They’ll Never Even Notice!
After my journalism career ended, I went back to the temp agency to get more work. It was perfect for me. I only had to work a couple of days at a time. Long-term jobs meant “three weeks” instead of “three years.” I didn’t care for commitment. And whenever I didn’t like a job, I would just ask to be reassigned.
One day, I got assigned to work in a factory. I have always been intrigued by the inner workings of factories; it was one of the reasons I’d been happy to work at the window-selling place in Florida. But there I was removed from the action; I’d been a lowly secretary. I was going to work in a doll factory – and would be right there on the factory floor with the other factory workers!
I was going to make dolls! This felt meaningful.
Unfortunately when I arrived at the doll factory, I was somehow assigned to create tile boards, meaning I would be sticking little pieces of tile onto a piece of hard wood. Four pieces of tile per board. White in the upper left corner, cream in the upper right corner, reddish brown bottom left, dark brown bottom right.
I was bored to tears after making six boards. But the worst part was my co-worker, who seemed to think that board making was challenging and productive. Our conversation fell flat after two minutes.
We were all allowed to have a smoke break after two hours of work; I thought it had been six hours and we’d only been working for 12 minutes.
I asked the temp agency if I could make dolls the next day, but it they couldn’t guarantee that.
I begged: no more factory work, please. One day in a factory was enough.
Instead, I surveyed people at the mall. I worked for home security, a credit union, and the buyer’s division for J.C. Penney I worked in a trailer for a construction company, in an apartment complex, in a senior center and – one of my favorites – at PAT transit, where I spent my day in the break room talking to bus drivers.
Sometimes I took smoke breaks every half hour. Sometimes I worked very, very hard doing data entry and making sure my charts were 100% perfect. Sometimes I played video games all day. I was a good worker, when I had work to do. And I showed up on time.
One of my favorite data entry jobs was evening shift, 4-12. We chit-chatted through our evenings, so I made a few friends. One night we all went to lunch together, at my request, at a bar in downtown Pittsburgh.
We ate burgers and drank a few beers and then, when it was time to go back to work, I convinced everyone to stay with me at the bar.
“We’ll just go back tomorrow!” I said. “They’ll never even notice!”
Only one person went back to work that night. The rest of us stayed and got plastered.
I had sex with one of my coworkers and woke up on in Northside, nowhere near where I lived. I had no idea how to get home. I left the guy still asleep, took a bus into downtown, then took the bus from downtown back to my apartment.
I never went back to that job, nor did the guy. I loved that job, but one liquid lunch was too many.
I had another job within a week.
I kept drinking, kept paying the rent, and thought nothing of my behavior.