My first day (Healthy Supplements store).
After I left the sorting office, my summer of discontent (If you will) continued as I made the rounds in the interesting world of factory work for minimum wage. The good people at the employment agency sent me to a health supplements factory in Bridlington, like Pocklington a 30 minutes’ drive from Hull. The panic or anxiety attacks that had preceded my abrupt departure from London, were subsiding.
No there is nothing fundamentally wrong about working in factories, you are still working and contributing to society la la la la. But I will be lying if I say 6/7 years after graduation-the supposed entrance to a stable life-my plans involved factories. ‘’What did your plans involve?’’ the therapist I had recently started seeing inquired in one of our sessions.
After leaving Hull I had worked as a care assistant, pharmacy technician, medical laboratory scientific officer (why Oxford University did not just label this as laboratory technician remains a mystery to me), and research facilitator. The journey had taken me from Hull to Leeds, Oxford and finally London. With its museums, the Victorian, Georgian, gothic and modern architecture Oxford made a lasting impression. Oxford is steeped in history as the centre of western academia. The Harvards and Yales of this world have garnered themselves reputations to rival Oxford and may one day succeed in toppling it, but for now the city and the university (the two are synonymous) remain the top dog. Oxford is the rich old man, who inherited some money from his father, a father who also got money from his father etc. The old man has managed to work for his money, but you get the feeling that his forebears’ reputation and favor (in the biblical sense) still sustain him more than his own graft. The type of guy who drives a rustic but well-maintained Volvo. The type of guy with a pot belly that is not indicative of obesity but of that favor. A distinguished belly
With a pocket full of dreams, I had left Oxford and headed for London, and it had gone all tits up.
At the health supplements factory, we were packing turmeric capsules (yes dear reader you read that right), omega 3 capsules, green tea, multi-vitamin tablets, charcoal capsules (yes), charcoal powder (yes), charcoal face gel (yes): essentially all the products you would see in brightly lit health supplements stores. I had left the sorting office. Uncle and T stayed put, I had requested a change of scenery. Out went my hi vis vest and steel toe footwear, in came blue silky jumpsuit and hair nets.
The healthcare supplement was in an industrial complex in Bridlington. This time I was not driving, a Romanian couple in their mid-20s were. I had met them earlier at ``headquarters`` (the agency office). ``We would be in a blue car, wait for us at the service station on Beverly road ``, they had said. The service station turned out to be an unofficial pickup and drop off point for agency workers going to various factories in and around Hull. As I waited-stuffing my face with chocolate bars and scrolling my Instagram feed for basketball highlights and swimsuit clad girls-I watched a minibus picking up a couple of chaps in high vis jackets and steel toe shoes ( the uniform for factories). A few minutes later a middle-aged pair that I had assumed were a couple as the chap already on the pavement held the lady’s hand for support as she stepped off the minibus. They were also in the `factory uniform`, chatting for a while before setting off in different directions.
All the while opposite from me and the petrol station was a chain-smoking chap talking on his phone. A gleaming blue BMW 3 series pulled opposite the road, the chap jumped in, before the driver shouted my name. As I crossed the road, I prayed he (the driver) had not seen the frantic changes in my countenance, surprise to shame. How can they afford a BMW with this kind of work? (surprise) followed by what kind of person makes snap judgment about people like that? (the shame). As we all settled in, with introductions etc, the chain-smoking fella whose Polish accent was getting corrupted by occasional Hull accented words was a friendly and talkative 19-year-old Polish chap, P. A veteran of the ‘factory circle’, As we drove out of Hull towards Bridlington and exchanged stories, he seemed to have been posted all over East Yorkshire including such exotic places like Ferriby and Selby. Places one (or at least I) would not expect to see factories. ``Why won’t you go to college or something? `` I asked as we listened to some Romanian pop on the car radio, ‘`My English not so good`` he replied. ``They will teach you; you are young enough``, I suggested before dropping the issue once I saw him looking out of the car window and sensed he was losing interest in the line of conversation. At any rate if I knew all about colleges, credentials, skilled work, what was I doing slamming it with the unskilled manual laborers?
The unconventional shifts given by agencies meant I watched a lot more TV than I had done in the recent past. The talking heads on television continued to talk about Brexit. Dave (Cameroon), the architect of the referendum under pressure from the Farage’s and his cabal had long gone. Some of the sounds and sights from that included, `Brexit means Brexit`, an often-robotic Theresa May. ``The British want their cake and to eat it, but there is no cake on the table, only salt and vinegar``, a stern looking Michelle Barnier.
’’It’s like leaving the champions league or the premiership and getting to play in the championship or lower leagues’’, the darling of the left, Tony ` I will come with you George` Blair, popped up, clearly against the whole leave thing. Now greying and running a multi-million dollar business of sort, Blair still oozes the same charm that characterised much of his premiership: A friendly second-hand car salesman who starts addressing you with your first name after a couple of minutes of meeting you. If Oprah (the infallible black matriarch) and Bill Clinton (another darling of the left) had a white child, that fella would be Tony Blair. Come to think of it, Dave would be the couples second son. It is also not a coincidence that both Blair and Dave attended Oxford and have similar ‘car salesman vibes’. One could certainly argue there is some type of training formal or otherwise that produce that type of politician at Oxford.
Both Gordon Brown and John Major also featured on various television programmes. Lacking the second-hand car salesman vibes of Tony and Dave, they never drew me in but I gathered, they too were anti Brexit. The comparison of previous PMs with Theresa (often dubbed the Mayboat by press folks) is unnecessary and may sound cruel, but she had the demeanour of someone who seem to work very hard, as hard as anyone with a mini battalion of aides can.
As we drove further from Hull, Romanian music continued playing on the car radio. It reminded me very much of middle eastern sounds. The type of sound one hears if one spends time in shisha bars. Given Romania’s proximity to the Middle east, the influence perhaps makes sense. As you move from Hull, the villages strewn along the Hull- Bridlington road pop periodically, one replacing another without much change in general style. All houses have big yards and look modern. In comparison to Hull, the pace of life seems slower with a serene quality. Hull’s slowness at times has a dull quality. On occasion a farm appears, in summer the appearance is accompanied by the stench of manure. Big fields; some with crops, some just bare soil perhaps ready for winter crops, some with bright yellow flowers (daffodils?) and long grass characterised by a height of summer decadent green. Big farmhouses, bales and solitary barns.
Big wind turbines, stretching into the horizon signalled our arrival in Bridlington. The shift at the warehouse was a 2–10pm. As we arrived, a trickle of staff from an earlier shift could be seen making their way out of the compound housing the factory. Unlike the sorting office, there was an apparent representation of all genders and ages. Their faces were neutral or inert, there was not much lifting in there I imagined. P pointed to a smaller building next to the bigger factory. ‘’See the manager and tell her you are new’’, he instructed. Inside was S the manager, the lady in charge. A cheery Yorkshire lady, whose first words were ``do you speak English? ``. ``I try`` I answered trying not to make a joke. The usual schtick commenced, she took me round the factory floor, showing me supplies (loads of labelled health care supplements) sundry, fire doors, first aid, information about breaks etc.
Supplements seem to straddle some type of food and pharmaceutical product line. As a food, handling facility the hygiene procedures were understandably tight. No steel toe shoes and hi vis vest, instead everyone working on the packing floor, wore these blue overalls (think forensic investigations) that covered you from head to toe. After putting on a slightly over sized work suit that trapped air giving a slight Michelin man vibe, I waddled on to the factory floor.
An assortment of women and a few chaps of all ages crowded the factory floor, mostly eastern European. Most of the women had light make up and most wore a perfume of sort or had recently showered with a perfumed soap, giving the whole place a mild redolence. As I stepped on to the floor the shift was already starting to go into full swing, the humming voices of the different eastern European languages produced an indistinguishable chorus. A chorus often disturbed by high- and low-level pitches of machines. After only 30 minutes, I noticed the irregularity of the pitches of the machines. There were about 4 machines of various sizes, you could not really time when they would produce a pitch nor could you tell the volume of pitch. For about an hour, the whole machine thing was mildly heart in your mouth/ sphincter loosening stuff. A bad dream, not a full-blown nightmare but certainly uncomfortable. The colour clash of the red factory floor and the blue jumpsuit uniform added to the bad dream feeling. The mild redolence did very little to counteract this. After the first 1.5 hours, my nervous system got used to the whole thing, and by the time the shift finished it could barely register. It is often said if you gradually warm a frog, it will die without ever noticing a change in temperature. After the shift, as we drove back past the same villages back to Hull, all dark, with no bright yellow flowers, no lush long green grass but the stench of manure still prominent and the cheery Romanian music replaced by BBC radio (yes talking about BREXIT) , it occurred to me; The way my nervous system got used to the irregularity of the high and low pitches of the machines was possibly a metaphor for the whole factory setting. First you find it disturbing, but without ever noticing it you get used to the whole shindig. Because why would anyone stay in a factory for 20–30 years? Did the frog get warmed gradually and now it will die without ever realising it got warmed up gradually? Here of course the changes are totally internal, there is no changes in the external ‘temperature’, your own psyche does a number on you.
One of the offending machines was sealing bottle tops and counting tablets. ``We have a new guy``, shouted the night supervisor to a chap manning the bottle sealing machine. ``Does he speak English? ``, the chap asked. ``So so`` the night supervisor seemed to suggest by flicking his supine palm from side to side. For my first job I was stationed upstream on the bottle sealing machine, my job was to look at the incoming tablets and pick the one that did not pass the `eye test` before they could be bottled and sealed; chipped tabs, too long, too short etc. ``Easy job for you``, the supervisor said as he moved on. A few years before my shift that afternoon I had worked in an NHS pharmacy, tablets and capsules were nothing new to me. Pharmacy technician job description; Offering high level support to the pharmacist. Sounds sexy on paper, said ‘high level support’ entailed dispensing medicines nonstop for 8 hours, intercepted by occasionally answering phones from irate nurses looking for patients’ medication because they (patients) are ready to leave the ward. ‘’He has been waiting for 5 hours’’, a nurse with a recognisable southern African accent once shouted down the phone and calming immediately as she presumably heard my own southern African accent (hey sis we both in the jungle out here) . As soon as my 2-year contract finished, forever in transition, forever restless, I had skedaddled to the labs
Unlike the sorting office where time seemed to move too quickly especially during the unofficial break times, here time stood still. 2 hours that felt like an eternity passed. A ‘quality control’ Lithuanian lady in white coat with a clipboard in hand came by. Seemingly addressing both me and her clipboard she said ‘’checking for irregular shaped capsules and putting them on one side’’ as she scribbled something. ‘’Yes, and everything in between’’ I replied, and she giggled as she moved away.
After the first break I got paired with a high-strung lass from Beeford (one of the aforementioned villages). Here we were using a pump of sorts to fill 250 mls bottles with a dark and sticky cough mixture. The whole thing involved a high level of dexterity regarding the switching of bottles-a full one for an empty one. The sticky nature of the syrup meant any form of misalignment regarding bottle change resulted in a work bench and bottles that were sticky, both no nos. ‘’Arrrgh’’ my new colleague, had a little mourn every time she messed the switching of bottles. I figured from her often abrupt movements and the little mourns she was on an anxiety spectrum or something. I guess neurodivergent brains can spot each other.
After the second and final break, I joined a couple of chaps, Polish and Spanish. Packing omega-3-capsules. One puts the capsules in the bottle, one measures, the other closes and on it goes. The two chaps were in an occasional good natured back and forth, involving their surnames. The Spanish chaps goes ‘’ Poponeski’’ and laughs, the polish’s chap response to this is ‘’Garcia Garcia’’ and he also laughs. At first I don’t see how any of this can be funny but laughter being contagious, I find myself giggling along with them after a while.
For only the first time since the early hours of the shift my nervous system registers a very high pitch of one of the machines. ‘’The shift has ended’’, the Spanish chap notifies me as we unwind. Another day finishes.