reason. There`s one reason.
You do it my way or I push your face in.
We knee you in the john if you don`t get off your get off your mustang Sally,
If you don`t shake it up baby." Shake it up, baby. Twist & shout"
Oh that I could will a radio here. James Brown singing
"I Lost Someone" or the Jesters and the Paragons
And Georgie Woods the guy with the goods and Guided Missiles ...
But no, I got nothin`, no diversion, no window,
Nothing here but a porthole in the plaster, in the plaster,
Where I look down, look at sweet Theresa`s convent
All those nurses, all those nuns scattin` `round
With their bloom hoods like cats in mourning.
Oh to me they, you know, to me they look pretty damn free down there
Down there not having crystal smooth
Not having to smooth those hands against hot steel
Not having to worry about the [inspeed] the dogma the [inspeed] of labor
They look pretty damn free down there,
And the way they smell, the way they smell
And here I gotta be up here smellin` Dot Hook`s midwife sweat
I would rather smell the way boys smell--
Oh those schoolboys the way their legs flap under the desks in study hall
That odor rising roses and ammonia
And way their dicks droop like lilacs
Or the way they smell that forbidden acrid smell
But no I got, I got pink clammy lady in my nostril
Her against the wheel me against the wheel
Oh slow motion inspection is drivin` me insane
In steel next to Dot Hook -- oh we may look the same--
Shoulder to shoulder sweatin` 110 degrees
But I will never faint, I will never faint
They laugh and they expect me to faint but I will never faint
I refuse to lose, I refuse to fall down
Because you see it`s the monotony that`s got to me
Every afternoon like the last one
Every afternoon like a rerun next to Dot Hook
And yeah we look the same
Both pumpin` steel, both sweatin`
But you know she got nothin` to hide
And I got something to hide here called desire
I got something to hide here called desire
And I will get out of here--
You know the fiery potion is just about to come
In my nose is the taste of sugar
And I got nothin` to hide here save desire
And I`m gonna go, I`m gonna get out of here
I`m gonna get out of here, I`m gonna get on that train,
I`m gonna go on that train and go to New York City
I`m gonna be somebody, I`m gonna get on that train, go to New York City,
I`m gonna be so bad I`m gonna be a big star and I will never return,
Never return, no, never return, to burn out in this piss factory
And I will travel light.
Oh, watch me now.