This promises to be a long post. I've got a bit of reflection and reporting to do. First, I read this book called Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich that I admit, ashamedly, I was supposed to read during the school year along with the other executive members of the Global Poverty Club. I think that I wasn't the only one that didn't read it. That is neither here nor there. Reading it has given me some more food for thought as I continue work for Labor Ready and consider the culture of the group I am working with.
I was going to try to find an online synopsis of the book, but they're pretty long so I'll do my best to explain it. Pretty much, a journalist decides to try life out at the poverty line. She goes to three different states and holds low wage jobs (Florida - Waitress/Housekeeper , Maine - Maid , Minnesota - Wal*Mart). The story is about her struggle with management, working conditions, fellow employees, sticking to the poverty level (since she had a well-paying job and money), and paying rent/buying food. She started off with a little money in her pocket and had a chunk saved for emergencies that she tried not to use, but eventually had to use some of it. It seems that one of her main issues finding a sufficient place to stay because the typical rent was $400 per month for a a place that one of us might consider living in during a time of great need. The parts of the book that most interested me were when she spoke of who she worked with and their living conditions. I was surprised to find that some people were living in hotels at $40-$60 a night. This was because the people didn't have enough money to put a deposit down for an apartment. Or if they did, they wouldn't be able to pay the month's rent on top of medical and food needs. Often, the author would wonder why her co-workers wouldn't band together to demand better working environments. I don't know, but I feel like this is because those people are too afraid to lose their jobs. Reading this book allowed me a little more insight into the life of people who have to work at the minimum wage past their teenage years and made me question the way we view those who work those types of jobs.
My latest escapade at Labor Ready brought me a job working at PBM, graphics. I packaged World of Warcraft cards. I'm not allowed to talk about exactly what kind, or participate in their tournaments for the next year. Pretty serious stuff. They're the primary manufacturer and print the stuff in French and some other languages. Didn't know they were geeky over seas too!
There are two shifts at PBM. The first is from 4AM to 6PM and the second from 6PM to 4AM. Labor Ready opens at 4am and closes at 7:30pm. I think the first shift has to leave Labor Ready at 4:30 because it takes an hour and a half to get to the job site. It takes me about forty-five minutes to get to Sioux Falls, so I'd have to get up around 2:45 to give myself enough time to get ready and get to town with about ten minutes of cushion for whatever might come up. That means I'd have to be in bed by 8pm to get the minimal amount of sleep to function at a cognitive level. I would need to go to bed at 6pm to function on the factory floor for 12 hours without accidentally harming myself or others Not gonna happen.
I opted to do the second shift because I knew I could wake up at a decent time and could probably power through until 4am. With this in mind, I called Labor Ready (LR) to ask what would be the best time to get there to make sure I would be on the night shift. I was told 3 or 3:30, so I arrived at 2:40 figuring that everyone else was operating at the 3-3:30 time and that I would beat them. Turns out, they're smarter than that and most of the spots were filled up before I got there. I'm not sure why the morning lady told me that time. As a side note, the morning lady is the one I don't know that well, and the afternoon lady seems to recognize me already. I think she must just be good with faces.
When I showed up, the afternoon lady told me that she would try to get me on the list but she wasn't sure. Then, she asked if I had a car and would drive. Since I could, I was guaranteed a spot. After realizing that I would be the one to drive I googled the distances and saw that PBM is 45 minutes west of where I live in South Dakota. I drive about 45 minutes to the east to get to Sioux Falls. Not the most efficient way to do things.
This reminds me of a lady who volunteered some information to me while I waited for the group to ship out. She was there looking for a job and had already gone to Command Center (which I found out is another temp company that pays more) and reported that they were too strict and only picked their favorites. I then told her that in order to work at PBM you couldn't have more than two misdemeanors, which I thought was pretty fair. She sort of scoffed and said that she had a felony. She also mentioned that she was six months pregnant but seemed to have enough of a filter to not talk about why she needed the job so much and how the baby related to that but sort of made me feel like the two were related. My main take away was that there was another temp agency that paid more and, I found out later, that I could call in to say I wanted to work and just drive over to PBM if I worked through Command Center, rather then having to drive all that way in to town. Cost of gas, wear on the car, and time not sleeping are all things I would have to consider against the fact that me having a car allowed 4 other people to go to work and that having that car guaranteed my position. I also got $6 each from the people in the car for gas.
Back to the story at hand. I, the girl from a small town who barely knew how to handle herself with a green arrow at the stop light, would be driving other people to work. To be honest, I hate driving other people. For some reason, though, in new situations I like to pretend that I'm really confident at things that I'm not so that other people won't question me. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. There have been no fatalities yet. The good news is, we made it just fine to the site. I had a co-pilot who must have been in his 50s and had been working at PBM since September last year. Once upon a time he was a truck driver with enough experience to decide that I (along with all other Michiganders) always speed. He made sort of a fuss about that, but gave me some great information about what to expect and when the breaks were. We spoke a little bit about the Casey Anthony trial and some of his history during the hour and a half so it wasn't awkward which I was very appreciative of.
After arriving safely at PBM I found out that I was assigned to the "hand line" which meant that we were assembling something by hand. Duh. That something, of course, was the WoW boxes. The whole set up needed 6 people. One to open the box and put it on the line, another to stuff a card box and manual in, one to add a mat, one to add playing cards, another to add come organizational stuff for card collectors, and a final person to check that they were all stacked in right. All positions had a chair at it, so I was stoked because I was under the impression that I wouldn't have to stand for 10 hours. We had a supervisor who showed us what all of the positions were supposed to do and how exactly to stack everything (they way they make sure you can read the brand is kinda neat), and then asked two of us to volunteer for a job she wasn't going to tell us about until after we volunteered. I should have known not to volunteer at this point, but everything about my childhood told me that volunteering earned you brownie points. What I really earned was the job carrying, tearing, and breaking down boxes. I had to make sure that all of the supplies were full and that the line never had to stop because they were waiting for me. I was successful over my ten hours and actually enjoyed the hour it took to figure out the most efficient way to be the most successful at my work.
I'd like to say that the next nine hours that followed filled me with some sort of insight about others through interaction but I can't. I had those nine hours to think and reflect and drive myself crazy. For awhile, I was curious about those around me and even tried to converse with them but no one seemed up for conversation. I understood, since most of them were on day 4 of a terribly mundane shift. I was tired and my feet hurt and I was jealous that I didn't get to sit down until, in the 8th hour, I was offered a sitting position that I gladly took. I then realized then that the grass is always greener on the other side. While I was happy to be sitting down, the job was not very intensive but was painful because it was repetitive. Imagine that type of pain when you've been sitting in the wrong position at a computer for too long. Doing this new job made me even more tired and knew I wouldn't have been able to survive that position the whole night. I was switched back to supply after the break and was given other random tasks during the night. I don't know if it was because she knew that I could do all of them, or if I was hindering the group enough to need to do the small things. I'd like to think it is the former since I was thrown on the line to help make it move faster. At this time, I found out that the young lady next to me wasn't capable of following a pattern which frustrated me, but she and I worked through it and were able to manage the line.
The last half an hour of the entire shift, I was told to look busy. So, I swept the floor, again. 4am rolls around and I'm free with a 1.5 hour drive back to Sioux Falls and some major concentration to do so that I don't fall asleep and harm the other people in my car. The older gentleman made comments again about my speed and informed me that early after that shift the sheriff typically would camp outside of the factory, pull over people who were speeding, and also hoped to find people with outstanding warrants. Apparently two of the "natives" had been caught like that before, and the older gentleman had been in a car that had been pulled over one time (as the passenger) and was asked for his ID. He refused to give it because he wasn't the one in trouble for speeding. But, this, along with his constant mention about my speed (which I promise wasn't that bad) and the fact that he no longer had a license led me to wonder if he had a warrant out or not. I'm a little torn about the whole situation because obviously these people are doing their best to work for a living and for the sheriff to pull them over like that just doesn't seem right. But then again, they have a warrant out so I suppose they have done something wrong.
After this drive, I had another 45 minute drive back to Canistota. I got back at 6:15 and woke up at 1. I survived the whole ordeal.
Reflecting back some, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be working at Labor Ready. Or, at least with PBM. I feel like I'm making excuses, but while I worked that night shift I couldn't help but listen to the people on the line and think about their families and my own family growing up. Most of these people work these shifts 4 or more times a week and have a family. I personally had to leave the house at 2:00pm to make sure I got the job, and I know that othesr have to leave earlier to make sure the bus gets them there on time which means that they don't get to see their family that much (especially during the school year) and that breaks my heart. I also remember my dad working those night shifts when I was younger and I absolutely hated it. I couldn't wait for him to have a day off and was ten times more happy when he finally went back to days. I hated night shifts and I remember that although I was pretty young and don't remember a lot about that period of my life. It apparently bothered me enough to make me pretty much promise myself that I would never have to become accustom to a shift like that. It may sound spoiled, but the whole idea feels so against everything that I've been striving for. I guess I figured that if I worked hard enough while I was younger, I would be able to avoid the unpleasantness of not seeing my family and practically becoming a vampire. I respect all of the people who work in those factories a lot because they deal with the physical pain and monotony on a daily basis, but I don't think it's the life for me. It's a really tough thing to swallow about myself, the fact that I can't mentally standa job like that. The idea that I'm too 'soft' to handle that kind of work makes me feel inadequate in a way. To boot, a large part of me feels that since I don't want to do it, I'm just being a yuppy.
Carol pointed out to me that sometimes this type of work just suits other people and I think that must be true. I guess some people wouldn't enjoy doing the things I do on a daily basis for work, but it's hard for me to understand how anyone could find joy in that type of factory work.
