Factory Worker
4:20 am
That’s when my alarm screams out, it wakes me up from my sleep long before I’ve had enough. I wake up in the dark, long before the sun touches the industry-scape of my city, and stumble towards the kitchen where I will drink a coffee and eat a slice of toast or two, one of the few pleasures in life.
Not long ago I used to wake up at 5:20 instead of 4:20, that was before the plastics factory changed shifts at 6:00 am instead of 5:00 am. I hate waking up at 4:20 in the morning, it feels like the middle of the night, it doesn’t seem natural. I remind myself that it’s better than the night-shift which is now between 9:00 pm and 5:00 am.
Today is Tuesday, all day long I think about what day it is, I know that I shouldn’t because it makes the day seem longer than it already is, but I can’t help it. I prefer Tuesday to Monday but it’s not until Thursday that I become a little happier and I look forward to the weekend even though I know that the weekend is wasted because Friday night and most of Saturday morning I’m too tired to do anything at all and then when Sunday comes around the prospect of another week in hell looms over the horizon.
Not another week. I ask myself how much longer I can bear this shitty existence. Eight-hours a day scraping hot plastic off glove-boxes and other objects that will go into luxury cars so that rich bastards can drive around like maniacs, smiling arrogantly and taking pleasure from the fact that poor morons stare drooling at their vehicles as they speed past.
Even at home, even after showering, the toxic smell of hot plastic remains on my skin. I’m sure that it isn’t good to be breathing in hot plastic fumes all day long. When I first started working in the factory it stung my eyes and made my nose run. Now it doesn’t bother me so much but I’m sure that my lungs are coated with toxic plastic. My hands are permanently sore. I have blisters on my right hand from using a little scalpel and my thumb doesn’t bend the way it used to anymore. My left hand seems to be permanently burnt, even with a glove the hot plastic takes its toll, it’s always slighter redder than my blistered right hand, even when I haven’t worked for many hours, even when I wake up at 4:20 am.
My supervisor doesn’t seem to appreciate how hard I try, he doesn’t care that I work eight hours straight. I should have a lunch-break, it’s not right to work eight hours without stopping, but the machines don’t stop so I can’t stop either and he makes me feel guilty if I go to the toilet so I don’t drink much water, that way I don’t have to go to the toilet.
My supervisor tells me now and then that the quality of my work isn’t high enough, so I spend more time on each piece, but then he remarks that I’m not keeping up with the machine’s rate. How can I do both at the same time?! Sometimes I want to stick my little scalpel into his throat and twist my wrist, if only I could!
I continue scraping the hot plastic off the objects thrust onto the bench before me. I ignore the pain in my hands and the faintness of my head.
Today is Tuesday, today is Tuesday, today is Tuesday.
