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2015 Collection: Sporadic Notes from The Toy Factory #7 Reality


Have A Nice Weekend. Oh, Do You Have To Work?

"F@#$%^&*! " loudly growled the woman working behind a pallet of various sized cardboard boxes. I could feel her frustration reverberate through her corrugated makeshift jail, as she worked to make sense of it all.

She was a dayshift worker; I worked evenings 3-11 pm. I had just started work; she had another half hour to go. I was checking-in my forklift and electric 'car,' aptly called 'a tugger.' I hauled big parts using the forklift and pulled long trains of parts using the tugger; the latter job one that I said I'd never do over the years, but, toward the nearing end of my tenure at the toy factory, I decided to bite the bullet and just do the job; retirement is just a short time away.

A dayshift guy does the same job I do, but he is usually gone before I get to the department. Once in great while our paths cross, but he's just as eager to leave at 3:00 pm as I am at 11:00 pm. Depending on what he's left me to do, that he should've done, does affect his leave-off time and the chance that we'll meet in passing. Oh well, we've all heard the expression "The dead come alive at quitting time." Maybe others think I do the same thing, but I try not to give them that impression.

The woman was working at a job no one liked to do, where unused parts were returned to a central location and put back into the department I worked. Many of the parts were not in their original containers, nor were they relabeled, nor their quantities changed so the woman had to do all that; a totally thankless job at best. 

On top of that, one of the containers had broken when she picked it up; and the hundreds of small parts inside it spilled across the floor and rolled under things. She was fit to be tied, so I helped her pick them up. I know it's murder to have to deal with things like that at the end of shift when you're frustrated enough over the many other trying events of the day.

But so it is in a toy factory, a place of physical toil for the most part, and often tedious labor. I was fortunate to have some mobility as a forklift driver. I got to thinking working there wasn't so bad once I accepted it was what I had chosen to do to earn a living and still live where I do, doing the things I loved to do, far from the maddening crowd. 

There are other jobs out there; all you have to do is look, particularly in 2015. There's no reason to be unemployed in northwestern Minnesota because businesses are crying for good employable people, sometimes they accept less, hoping to find that single nugget in a sea of sand.


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When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

Tecumseh

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