The latest sedition of, Fox News actively makes you stupid

I had a summer factory job my first 2 years of college. #1 - it was very hot and loud. #2 - how someone could do it day after day, year after year amazed me.

This place made soda bottles to be shipped to bottlers. By the second year I "graduated" to the palletizer. The machine that would make layers of 200 or so bottles, stack them 8 feet high & then wrap them in cellophane for shipping. If I didn't pay attention and the bottles weren't jammed together properly, when the works got shoved down the line to get wrapped the whole thing would explode and soda bottles would fly everywhere. Then I'd get yelled at and the whole line would shut down. This place was the impetus to me graduating and getting the sit-my-fatass-in-a-chair-all-day grey collar career I have now.

 

I'm half-expecting @roby or @Naughtius Maximus to share stories of them working as kids in a factory 12 hours a day moving coal to the furnace and getting regular beatings for not doing it fast enough.

 

Working IN a factory??? Luxury!

When I started work my old man had just started a business as an export agent for a malleable iron foundry in the midlands, selling to the states. As part of our service we broke down large wooden packing cases and made them into smaller ones of an appropriate size for the products.

Because we were too cheap to spend on renting a little factory unit my dad rented some space in the corner of a farmers field where one other guy and me... muggins here... had to work outside, in January, carrying out this work

At first I bought gloves but they kept tearing on the nails in the old cases so it got too expensive.

My old man had a brilliant idea, (HE thought) put on an old pair or two of socks when using the crowbar or hammer, THAT will keep your hands warm

Gee... thanks dad!



"We were happier then, though we were poor" he says.

Er... NO!

 

Did you get regular beatings? Otherwise it was a happy childhood...

 

Well, it's not as if you have real winters there. Although I grant, the rain would be no fun.

 

Nah, not really.

There was one occasion when my dad threatened my older brother, (who was about 10 at the time so I'd have been 6 I suppose), by saying "You know what'll happen if I take my belt off, don't yer". To which my brother replied, "Yes. Your trousers will fall down".

It's very difficult to threaten someone if they don't take the threat seriously, isn't it

 

I think it was about -10C so that's what... about 10F? Cold enough, anyway, thus the need for socks.

We moved into a little factory unit shortly after that. Mind you, that was unheated as well, so...

I was tough in them days. Now... not so much

 

You don't have proper winters over there so I don't know what the hell yer bitching about.

200 heavy Sunday papers, walking through 2 feet of snow, uphill.

 

That is an "Angela's Ashes" moment there.

 

England doesn't get that cold! OK, I guess the Midlands does sometimes. Yeah, that qualifies as cold.

 

I had a horrible factory job (won't bore you with the details) for 3 summers in college - stuck it out because the money was too damn good. I think every kid who goes to college should do this, or something similar, so they learn about the real world and the (potential) value of a college education. So I'm not that upset that my boy who goes to an elite university didn't get a fancy NSF fellowship for the summer and wound up getting a job doing landscaping in the park (I did tell him to spin it by putting "urban ecology" on his resume). He had to lie at the interview when they asked if he knew how to use a weed whacker.

 

I think every young'un needs to have a job like that, especially college students. The summer between HS and college, my bruv and I worked at a plastics factory where they made bathroom light fixtures and plexiglass window panels. It was pretty much exactly as Auria describes, where the lines kept moving, 24 hours a day. There were guys with familes who worked there and while the money was good for someone my age, it gave me all the incentive I needed to make damn sure I got through college so I wouldn't end up in a job like that.

The problem is that now with a much wider gap between haves and have-nots than there was 30-40 years ago, the people who would really benefit from the "character building" of a job like that are the least likely to need to work at a job. It's a lot more fun hanging around the pool at the tennis club all summer!


EDIT: I see Funkfoot just beat me to the point.

 

I've done temp work in a factory but it was definitely not worse than working at a fast-food place in the summer back when air conditioning was an after-thought.

 

Our company still does the character building thing for newbie college grads, puts them on the phones for a year. That doesn't go over very well. One sample comment - "You could hire somebody else to do this for half our salary, and they'd be happier."

It's sounds like a wise policy but it's really not. It seems noble, teach the kids not to have airs and learn about our customers and work their way up the system blah blah blah, but the best of the college grads won't put up with that. It's no so much that they want to be at the pool, or don't care about customers, or whatever. It's that they are easily bored. They're not going to put up with a year of drudgery so that they can pay their dues. They're going to find something cooler that they could be working on now.

So I call that approach a fail.

 

As it happens some years later I was also running our sawmill, (which is classed as 'agricultural work' so factory heating rules don't apply), when it was measured at -29C about 5 miles away by the amateur weatherman for the local newspaper. That's about -20F I believe.

That was back in the early 80's IIRC.

I'll be honest, it seemed pretty chilly.

I looked a bit like this...



But, y'know, more rugged and manly, obviously

 

Can't help thinking there are better ways of doing it. Maybe do it for 2-3 months and then team-building malarkey on away days... that sort of stuff. Put them under some pressure.

 

Of course this worker didn't get it. They are confusing not having better options with being happier. Sounds like management material to me.

 

If you see me coming...better step aside.

 

Beat me to it!

 

Is that your papa?


Or maybe is you...

 

I think it is Roby Wan Kenobi as a youth...

 

You could see that the force was strong with the young padawan.

 

Billy [aka Fernando] thought I looked mahvelous!

 

Oh is HE the one that tamed that shrew?