|
|
|
October 16th, 2006
 | 11:31 pm
so my job is mainly to dump oats[1] into a bin. and also flax seeds. and then i scoop them out of their respective bins and dump them in a metal thing. i feel like someone punched me in the feet. all the machinery in this place is amazing -- it's like some dickensian industrial revolution factory. everything is big and loud and shaking and doing weird hypnotic mechanical things and smoking and steaming. oh god, there was this one machine which, for the entire time i was there, just shot out a steady stream of smoke. it wasn't on, it looked extremely broken, and i'm not even sure it was plugged in. but constant smoke. part of it was being held on with bungie cord rope. there was this huge oven thing i had to clean at one point, it was terrifying. it's like some scalding wind tunnel. the sides are lined with latched doors. the lady is like "okay open these doors, scrape all the crap out onto the floor, and then sweep it up and throw it out", i asked why not just scrape it directly into the trash and she just kinda stared. but anyway, so i am doing this, and each door btw opens into this shadowy metal coffin filled with cereal flotsom, and making ominous throbbing sounds. then i open one door and the wind just flies out at me, slams the door all the way open, swirls crud into my eyes. very exciting. i couldn't even get the damn thing to close cuz the air was too strong.
and you wouldn't believe how much food gets wasted at this place. at the end of hte night i was walking through the HUGE MAZELIKE FACTORY and there were seriously giant piles of cereal and granola and flax and whatever else, just all over the floor waiting to be thrown out. like able to feed a starving african village piles of food. every shift ends an hour early to devote the whole rest of the time to cleaning up. you'd think an organic company would have some concern for waste, or that any company would think "hey maybe if we upgrade our very ancient-looking machines, then they'll stop literally streaming out wasted material at a constant rate and we will thereby save tons of money". my job, and the job of many of the people i saw working throughout my day, could very easily be done by machine, and better than we were doing it too.
high points of my day: 1) when the people on the little catwalk thing above me decided to clean their floor with an airgun, so they just sprayed their crap all on my head. 2) when i spilled 50 lbs of oats on the floor adn had to clean it up with a little push broom
[1] originally i typoed this as goats. then i deleted it and tried again adn AGAIN typed goats. so i guess i am subconsciously dumping goats. kicking goats to the curb, if you will.
oh and we didn't even get lab coats!! we got these dorky astronaut janitor jumpsuits, with fake pockets. seriously, they took normal pockets and sewed the tops shut. i don't know why.
manual labor rulz oh jk white collar 4 lyfe. on the plus side, kitty seems to have gotten me a job writing for her friend's company which sells academic papers to students (FOR LEGITIMITE PURPOSES he assures me)
|
If I were you I'd be a little nervous about working in large ovens. OH SHIT I'M GOING TO HELL HAHAHAHA. THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER READ. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/125153072/578054) | | From: |  jpallan |
|---|
| Date: | October 17th, 2006 11:59 am (UTC) |
|---|
| | | (Link) |
|
So basically you're in Willy Wonka's factory, only with cereal? it's not colorful and nobody breaks out into song. you could very easily do something about this. i was doing a lot of singing on the job, actually if i worked there, when i walked past piles of waste id take a handful.
what brands do you make? can i buy it here? i want to support you. i also want you to feed me.
that's why they sew the pockets shut!!! heh. they only sew the breast pockets shut though, the side and butt pockets are still there. there's even slits so you can reach through the whole jumpsuit and get to your regular pants pockets. and then there's the special pocket for the box cutters they give to all employees. i stand corrected. start stealing cereal from the floor! too late! i don't work there no more yesterday for awhile they had me tearing open bags of cereal and pouring it all into a big box (i have no idea why i was doing this). i was totally eating the cereal while i did it though; it wasn't bad at all.
as far as i know, the only brand there is Nature's Path. i don't know if it's in new england, but i know they ship it to mexico, so it might be getting out your way too.
note that i don't work there anymore, so if you want me to feed you, i will have to make you a snack when i am back out there. "nature's patch" is not a very appitising name. Ah, my friend Laura works there. Once she gave me a big bag of poorly wrapped granola bars.
I expect the same from you.
ZARDOZ! hahah i saw those granola bars. poorly wrapped is putting it mildly - they were basically boxes full of loose granola with torn wrappers placed atop. i didn't take any with me, i'm afraid. i tried one, was disapointed, and dismissed them.
i am trying to download exorcist II, but the torrent stopped at 81% :( i got a little avi of it though, so we'll just have to watch it on a computer I had a bowl of Nature's Path oatmeal this morning (MAPLE NUT in case you care what flavor) and it was the shit, so thank you, good man. i'm glad you enjoyed the sweat of my brow.
(hopefully not literally, but it wasn't the most ventilated building) this "kitty" you speak of is awesome. preaching to the choir, lady! ooooohhh lots of grain and seeds on the floor? just imagine how many little night critters come out once the lights are out!
loved your description. everyone will start fighting to get a job there. More than Willy Wonka, this seems more Lemony Snickett to me. there was a note taped to one of the side doors that there had been "another" rat sighting. i lolled
i haven't seen/read lemony snickett. should i? Well I liked it a lot, even when I saw it again around a year later I still liked it a lot. Should you see it? probably. One of the best things was the scene where they named every single irrational fear/phobia that anyone could think of and then they happened! It was great! |
|
