I think the folks who ran the can factory figured a strong, young guy, with good eye-hand coordination would be a natural on the most complicated of tasks. Too bad I wasn’t that guy. The first job they gave me involved taking a long stick and moving aerosol cans off a conveyor belt, onto a huge sheet of cardboard. When the sheet was full, the machine would drop down and another layer would be put on top of those cans. The trick was to not knock any cans over because just one can tipping caused a domino like catastrophe, jamming up the line, and stopping all work. It also drew the foreman's attention. After a couple of messy incidents I was quickly pulled off that line by the foreman as he muttered something about stupid white boys.
I was then put at the end of a conveyor belt where I had to take a flattened box, open it up, grab the cans as they came rattling down the line, and put them into the box. Easy I thought until around the hundredth time I had to do that maneuver. My arms ached, and I swore my ears must have been bleeding from the non-stop sound of cans clattering around me. Remember, this was the sixties, and the can company had no requirement that we wear ear plugs. The third time I hit the big red emergency button, the foreman angrily took my arm and escorted me over to the shipping department.
The shipping department involved the loading of trucks, and railroad box cars with cans. I was given a large wooden fork, about four feet across, with a dozen tines on it. I was then put inside a huge box car with a little metal ramp that cans would roll down. I had to stab a dozen cans with my fork, spin around, and stack cans until the entire box car was full. I was surprised at how hard it was to keep those cans on the end of the fork as you spun around.
My final job at the factory, before my employment was terminated, was the lowly job of sorting the large cardboard sheets that were used for the aerosol can stacking station. I was alone in a warehouse sorting cardboard, and had managed to work my way from the top shitty job, all the way down to the bottom. I was truly beginning to regret not getting the grades I needed to get into college. I felt pretty bad, although, I was able to take a nice nap among the cardboard before the foreman came looking for me.
Always so interesting to hear about your job history...I wasn't around for your frequent changes! I never knew you worked in a factory, but you were making JUST UNDER what I started making as a nurse in 1970! Sometimes an education means nothing in income! But I'm still glad I went.....
ReplyDeleteFactories, and unions are what made the great American middle class. A lot of folks think they are still in the middle class. The truth is they are one paycheck away from poverty.
ReplyDeleteI remember a friend Bill who was pumping gas for minimum wage in 1994 when I met him. After learning about his self taught interest in computers I helped him produce a resume which he mailed around and received a job offer. Five years after securing the entry level job he became second in command of the company making over $60k per year. There was talk of him opening another office in the Tampa area where he would be first in command with another hefty raise. After five years as a teacher I was only making about half as much as he was.
ReplyDeleteAlan, the union man, always seems to overlook the public unions andthe damages they have cause in most notable, California. What was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation's and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination – high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes – has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.(OC Register April,2010)
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