The worst job I ever had

How much crap are you willing to tolerate for a paycheck?

After moving to the west side of the state and bouncing around from job to job for a few months I started at company where I’d be doing work on a turret press, which was a machine that used CNC to cut out pieces of metal from a large metal sheet. This press was much newer, larger, and more intricate than the presses I’d used before. I’d be trained on first shift for a while until moving to second shift where my shift premium would kick in, a prospect I was very excited about. The person who’d be showing me the ropes was a guy named Scott. We got along fine, I learned a lot of new things about the press and how to run it and left that day feeling like I’d finally found a job I’d love. Trouble started the next day when I’d gotten my start time mixed up and wound up coming in two hours late, Scott was pissed to say the least, after dressing me down, he took me over to the “shakeout” department where big, heavy sheets of metal with parts stamped on them would literally have to be shaken out of the sheets and made into piles. Scott told me there wasn’t any work coming in for the turret that day so I’d have to work here, it felt more like a punishment but since I’d already made my first fuck-up I guessed I couldn’t complain. That was at the point I still wanted to make a good impression for my new employer, that didn’t last long.

Shakeout was a pain in the ass, lifting, hammering, chiseling and prying parts out of pieces of steel that weighed hundreds of pounds, you would strain every muscle in your back, shoulders, and arms moving these pieces of metal around and I was expected to do this for ten hours a day, five days a week at a minimum. There were plenty of sharp edges for you to slice your hands on, and the metal had enough oil on it where it could easily slip out of your grip and clang loudly on the table. I worked with a woman who was from, judging by her accent, somewhere in eastern Europe; Let’s call her “Rita”. Rita and I didn’t get along, I think this stemmed from her asking me how I liked the job early on, my response was less than ethusiastic, and she took this to mean I didn’t care for the job. Like it was a mystery why I wasn’t happy working in a dimly lit shop in the dead of Winter hammering steel until the muscles in my back screamed in protest. Rita would yell commands at me, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying due to her thick (Polish? Russian? Bulgarian?) accent. This would cause her to become flustered with me and make her speech that more incomprehensible. Most of the time I would just put my hands up and say “Okay, my bad” as clearly as I could, trying to extricate myself from the conversation, and Rita sure didn’t like that.

Early on I’d show up to work and wait to talk to Scott to see if he needed me that day, the first few days he told me to just go to shakeout, after a few more days of this I’d asked him when more work was coming for the turret, he said he didn’t know, after that I didn’t bother asking him about it anymore. I wanted to get trained on the turret and get that shift bonus, it was the big reason I took the job. Those days turned into weeks, weeks where I’d have to put up with Rita’s passive aggressive bullshit while breaking my back knocking on steel. Christmas rolled around, I learned that the company only let us have one Friday off for the holidays, which wasn’t all that surprising, but even if I did get more days off I was on probation so I wouldn’t get holiday pay anyway. The Thursday before our day off on Christmas Eve there was a guy walking around in a Santa outfit giving out mini candy canes, most of which had been broken into pieces in their little plastic packages. One of the office ladies was following him around with a camera and taking pictures while he posed with my coworkers. He gathered me and Rita together for a photo and said Smile! I offered up the best White person smile I could, you know that awkward meme smile where your lips are pursed and your face shows next to no emotion? That’s the smile I gave.

The following weeks my effort level cratered; I was late getting in once during the first couple weeks I was there, the roads had been espescially shitty and it took some extra time while driving to not wind up in a ditch. I felt bad about showing up late after what happened my second day, and I expected to get warned about it, but I never did. After another few days I just kinda started show up later and later. 15 minutes one day, a half hour the next, once I showed up over an hour late and still no one, not even Rita, said a thing about it. Not that I’d care if she did, I’d just ignore her hostile gibberish like I always did. I also took off early from time to time, usually just giving myself an extra few minutes so I wouldn’t have to wait behind a line of cars in the lot. The company never warned me about this either.

Besides taking days off constantly, I’d also take 20 minute bathroom breaks throughout the day where I’d just sit on a toilet with my pants up scrolling through my phone and taking small hits of a disposable vape if I had one on me. I would imagine my coworkers hearing my coughing and seeing clouds above the stall and wondering what the fuck was going on. If I had cigarettes I’d take as many smoke breaks as I could get away with, at least one every hour or so. One time I’d taken a few too many breaks early in the day and Scott had come out to confront me about it. He told me I was smoking too much and there was still a lot of work to do. I offered him an insincere apology but still finished my cigarette. I still regret the fact I didn’t tell him to fuck off, I would’ve been totally justified in doing so and if he’d told me to go home I would’ve happily obliged.

Since I felt the company was giving me the run around I put in as little effort as I could. Besides the smoke and bathroom breaks I’d pretend to be prying parts out but would let Rita do the majority of the work. I would also bend parts, drop them on the floor, stack them wrong, or do a half-assed job grinding edges. It wasn’t really intentional I just hadn’t been trained very well. Rita confronted me about my work ethic once, accusing me of not caring about my job. But even on the rare occasion I did put in effort, it never satisfied her. I couldn’t shake the metal right, I couldn’t grind the parts right, I couldn’t chisel or hammer right, I couldn’t even sweep the floor right at the end of the day. She was right about me not caring of course, but still acting like she could guilt me into giving a shit. I stood there staring at her while she bitched at me once, I was resisting the urge to spit a gob of phlegm in her face the whole time. I imagined a big loogie splattered between her eyes and dripping down her nose and cracked a smile when she turned away from me. I think spitting on someone counts as assault, but it would be funny to explain to the cops if she pressed charges. She’s a mean Slavic bitch officer, what would you have me do?

Technically, I was supposed to work weekends but I never did. Like with the overtime policy from my first job on the west side, weekend shifts were more of a suggestion but they’d give you the side eye if you didn’t come in. I’d be out smoking with my coworkers and they’d ask me if I was going to come in Saturday, I lied and said I would. One of my coworkers, a blonde guy named James, had mentioned how he’d worked 75(!) hours between Monday and Saturday in one week and the company was still mad that he hadn’t worked that Sunday. Even if I liked the job there was no way in hell I’d be able to swing that. The company was lucky I showed up as often as I did; I wasn’t shy about taking days off and, looking back, I think I only worked maybe one full week during my short time there. But I didn’t feel guilty about taking a day to rest considering the grueling nature of my work. I’m not an old man by any stretch but I can’t recover from a long day of physical labor like I could in my 20s. And I don’t care how good the rate is, I’m not having back surgery or suffering a cardiac episode before I’m 40.

I remember feeling sick one night, I took the next day off and got a Covid test from the local pharmacy, it came back positive. After some phone tag between the company and the hiring agency I’d been awarded 5 unpaid days off. During these days I spent what little cash I had on food and booze delivery and zoned out in front of my TV. The worst affects of my Covid only lasted about two days, I had some chills but that was about it. My sister called me during my illness to see how I was doing, I told her about my struggles at work and she comisserated and told me that if it sucked that bad there were plenty of other places that were hiring. She was right, at that point I didn’t know why I was still working there espescially if I wasn’t doing the job I was hired to do. Part of it was the rate, another part of it was seeing how lazy I could be at work and still get away with it.

I was three weeks into the job when I met Eric, the guy who was supposed to be training me when I moved to shakeout. Due to a lack of communication from management, Eric hadn’t realized I’d been hired until I’d been there for nearly a month. I wasn’t too surprised by this, if the higher ups didn’t care about me showing up late it figured they didn’t care if I was trained properly. Eric was a good guy and happy to answer any questions I’d had. He showed me better techniques of extracting parts, identifying burrs and types of steel among other things; he was one of the few people at the company who didn’t ignore or chastise me. One day Eric brought me into an empty conference room and we had a chat about expectations for the job. I told him I was struggling to get along with Rita, he said he knew she could be abrasive but that I could learn a lot from her. I somehow resisted rolling my eyes and brought up the turret; I told him I’d only worked on it for one day since I’d been here and I felt I’d been getting the run around lately. Eric said he hadn’t heard anything but assured me that he would find out by the next day. Looking back, I should’ve threatened to walk out. Hell, I should’ve walked out after the first few days.

Eric did get back to me the next day, if only to tell me he couldn’t get a definitive answer about turret work. I’d asked other people around the shop, they either told me they didn’t know or to ask someone else. This company had, by far, the worst communication I’d ever had to deal with. Thinking back, the reason I’d stayed in shakeout so long was likely because the higher ups in the office didn’t even realize I even worked there. At that point I was just like fuck it, I was actively looking for new jobs and had even started interviewing at a couple places. In the meantime I did the bare minimum to get by, I was quiet quitting before I was even aware of the term. Scott and Rita gave me some static over my laziness but I was checked out, their complaining just registered as background noise to me. They could either take it up with HR and get me fired or shut the fuck up. I wanted to walk out, I should’ve walked out, I’d left other jobs for less in the past. But there was another part of me that wanted to force the company to get rid of me. Go ahead, fire me you motherfuckers!

Two weeks after my last conversation with Eric I was getting ready to leave for the day and one of the office guys, whose name I didn’t even know, came up to me and told me they weren’t expecting any more work to come in for the turret and that I didn’t need to come in any longer. I asked him why they didn’t tell me this weeks ago, mentioning how I’d been there well over a month and I’d only worked on the turret my first day. He shrugged his shoulders and said “Sorry, man” then turned and headed back to the office. There was more I wanted to say, but I didn’t see the point. I walked out into the parking lot with another one of my coworkers, a guy named Greg who I’d gotten along with pretty well. I mentioned what had just happened and he was surprised and told me he was sorry. We said out good byes, I got into my car and left the parking lot for the last time.

Losing a job can be a huge stressor, but that day I was elated. No more dark, cold machine shop stuck with coworkers that made me exhausted and angry, no more having to listen to Rita whine at me.

As boomers leave from the workplace so too the boomer work ethic has left the mind of younger generations of American workers. People just aren’t putting up with the shit their parents did for a paycheck anymore and the people who still don’t understand why are being drowned out by young labor activists. Yes, the implications of an older generation of workers retiring and being replaced by Zoomers and Millennials with only a fraction of their skills and experience is troubling to think about. But until we’re able to manage that transition and hopefully keep infrastructure and supply chains afloat perhaps the new perspectives these younger managers and workers bring can reshape American attitudes towards work for the better. Either that or we witness a massive decline with more train derailments, factory explosions, and bridge collapses. Time will tell.