Why You Read
So once upon I worked in this monster of a warehouse. When I say work I only mean perhaps 30 % real work, 20 % waiting wasting time and 50 % looking busy. Let me describe a typical day.
Work started at 4:00 in the afternoon and we had till 4:06 to clock in. Then as now I was a non driver. Arriving at work was achieved by means of public transportation or bicycle. Punching in after 4:06 would be an automatic loss of thirty minutes of pay and a one of three strikes against loosing a raise. Rather then risk being late I would often schedule arrival at work to leave me at least 20 minutes of leeway so that I wouldn't be rushed getting my boots on and trying to sprint to the time clock at the other end of the ware house. So I would stand outside the warehouse and read till about 4:02.
So we didn't usually start actually working till somewhere around 4:30. The blue shirts, also known as working foremen, would come around with the work orders and they didn't exactly sprint. Sure there was a little prep work we could do while we waited for the orders, but it didn't amount to much.
So the Blue shirt would come by and give us maybe thirty minutes of work. This, of course, was suppose to last until first break at 6:00. We would stretch the work out by sending one of the four people at the table off to the bathroom every few minutes, thus making it necessary for us to either work at a slowed pace, or if no white shirt or worse yet suits were around we would just wait for the people to come back from the bathroom.
Lunch was at 6:15 so we usually stopped working somewhere around 5:40. By 5:50 people would be lined up outside the break area.
Now keep in mind I always had a paperback novel in my back pocket. Whenever any I was in the bathroom or we were sitting on the stacks of cardboard waiting for a break, I was reading.
First Break officially ended at 6:20 and we might make it back to our work stations by 6:30. Somewhere around 7:00 the blue shirts would come around with another small stack of work. This was to last us until 9:00 which was second break.
We would stop working by 8:40 and be lined up by 8:50. This was only a 15 minute break officially but somehow work never started back up until 9:30.
The final stack of work for the night would be brought out and I swear it was something we could easily knock off in 20 minutes, but we were expected to "make it last." I hated hearing that phrase. "Here you go boys. Make it last." My coworkers took it as gospel they felt they would be endangering their jobs with any thoughts of actual productivity.
We would often be done with our work by 11:00 but with quitting time being midnight we would never leave the work area until at least 11:30 and then it was off to the stacks of cardboard and the long wait till midnight when we could punch out.
I would often knock out fifty to a hundred pages of reading just during the screwing around periods not even counting the time I spent reading during our official breaks or prior to work.
To say that my job was less that stimulating would be a gross understatement.
So one day a young lady at work asks me, "Bubba. Why you be reading all the time?"
(They used to call me Bubba because I had a hat that said Bubba on it. It was the first baseball cap that I had ever tried on that actually fit my head. So I bought it. There was no way to convince my coworkers that they shouldn't call me Bubba and I didn't try very hard because it was better than being called "Tiny"). I was very tempted to say something about the joys of proper grammar as words presented on a page, but I figured she would think I was just making fun of her because of her ethnicity and their would be no end to my problems at work.
Years later I would try to describe the moment in a short story and I fudged the truth a bit. I claimed that what I wanted to say was along the lines of reading keeps from accepting this sort of neo barbaric workplace. I longed for intellectual stimulation and visible purpose in my day and reading provided that.
What I actually told the girl was, "Because I like to read."
A more accurate truth may have been that I wasn't particularly good at the entire social interaction thing. Getting to know my coworkers seem like to much of an effort. When you have you nose parked in a book all the time people get the hint an stop trying to talk to yas. There was also that entire smug I'm smarter than all of you thing that I've never been able to shake (even when it is far from being true).
Why did I read? Escapism. Escape from the terrible job. Escape from the having to deal with people. Escape from the fact that I was a college drop out working in a place I had never pictured myself in.
More Laters
Work started at 4:00 in the afternoon and we had till 4:06 to clock in. Then as now I was a non driver. Arriving at work was achieved by means of public transportation or bicycle. Punching in after 4:06 would be an automatic loss of thirty minutes of pay and a one of three strikes against loosing a raise. Rather then risk being late I would often schedule arrival at work to leave me at least 20 minutes of leeway so that I wouldn't be rushed getting my boots on and trying to sprint to the time clock at the other end of the ware house. So I would stand outside the warehouse and read till about 4:02.
So we didn't usually start actually working till somewhere around 4:30. The blue shirts, also known as working foremen, would come around with the work orders and they didn't exactly sprint. Sure there was a little prep work we could do while we waited for the orders, but it didn't amount to much.
So the Blue shirt would come by and give us maybe thirty minutes of work. This, of course, was suppose to last until first break at 6:00. We would stretch the work out by sending one of the four people at the table off to the bathroom every few minutes, thus making it necessary for us to either work at a slowed pace, or if no white shirt or worse yet suits were around we would just wait for the people to come back from the bathroom.
Lunch was at 6:15 so we usually stopped working somewhere around 5:40. By 5:50 people would be lined up outside the break area.
Now keep in mind I always had a paperback novel in my back pocket. Whenever any I was in the bathroom or we were sitting on the stacks of cardboard waiting for a break, I was reading.
First Break officially ended at 6:20 and we might make it back to our work stations by 6:30. Somewhere around 7:00 the blue shirts would come around with another small stack of work. This was to last us until 9:00 which was second break.
We would stop working by 8:40 and be lined up by 8:50. This was only a 15 minute break officially but somehow work never started back up until 9:30.
The final stack of work for the night would be brought out and I swear it was something we could easily knock off in 20 minutes, but we were expected to "make it last." I hated hearing that phrase. "Here you go boys. Make it last." My coworkers took it as gospel they felt they would be endangering their jobs with any thoughts of actual productivity.
We would often be done with our work by 11:00 but with quitting time being midnight we would never leave the work area until at least 11:30 and then it was off to the stacks of cardboard and the long wait till midnight when we could punch out.
I would often knock out fifty to a hundred pages of reading just during the screwing around periods not even counting the time I spent reading during our official breaks or prior to work.
To say that my job was less that stimulating would be a gross understatement.
So one day a young lady at work asks me, "Bubba. Why you be reading all the time?"
(They used to call me Bubba because I had a hat that said Bubba on it. It was the first baseball cap that I had ever tried on that actually fit my head. So I bought it. There was no way to convince my coworkers that they shouldn't call me Bubba and I didn't try very hard because it was better than being called "Tiny"). I was very tempted to say something about the joys of proper grammar as words presented on a page, but I figured she would think I was just making fun of her because of her ethnicity and their would be no end to my problems at work.
Years later I would try to describe the moment in a short story and I fudged the truth a bit. I claimed that what I wanted to say was along the lines of reading keeps from accepting this sort of neo barbaric workplace. I longed for intellectual stimulation and visible purpose in my day and reading provided that.
What I actually told the girl was, "Because I like to read."
A more accurate truth may have been that I wasn't particularly good at the entire social interaction thing. Getting to know my coworkers seem like to much of an effort. When you have you nose parked in a book all the time people get the hint an stop trying to talk to yas. There was also that entire smug I'm smarter than all of you thing that I've never been able to shake (even when it is far from being true).
Why did I read? Escapism. Escape from the terrible job. Escape from the having to deal with people. Escape from the fact that I was a college drop out working in a place I had never pictured myself in.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 1:24 AM
2 Comments:
Nothing will cure your insecurity over not finishing the degree like going back to finish it years later and having a good look at how meaningless it all is. I speak from experience.
Hmm the difference between writing somethign and how it is interpreted. As we know I have any number of odd beliefs, strange phobias and a somewhat perverse sense of humour.
But all in all I'm a happy guy.
I enjoy being unemployed and knowing that the gravy train will one day end I take joy in each stress free day, I delight in the fact that I never set an alarm.
Writing about my past self is an examination. I try to understand my motivations better so as to continue a more carefree life.
I thank you both for your concern though.
Post a Comment
<< Home