May 29, 2004

• I’ve been working. The temp agency that has had me on their list finally called. This resulted in two jobs. The first: Engineered Solutions. So I get a call around 5, and they tell me they have a job for me, but I have to show up asap. Well, seeing as I was getting desperate, I jumped all over it. I show up, and follow the instructions I was given by walking into this large building, and asking the first person that would pay attention to me where I could find the Engineered Solutions supervisor. Well, I forgot the name, and asked for engineering solutions, but either way, this guy seemed pissed at the world. He seemed angered by my presents in the room, I think that was his only reason for asking if he could help me, and when I asked him my question, he got in a huff, hurriedly sat down at a desk, and paged someone over the intercom. He then proceeded to ignore me for a good 5 minutes, until someone else chose to help me. Well, this person led me through a large warehouse, where people were operating large machinery, and making who-knows-what.

  
  

  We arrived a what seemed to be a clearing in the stacks of metal crates, where there were people doing something without machines. I later gathered that this was the domain of engineered solutions, who, I think, tests products for this larger company. Anyway, he left me with a sik (sp?) fellow who spoke a shattered English (which I later discovered was par for the course). He demonstrated a rather simple task of placing one piece of metal into another to test the size of the first. So, that’s what I did, again, and again, and again, and again, and again. First lesson of warehouse work: monotony can be your friend. When you’re doing the same thing over and over, and that thing takes the brain power of a goldfish to accomplish, it leaves most of your mind to ponder your surroundings. Every once and a while, an important looking man with a blue overcoat and a pen in his front pocket would come by and argue with my supervisor in another language, when this happened, my instructions would change slightly. Before long, my supervisor asked me to work until 2 am, instead of 11, which I was originally told. After the guy who was working closest to me translated, I agreed.

  
  

  Then, the lunch buzzer rang. I was starving. You see, I left for work just before dinner, and I hadn’t happened to eat any time before that. So, when I entered the lunch room and saw some instant noodles in a vending machine, I couldn’t help myself, though I think I was under prepared. After the machine ate my first 2$ attempt, and sketched out on the second, I got the noodles. I read the instructions: “step one, add boiling water.” Where was I going to get that? I looked around until I found a tap and a microwave. Ok, but now I need something to contain the water. A coffee machine! I took the Coffee container off it and filled it with water. Just as I was about to press ok on the microwave, I realised something crucial: it was metal. Ok, that plan scratched. Nothing to use. I know! I could use the noodle container itself. Not what it’s meant for, but what the hell, I’m starting to get desperate, I only have 20 minutes. Ok, noodles cooked, but what can I eat them with? I search the room, nothing. I sat down at the closest table to ponder to latest predicament, when the guy I was working with undigested something. There were coffee lids sitting by the instant coffee machine! Of course, Coffee Lid Chopsticks! It worked, and I was filling my stomach just fine, when some onlookers, who by now must have thought me quite nuts, asked me if I’d like I fork. Heh, I sheepishly said that would be helpful. Well, it turns out my original scower of the place wasn’t complete. She had me look on top of the vending machine: nothing there. She then went into some drawer, ruffled around, and pulled out a fork. “Is not mine. But you clean. Will me fine.” I had done it at Tyndale, why not here. By now I had just enough time to inhale my noodles and run some water over my ‘borrowed’ fork before the buzzer went again. Off to work.

  
  

  The evening pretty well continued in the previous manner. Test part, put it aside, test part, put it aside. You know, I don’t even know that the function of the thing was. Anyway, 2 am came, and I called a cab to get home.

  
  

  Job the second: Tabco. This time Armor Personnel was on the ball. My mother woke me up to a call from their office, I had a job for two days, and it was to start at 4. This time I eat, and packed a lunch, or, dinner I guess, and was off. Unfortunately, I could only get a ride for 3:15, but I sat and read the moral theory of one Clive Staples Lewis until I was called. So, after signing my life away to some corporation, I was led into another large warehouse, which was comparatively small. I was handed gloves, ear plugs, safety glasses, and a typical blue overcoat with the name “Steve” written in cursive over the right breast. I put them all on, and someone with the name Andrei on his coat led me to a series of large machines, one of which had “C 3” painted on it. “C for coining!,” Yells Andrei over the machinery and the ear plugs, “This number 3!” He explained the proper operation of this machine, but I didn’t really understand him. When you’re talking with someone who has a strong accent, often your best bet is to see what information you can gather by tone of voice. When you talking to someone with a strong accent and your warring ear plugs, you’re pretty much fucked. Anyway, I watched him demonstrate, and gathered enough to figure it out. I then signed something saying I was properly trained in the operation of a coining machine; well, I still didn’t know what a coining machine actually did, but I had to sign it to start working, so whatever, I signed Chris Jones (my name according to my divers licence, and therefore Armor Personnel, and everyone who talks to them, though most people here called me Steve). So I was off to the machine. This time, my monotony became an art. You see, to my right was a fellow welding brake shoes, and to my left a lady punching holes in them. I had to run the shoes through the machine fast enough to keep the pace going. At first I sucked, and they had to stop welding every once and a while so I could catch up. This is where the art came in. I was constantly figuring tricks to get the job done faster and faster: saving half a second could mean the difference between a large pile of shoes and a small one. I think this whole thing did a lot for my left handed dex, though it killed by the end of it. After a day and a half of this, my hands feel like their covered in a large bruise, which only takes a break in places where I have blisters; I’ll live though.

  
  

  *Proverb of the Day: When you’re looking at the world through safety glasses, everything is blurry.* 

  
  

  So, lunch break came and went without event this time, one fellow ate in the same room as me, I came to refer to him as “the guy in the pioneer shirt,” because I couldn’t pronounce his name (note to Jamie: he probably picked it up at a used clothing store, the guy had only been living in the country for a month, I doubt he had any association with the camp, I suppose theirs always a possibility though). I didn’t exchange words with the guy until the next day, but by then he was just trying to make conversation, and it was a little awkward because I could hardly understand his accent, I think it was something European. Anyway, I went back to work: more deathly monotony.

  
  

  That night and the one before contained the dreams of yore post, I think the work was getting to my head. It was the next morning I wrote that, then went off to work again. When I arrived I opened the locker I was assigned, and got out all my gear. I was doing the coining thing again for about half the day, and then everyone seemed to switch machines. I guess Andrei thought it would be a good idea for me to learn another one. He again made another failing attempt to train me on a machine, but again, I though I had it. I signed another paper, and then went to work. Now, I’m not sure whether I was doing something wrong, or whether the machine was having a problem, but Andrei, with a frustrated look on his face, told me to stop. He apparently had no other job for me, because I spent most of the remaining time sitting one some crates wishing I had something to occupy my time. He had me packing shoes from a machine he would operate into a box for a while, but he takes fairly regular smoking breaks, and seems to take off for unknown reasons, so that didn’t last long. At one point the told me to go back to the machine he had just trained me on, and I did that successfully for an hour or so, until the spool of metal I was using ran out. I was definitely thankful for it running out though. You see, as a safety measure, we’re all forced to wear these safety glasses. For some reason, when I was operating this machine, mine kept fogging up. For a while I was quite near blind with them on, and operating a machine designed to punch out patters from sheet metal using about 600 tons of pressure, but they were keeping my eyes safe.

  
  

  So, the day ended with me being board, sitting one crates again. The next day they asked me to work again… I said no. I probably could have gotten this job permanently if I had tried. But honestly, I don’t think I could handle it: either my arms would fall off, or I would go insane. Working 4:30 - 2:00, the only persona I ever see is my mother. But I took the possibility of getting a job at Boston Pizza as apt excuse to not go back. My sisters boyfriend (not Tim) has a hook-up there, and he wanted me to come in and deliver a resume while he was working.

  
  

  So that has bee my life for the past few days. It’s 4:30, and I think I heard my dad get up to pray, so I should be getting to bed. Have a good one.

  • 3:26 pm
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