Is it wrong to be middle class and enjoy factory work?

[ymu]

Nice post AS. I sometimes dream of having a job where the work cannot pile up - it's there to do when I'm there to do it and I don't have to think about how I'm going to find enough hours to get it all done on time.

I worked in pubs, basic filing-type admin, a fruit packing factory and a pizza place for years, and I really did enjoy them all. However, hospital cleaner sucked big time (piss poor morale).

I coped with repetition by competing with myself for how quickly and efficiently I can get the next pile done - which no doubt made me a mug on less than minimum wage, but fuck it - a shift is a loooong time to fill with fuck all else to do.

 

[liquoricetooth]

it's so easy to be disparaging isn't it - when stereotyping working class / middle class jobs. I'm not sure if I'm working class or not. I have to work, I know that. Not the bourgoisie then!

 

[liquoricetooth]

Very true Sparrow. It's the choices you have that define you. After uni I also temped. It was great for the money - then status anxiety set in and I ended up getting a permanent job in the same place. Fancy title but total crap!! Sitting in front of a computer all day and observing other people's petty squabbles about nothing in particular. Give me a job where I'm not forced to sit with a bunch of prats any day.

 

[liquoricetooth]

YMU - nice post - very commendable the way you coped with repetition - the perfect robot! A factory's dream! I know what you mean about your other work experiences though. When work starts to make you worry at home - you have to weigh up whether it's worth it. It's funny - when I worked in a factory (sticking stickers in books) I still wanted to do it WELL. How sad is that!

 

[ymu]

YMU - nice post - very commendable the way you coped with repetition - the perfect robot! A factory's dream!

Heh - thinking back, the factory was more about not pissing the others off with a stoopid work rate; perfecting my technique for getting the stickers on perfectly square was a better option there.

It does works a treat in un/semi-skilled white collar work - and definitely for pubs and pizza places; it's nice when the customers love you for being fast and the boss gives you a payrise before your first weekly pay packet is made up.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

I coped with repetition by competing with myself for how quickly and efficiently I can get the next pile done - which no doubt made me a mug on less than minimum wage, but fuck it - a shift is a loooong time to fill with fuck all else to do.

See, I loved copy typing when I was temping, it was by far my favourate job. In a similar way, I used to compete with myself to see if I could improve on my times, or reduce the amounts of slipped fingers.

It's all very well for a while, though I doubt such techniques would have kept me occupied for 10 years.

IAYI - whilst I get what you're saying, unfortunately some people do have more limited choices than others, and the family you are born into is really influential in determining what choices you have. They are often economically driven, but not necessarily. A family which instills confidence in you is likely to give you more choices than a family who belittles you, iyswim. Having limited choices certainly doesn't make you less of a person (and I'd be shocked at people who would think so), but it does mean that for some people, minimal wage jobs seem more like a disliked but unavoidable future, rather than a temporary stop gap or respite from the rat race.

 

[ymu]

It's all very well for a while, though I doubt such techniques would have kept me occupied for 10 years.

Agree. Fortunately, using the technique has kept me in a steady supply of offers from employers to pay for me to do relevant training on their time so I don't have to do it for so long. It took 20 years to get this far, but I'm now doing my PhD fulltime on a full salary and I ain't complaining about it.

 

[Cloo]

Never done it myself, but I know some people have a great time with these jobs when they work somewhere where they really enjoy their co-workers' company. Plus it's a job they can utterly leave at the workplace, as there's no reason to lie awake at night worrying about the outcomes of their work and its effect on other people - it's effectively without responsibility.

 

[lobster]

im a girl. im not a gore monster. i like all sorts of repititon. i like to juggle and play poi, and im my drawings i like to use lots of pattern. the factory work is also repetitive, and i'm enjoying it. i go into a trance like state from it.
even when you are doing the same thing there are differences. i like to tune into the differences, if that makes sense?

i've only been there 2 days. i really do need the money, but i'm also enjoying meeting new people, and seeing a different world to the one i'm used to.

Your character reminds me of Lee Holloway in Secretary that loves and is even submissive towards repetition. She also has extremes where she is happy to correct small spelling mistakes many many times...

 

[ymu]

Secretary is such a good film, on sooooo many levels.

 

[i-am-your-idea]

yeah, love that film! now theres a job...

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I didn't mind temping at all when I was younger, but (a) I was young and not so jaded and miserable and could put up with more shit (b) I changed jobs every couple of weeks so didn't have time to get too bored with each one - even after two weeks I'd have pretty much worked out 99% of what the job would have involved from then on - and (c) I knew I wasn't going to be doing it for the rest of my life.

There is something to be said for jobs where you can go home and disconnect, vs ones where you go home and you're kept up wondering whether you've fucked something up and are going to get bollocked for it, or get called at odd hours to come in, but in practice I don't think there are many jobs you CAN entirely disconnect from apart from temp ones anyway. Being able to disconnect is more about your life status I'd say. It's all very well to ignore what happens at work if you know it's not going to be too long and you can always just quit if you hate it anyway.

The reason I've found jobs worse since then even though they've been less repetitive and paid better is because there hasn't been the same perception that it's not "real". This is it, now, it's real, I'm not waiting for something else to happen, and it's still boring, still stressful and dull and doing shit that I don't care about to make people I hate richer. Fingers crossed I may have broken out of that now - but the reason I have the opportunity to do this is also to do with that the jobs paid well so I could save, and that's not something that's generally available.

 

[mentalchik]

thats really insightful, sparrow.

i still feel people have as many choices as they imagine they have. people who appear to have limited choices to us, maybe just have different choices and different focuses. like deafness not being a disability. low intelligence doesnt mean you're insensitive, or less alive. your just tuned into a different reality.

(i may be getting the wrong end of the stick here)

but what makes you think intelligence always come into it ?

D'ya know i'm sick and tired of having people make assumptions about me because of the job i do ! This even happens amongst the other people where i work.

I'm a member of 'hotel services' (cleaners/serving staff) at a private hospital.


I used to work for my parents but when their business collapsed i was out of work for 5 months and as i support the household had to get a job. This was the only one i managed to get, didn't expect to be doing it for long but now i'm kinda trapped......


It's crap money but not as crap as most jobs here and as i am the main breadwinner i have to earn this money !


I'm sure the poster didn't intend but i find that post quite patronising !

 

[ymu]

^^Totally agree with this. Our secretarial/admin staff come on our training courses as and when they want to - we now employ a couple of them to help deliver the courses; not many of our academic colleagues get that invite. The cleaners and security guys have a better grip on reality than the bureaucracy - discussions of the post 9/11 security nonsense e had imposed was both hilarious and way more insightful than any media I read. They're fucking stars, the lot of them.

 

[Yossarian]

Factory work is my favourite job so far. Does anyone else enjoy it?

I didn't like it much myself, but if you like a job, you do it well, and you're fairly paid for it, I don't see why anybody should be bothered about class systems straight out of the 18th century.

 

[panpete]

There is no such thing as middle class, upper class or any class for that matter.
Those who consider themselves part of any class are devoid of love.
Defecation is the great leveller.

It is universal to all.

 

[lobster]

There is no such thing as middle class, upper class or any class for that matter.
Those who consider themselves part of any class are devoid of love.
Defecation is the great leveller.

It is universal to all.

Of course there are classes , why are there different fairs for transport ie economy, business etc , different tax bands and so on..

 

[panpete]

Of course there are classes , why are there different fairs for transport ie economy, business etc , different tax bands and so on..

Because of an imaginery concept (peoples worth based on income) based on money, which, when all comes to all, dosent exist.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

There is no such thing as middle class, upper class or any class for that matter.
Those who consider themselves part of any class are devoid of love.
Defecation is the great leveller.

It is universal to all.

hippie

 

[i-am-your-idea]

your saying its impossible to loosely identify yourself with a certain social group, and be a loving human being??

 

[lobster]

Because of an imaginery concept (peoples worth based on income) based on money, which, when all comes to all, dosent exist.

If it does not count, why is everyone not equal to each other? Why do some have a mansion and some a bus shelter to sleep under ?
There are societies and nightclubs that demand certain dress code which is another form of classes imo.

 

[panpete]

I wish I had the integrity to be a hippy, but alas I dont.

Humanity has gone a bit loopy around money, this is why there are those crazy distinctions, which put some of us in first class travel, some of us in bus-shelters, and others who eat their tea out of pans

 

[Leeloks]

What are middle class/working class jobs anyway? I know a few successful people who started off in warehouses and factories and have progressed well including myself.

In fact i think it was the best job i did being a forky in a warehouse, makes you appreciate the jobs others do and was a valuable experience.

 

[jonnyd1978]

^^Totally agree with this. Our secretarial/admin staff come on our training courses as and when they want to - we now employ a couple of them to help deliver the courses; not many of our academic colleagues get that invite. The cleaners and security guys have a better grip on reality than the bureaucracy - discussions of the post 9/11 security nonsense e had imposed was both hilarious and way more insightful than any media I read. They're fucking stars, the lot of them.

Those, cute working class people, they're fucking stars the lot of them.!

 

[starfish2000]

After Uni I got a Job as a postman, was the best job I ever had. This was before Adam Crozier started to piss around with the Royal Mail and ruin it

I work in the rail industry now, but I'm back on the frontline. I did a couple of years in a management/project delivery role, but the politics was out of this world and the backstabbing just pissed me off.

I like to work with people of all different backgrounds, makes life interesting.

I find it amusing that no television company will do a back to the floor type program in reverse....up to the boardroom. I'm sure many frontline employees could do a CEO's job better. Although maybe that would burst the bubble on why some of them get paid 2000 times more than us and have nice safe pensions and we don't. I'm starting to think the CBI are as much of a threat to my happiness and well being as Al Quaida.

 

[BEARBOT]

i dont think the OP has lots of deep insights into what its like to do this type of work after only 2 days on the job..
perhaps you are just relived its not the hell on earth u imagined..
many not very nice jobs ive had seemed ok, even decent for the first WEEK..

..let us know what u think of working in a factory after doing it 2 MONTHS..
if you say you are enjoying it then, ill be pretty suprised but happy for you of course

 

[Belushi]

i dont think the OP has lots of deep insights into what its like to do this type of work after only 2 days on the job..
perhaps you are just relived its not the hell on earth u imagined..
many not very nice jobs ive had seemed ok, even decent for the first WEEK..

..let us know what u think of working in a factory after doing it 2 MONTHS..
if you say you are enjoying it then, ill be pretty suprised but happy for you of course

Innit. I was a factory worker for a long time and I thought that was all I would ever do, it was fucking soul destroying. I bet its a lot more fun if you know your not going to be doing it for ever, and have other options in life.