Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs Part 2

Scott Nichols.

I'm the foreman for a construction company. We build mainly private homes. It's a physical job in nature. I've gotten up in wage and position because I've been in the company eleven years, so I don't have to grab a shovel a lot, but I still pack wood. I still lift heavy objects. I still run my a.s.s ragged. Even if you're not the one with the money on the line, it keeps your job if you're a good worker. I think it's the same with anything. Being a good worker is key. In my particular job, that means producing. Getting a lot of material up.

I started doing this in high school, working weekends. I really enjoyed building. Went to local junior college in Santa Rosa for a while and got just very sick of school so I came back to it. Construction seemed to be, and still is, one of the few lines of work that has a good wage and doesn't require a college education.

This company I work for is a smaller company. We do all phases of constructing a house, from the foundation to the framing. Most of our clients are people in Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley. It's Northern California-a lot of nicer homes. I get to work in a real beautiful area. Although, after standing in the sun for ten years, it's not as great as it used to be. [Laughs]

My job is basically I get the building plan from my boss-the owner of the company-and I execute it. I handle the a.s.signments of the crew and the safety issues on the site. I work with our suppliers, our outside contractors. I get the jobs done. My boss does most of the dealing with the owners and the architects. He does all the dealing with the money situation.

A typical workweek is forty hours, but it's rarely typical. For instance, any time you pour concrete, you get there early and stay until it's done. If it's eight hours or twelve hours or whatever. That's kind of a rule that everybody knows and you gotta stick with. And lots of times there are other deadlines that cause me to work more. The electrician's coming on Monday-we work all weekend. Or maybe a project is relatively small, so instead of hiring a few people, I'll work more hours and just do it myself. So there's a lot of extra time, but a lot of it's by choice. You can refuse and your job isn't in jeopardy, but me, most times, I just take it on.

Every day, the crew shows up-and it's maybe twelve guys or two guys, depending on how much work we've got-but whatever, I have the same routine every day. I have a plan and I let my guys know what it is. Then we go to work. We have a ten-minute break in the morning, and thirty for lunch. The rest of the time we're busy. In my case, I'm a worker and a supervisor, so I'm kind of setting the tone by the way I work. I'm not one to stand around. But I also have to keep an eye on what everybody's doing. Which means I need to do something where I can watch everybody. Like say we're putting up walls-there's usually somebody that cuts the material, and another person installs it. So I'll be the one cutting the material, and when you're cutting, you can get ahead of the person that's installing and have a chance to look at what's happening. If somebody's not up to speed, or something's not safe, or not what I want, I make a comment. I correct the problem.

We're not a real refined group of people. That's our reputation and most construction workers live up to their reputation. Kind of loud and boisterous. There's a lot of joking and cussing and the whole heavy thing at work. It's a lot of people like myself, who aren't particularly enthusiastic about getting a college education. We like dealing with each other. Some of the guys are kind of on the sketchy side. Especially when you're busy, when the economy's good like it is now, they come around looking for a job. Like they might come out of Texas and live in their van. They may be a little odd. They may have some drug problems. For the most part, you kind of weed those people out. You get down to the ones that just want to make a living working hard.

I deal with a lot of Hispanic labor. It's getting to be a cheaper labor force, and n.o.body really wants to do this if they don't have to. I mean, I started out making six dollars an hour and I was lucky-I was able to keep busy and work my way up. But a lot of people don't want to start at such a low wage. I've lost good workers because they found a job for a couple dollars more. They'll leave to drive a forklift, maybe, for twelve bucks an hour. I think that's foolish because it doesn't have as much advancement in it. In the last eleven years, I've worked up from six an hour to about twenty-three an hour. I think that's a pretty good jump. I'm not rich or anything, but I think that's pretty good money.

So it's not necessarily an attractive job anymore, but so what? My workers are basically good workers, regardless of wherever they're from. I don't have a lot of discipline problems. Every once in a while someone will say, "I don't want to do that." You know? Get kind of defiant. Because, especially when you start out, you get all the crummiest jobs-digging or hauling garbage into a truck or into a pile to keep things clean and safe, or packing lumber-that's the low guy's work to do. Sometimes it's crawling under a house and digging a trench or sometimes it's getting into a muddy trench and putting a pipe back together. Today it was two guys with concrete saws and jackhammers. You do the more physical, less thinking part of the job when you start. You have to show motivation and enthusiasm to get that responsibility where I'll take time to train you and get you off the jackhammer.

Every now and again, somebody says he doesn't want to do the crummy stuff. Which I understand, but if it needs to be done, I can't help it-they're gonna do it or they're gone. There's no real way to punish them except with the ultimate punishment, you know? They're gone. That's just what happens. But that's about it as far as discipline problems go. I've been lucky in that.

I do have a lot of layoffs, but it's not disciplinary actions, it's because we run out of work. That happens a lot. It's tough and, you know, over the years it's affected me to the point where I try not to get too involved with these guys personally. It's like, we're friendly, but we're not close friends. Because it's hard to lay off a guy, even if you don't know him well. And when things get slow, you just can't keep everybody. And if there's two employees and one's gotta go, it's hard to make a good business choice if you're close with them. So I'm more likely to be good friends with some of my outside contractors- the plumbers and electricians and those guys. Because they're a third party. Their income isn't based solely on my working with them. So it's easier for us.

I'm probably learning, slowly but surely, that you kind of have to be a little bit of an a.s.shole to do this job. To get your way. I've learned that you can't be such a nice guy. You have to be really authoritative and voice your opinion and not settle for anything but the way you want it.

I mean, the way I became foreman was that I was working for this company and the foreman retired and I started taking over jobs. My boss, the owner, kind of gave me the position. But the guys on the crew, they weren't out there saying, "There's the boss." They didn't just automatically give me their respect. Especially, I think, because I started a little easier on them, you know? There were some situations, but the more jobs I ran, the more I realized I needed to be more authoritative. I needed to say, "If there's nothing to do, you come to me, and I'll find work for you." That's a big thing about running a crew: if someone is standing around, you have to find them something to do. You have to let them know it's not all right to just stand there.

I call it kind of "poking your chest out." You get a little bit of an att.i.tude. You go, "I need this" and "You do that." I don't know how to explain it, but just by having an att.i.tude you kind of get people moving. It's not a natural thing for me, it's not my personality, but I've learned how to do it. You can't be too nice. You have to get the work done.

So I'd say I get along with everybody, but I haven't really become close with anybody at work in a while. Not since I became supervisor. Even with my boss-I think we have a good working relationship, but not a real rosy friendship. He's got a good worker in me. I definitely put out an effort for him and care about the company. And I appreciate that he works hard on his end keeping me busy, making sure that the product he puts out is going to be seen and create more jobs. But we have our differences.

My boss always wants things done better and faster, and I always think I'm doing things the best and most efficient I can. Sometimes I don't think he's considering the issues of safety like I am. With Skilsaws, for instance, anybody new I try to train. They're a dangerous piece of equipment, which I found out the hard way a few times. I cut my thumb pretty bad once. I lost the use of this knuckle here. It won't bend at all. I haven't had anybody do that, but I've seen people do things wrong with a Skilsaw, and I've made sure they didn't do it again. I feel I have to take that responsibility. But my boss-I've seen him drop stuff right in front of people that didn't know what was going on. It's not that he's a bad guy, it's just that some of the deadlines he creates for us where he tells the owner they can move into their house on a certain day are a bit unrealistic and pushed.

Or, for example, we do a lot of demolition where we tear things down. Like with a remodeling job, you might have a section of a house that just isn't worth saving, maybe some walls and a staircase. We pull that stuff out-and we try to do it fast. The emphasis is on speed because it's not skill work and you don't want to waste time on it so you don't hire a big, experienced crew on demo days. But it's still dangerous, especially when you have people that don't have construction knowledge. If you knock out a wall the wrong way, you can get crushed. So usually either I do all the tearing out and let the other guys pack stuff and keep them away from it, or I make it pretty clear what I think is gonna happen with the demo-I talk my guys through it. But either way, it always seems to take a little more time than my boss would like. There's some friction there. But I'm the one doing it, so I like to have the freedom of doing it the way I want. And I've had very few accidents on my crews. And I always believe I'm doing it as efficient as possible.

Then again, I'm not dealing with the dollars and cents, which makes things different. There's millions of guys like me that go out there and build something. It's the gaining and losing of money that's the real tough part. And I have faith in my boss's contracting abilities and his ability to get us jobs. I've been with him the last eleven years, and a lot of what I've learned is the way he's done it. I hope that one day I'll be in his shoes-contracting, running my own business. If I'm any good at it, it'll be thanks to him teaching me. So I appreciate him. But it's definitely a mutual respect more than a friendship.

There's a lot of pressure and worry with this. And it's not all safety issues. It's everything. When I started doing construction, I kind of had a little bit of fear that I wouldn't have the physical toughness. But I learned that I have that. And along the way I learned I've got a certain amount of mental toughness, too-and that's just as important. I'm dealing with my boss, my clients, my crews, my building inspectors. I've gotta be sharp. Like with building inspectors- they can look at a house that's framed and closed and you're ready to go on to the next job, and in ten minutes they can tell you it doesn't fly. The guy who was foreman before me, he insulted an inspector once-told a joke about him being stupid and the inspector didn't think it was funny. The guy held a grudge. After that, every inspection with him, he ha.s.sled us. If it was just a matter of rebar being a half-inch off, he'd make us change it. He really scrutinized everything we did after that. So when I took over as foreman, I really worked on that inspector, building a rapport with him. I started pointing out everything I did, and discussing it all with him in an intelligent manner. I got that guy to trust me, to know me as someone that does respectable work. And that turned everything around. But it took effort.

I don't think it's a life for everybody-and I'm still young saying that. A lot of people that do this into their mid-forties and fifties are pretty beat up. I'm only thirty-two. Ask me in ten years, I might say it's not for anybody. [Laughs] It's definitely a hard life. Even in a beautiful part of the country like this, there's cold, there's hot, and there's rain and wind. You're out in all of that working hard. A lot of guys getting close to fifty really want out of it. They're beat.

But I'm not beat yet. I never say no to work. I've always had a fear that if you say no, and it slows down, you're not going to have the chance to say yes. I've had one slow year because of rain and I don't want to see that again. So I find myself working a lot. But I like it. I find it very rewarding. Just building something, creating something, and actually seeing your work. I've never had an office job or anything, but I don't think everybody gets the same gratification. You start with a bare, empty lot with the gra.s.s growing up and then you build a house. A lot of times you'll build a house for a family, and you see them move in, that's pretty gratifying. There's one particular family I've had dinner numerous times with after we did their project. Which was nice. I'm proud of that.

I feel pretty good about myself, that I'm a functioning person in society, that I work and I get paid for it. I'm not a deadbeat in any way. And I can build a house from the ground up. I think that's something. The only really bad thing is that I'm not meeting any women. [Laughs] All the people I work with, even the clients, they all seem to be guys. So I'm single. Maybe it's just this particular area. I know that north of here there are women carpenters and electricians because I have friends up there who've dated probably at least eight to ten women that they've met through work. I've never met anybody through work, which is too bad, but I'm not exactly nervous yet. I think I've gotten myself into a pretty good position. My wage is comparable to pretty much most any male my age. I know that the friends I hang out with, I make as much or more.

I hoping it's gonna pay off. I'd like a steady girlfriend and, eventually, you know, children. I'd like to provide for a family. I'd like to build my own house someday. I've actually thought about that a bit. I think it'd probably be a one-story, three-bedroom, two-bath. Probably nothing fancy. I personally am not into anything fancy. The windows would probably be vinyl. I know they're not the top-of-the-line windows, but they're the easiest ones. They're waterproof. Probably some of the interior trim would be a little nicer. Probably the windows would be fully wrapped in wood. I wouldn't be paying labor on that. And I'd probably go with a composition roof too, because that's something else I could do myself. If it needed repairs, I could work on it. It would probably have hardwood floors, because I could also do that myself. Anything that I could do to save money, I'd do. It probably wouldn't be more than eighteen hundred square feet. I'd still have to deal with the cost of building, but I think it's a realistic goal.

You'd be surprised at how stubborn steel can be.

STEELWORKER.

Denise Barber.

I'm a Heister operator. That's really just a generic name for steel hauling. A Heister is a big truck. A very big truck.

When you make steel, first you get the iron, then you gotta process that-add things. And then you pull it through the molten steel caster and it comes out in slabs seven inches thick, and it could be twenty inches wide or-ours goes up to fifty inches wide.

So you have to pick this stuff up with trucks. And my job, I maneuver the truck over the slabs till I'm right over them. Then the Heister's got clamps. They clamp onto the slabs and lift 'em up. You don't get out of the cab. The machine does the lifting, not you.

The guys mark on the stacks what kind of steel it is and where it goes in this huge field that we have. You take it to wherever they say it's supposed to go, you drop it, and you enter its location in your computer. You have a computer in your cab. There's a bolster number on the stacks of slabs, and you enter the number on that, and where you put it. The whole thing takes five to seven minutes a lift. Each slab. I've done as many as fifty slabs in a shift.

This work is hard on your back. These trucks aren't like ordinary trucks, and steel isn't like an ordinary load. You bounce around hard, you're always in there bouncing around. I can feel my disks thinning. Another thing is that I do a lot of turning with the truck. Turning these things isn't like turning a car. There's a steering k.n.o.b that you use to help you. I reach over with my left hand, and I can feel it, I can feel it coming, I have a feeling carpal tunnel is in my future. I had it once before.

There's other hazards. Machine failure. I had a hydro go with three red hot coils lifted, and I couldn't put 'em down. I had to bail out of the truck. Then me and some other guys sprayed 'em down so they wouldn't burn it up.

If you get in trouble, you just let the steel go. Hot steel on blacktop, let it burn, just get away. Because you drop a load of hot steel and get stuck on it, your tires are going up in fire. And it's easy to get stuck-you'd be surprised at how stubborn steel can be. It'll burn right into the road. Meanwhile, you have to keep your wits about you. Because the minute you let go, you wanna get off. Then you gotta turn around and try and pick it up again. But by now the blacktop's smoking. Big thick clouds, you can't see.

I've never caught one on fire really bad, but the first time I had trouble, I thought I was going to die. You can't see what you're doing, the road starts burning. You got to drive off. You do that, you're okay, you can pick it up again. But if you get stuck on top of that hot steel burning the road, bail out. Least that's what they tell us, and that's what I do. Bail out. If you can't, there's a b.u.t.ton in the cab to put out a fire with water and some kind of chemicals. That'll stop the fire from getting in the cab anyway. For a few minutes at least. But that can be scary.

Plus, it's embarra.s.sing when you drop. The next guy comes along is gonna know how long it sat there by how deep in the road it burned. How long it took you to pick it up. You don't get in trouble for dropping, though. It's not our fault, usually. It's the machines- like the clamps, they fail. Or it's a fluke. The company doesn't expect heroics. There are a few guys who are cowboys, but they get over it. We're basically safety-conscious here.

I work for Warren Consolidated Industries-WCI-in Niles, Ohio. We're one of the last mills running in the Youngstown area. This was once a great steel center. We, steel, we've had a lot of bankruptcies. WCI has always weathered it, but we're not huge, like Bethlehem. We're a small deal; we have a niche. We struggle.

They just cut a job in my area, actually. And yesterday, they shut down a whole part of our operation-the whole fifty-six inch mill. It's shut. No idea when it's gonna open again. What happened? Steel dumping. You know what I mean? Subsidized foreign steel gets dumped in our market, drives us down, and that can mean we get laid off.

The company, when they have to cut, they cut workers. We're easiest. And what happens to their stock if they lay a bunch of us off? It jumps. It's the only thing this country is looking out for-the stock market. They're thinking short term, while steelworkers gotta think long term in order to keep this work alive. Which is where the union comes in. I'm on the executive board of local 1375 of the United Steelworkers.

When I started it was just a job, and it paid well. I'd never really had too much experience with unions. I knew you got jobs; I didn't know what the union really had to do with them. But when '95 hit, that was it. I saw what the union meant to my job. Since then, it's been a part of my job.

We had about a fifty-four-day walkout in '95. Nothing makes you madder than having somebody take away not only your livelihood but your pride and your-I mean, a couple of people died in '95. A guy died of a heart attack on the line. A foreman shot at us. They tried to run the mill with scabs. Oh boy, that's when they found out about the union. [Laughs] They found out.

But some people here still don't understand. Even some of the steelworkers. Because, you know, a lot of these guys have been in the mill forever-they went from high school to the mill. They don't know what anything else is like. They don't know how bad a job can be. They think they've just got their right to this good job. But I've been in plenty of jobs without unions, so I can see the difference.

I started out, as a teenager, working with harness horses-you know, the harness track? I groomed and trained. When I had kids, I quit that because I figured the racetrack was not a place for kids. That's when I got my first factory job. Being union now, I can hardly believe what I did then. It was in a small plastic plant and I was there three and a half years, midnight shift, and I was getting less than four dollars. Then I went to another plastic plant for a year and a half, then I got laid off, then I got another factory job making vinyl gloves. One hundred and twenty degrees on the line. At the end of the day your sweat had evaporated and all you had left was salt caked on you. Couple years there. Then I got laid off again.

I got into steel August 1990. It's been a blessing. One of the things-the way the union makes this such a good job-is that they can't fire you for nothing. And that's worth every bit of union dues. The pay's better, too, but it's really security that's important. Because the pay-well, we gotta talk about steel dumping again. I'll put it like this-I made sixty-three thousand dollars in 1997. In 1998, I made fifty thousand. This year it'll be less. And there's nothing we can do. Except, well, there's sort of something we can do-Stand Up For Steel. That's a program we've got for the steelworkers, where we lobby for protection. Tell those a.s.shole Republicans to get behind the steelworkers, you understand?

We just finished negotiating a new contract. This contract, the company puts in, I think, seven cents a ton for Stand Up For Steel. So we're working together, but they're not so interested in us.

Most of the contract negotiation this time was about pensions and parity with big steel-Bethlehem, U.S. Steel. We wanted parity. The company said, "We can't do that." But with the union, you see things differently. When the company says it has no money, you see that it's talking about how it wants to spend money. Because WCI gives the biggest bonuses of anyone to the bosses in the front, and they knew that we knew that, so they couldn't really say they didn't have any money. And we got it. We got what we wanted. And we also got a guaranteed forty hours a week no matter what if the mill is running. That's up from a guaranteed thirty-two hours a week on the last contract. We got a good contract. I think the company was afraid- because of what happened in '95.

So this is a good job. I don't hate my job now.

You have to organize to have a good work environment. You make it a good place to work. You make it a place without rumors, but with information. I started a labor action committee to help us. People will not come to meetings, but they will ask. They start to get information. That's what they need, because there are so many things fighting against total mill organization, even ourselves.

There was a girl I lockered with-I taught her how to drive a truck-and she and some of our friends came in and I thought they were going to help with the union work, but what it really was that they wanted was to go to Vegas for the convention. They ran as a ticket, and they stuck a guy from the c.o.ke plant on the ticket so they could get all the c.o.ke plant votes, even though he didn't know anything about the labor action committee. They should never, never, have used the union like that, 'cause that makes other people think the union won't help them.

Then this girl went down and ripped all the guys' calendars down-the bikini calendars they keep on their lockers. Now those guys are never gonna listen to her. That's not the way you do it. In some instances, you have to be a union person first and a woman second.

If I have a problem with a guy, I tell him. I tell him in front of a group. That's what gets results. One time recently, there was a guy who started chasing me around whenever I was in his section. He wasn't trying to touch me, but he was too friendly. Now, because of the way things are here, I didn't even need to say anything. Another guy said, "Is he always doing that to you?" And I said, "Yeah, now that you mention it." Next thing you know, there's three guys talking to him, saying leave her alone. That's the way to deal with that.

I like being a woman in the mill. That's definitely part of what makes this a good job. I'm the first woman on the executive board of our local. I'm the first woman on Heister. And I like that. And I like the people, and I think the people like me.

Even the foremen, they're mostly fine. I do have one foreman who's hard. He's intent on being an idiot. He does his job, but he's a screamer. Blames people for things that aren't their fault. Unfortunately, we happen to be on the same shift right now, but that won't last long. We rotate shifts, so I won't be around him forever. And if it gets too bad, I'll go to grievance procedures.

Most everybody else, I get along with. I come in, I get the job done. That's how you get along. You work with people you like, and they like you because you do your work, and you're with them. You're together. The union's always there, and so I have never one day really hated going to work like I did with so many of my other jobs. The union, the people, they take the pressure off you. When I'm working, I don't expect pats on the back, but knowing you're not going to get kicked in the teeth makes a lot of difference.

I have two daughters, seventeen and eighteen. The younger, Amanda, wants to work in the mills. She wants to drive the big trucks. But at this point, I'd rather she went to college. Jobs like this are disappearing. The best real ones are going to be gone. That's why people are working hard to put their kids through college. The writing's on the wall. I don't believe I'll retire from the mill, because I don't believe it'll be here when I'm ready to retire. I hope it is, but I doubt it.

I'm actually going for a degree myself. We have a career development program, where the local universities come right down to union halls and offer cla.s.ses two times a day, to accommodate different shifts. I take 'em. I've done sixty-some hours of cla.s.s work. Some people do their entire degrees on the job. [Laughs] And I mean literally on the job. I've written papers at work. You look through all my textbooks you won't find a clean one, because I keep them up in the cab with me. If the mill shuts down because of imports, with our contract we have certain conditions, times, unemployment. So there'll be enough money to survive until I get my degree. And with my degree I hope I won't have to go to Burger King. [Laughs]

Whatever you do, I've always taught my kids, you're not doing it for them, you're doing it for yourself. You have to respect your work, not who you're doing it for. This job is no more meaningful than any other job except it means something to me. I think that's the case with a lot of people here.

I've seen guys, it's just like therapy for them coming into the mill. They talk to their buddies. Or maybe something's going on with their wives. I've had guys, almost complete strangers, sit down beside me and start talking about their relationships or their kids. I understand. I've been through bad experiences myself. I go into work, and I have to get rid of it. You can do that here. Other places I worked weren't like that. I don't know why. Here you have a lot of friends. Of course, you're still on your own, but it helps. And again, the union helps, because it has the EAP, the Employee a.s.sistance, so if a family member gets sick or something, you can survive without getting fired. Other places, your kid breaks his leg and you say you need to go to the hospital with them, they say, "What? You're going to set it yourself?" Here we've got the union, so it's not like that. That's why I'll always have a hand in the union. I could survive without it. But I wouldn't want to.

They bust your a.s.s.

FORD AUTO WORKER.

Mike Jackson.

I work on the production line at the Michigan truck plant of the Ford Motor Company. We build the Expeditions and Navigators. We make almost all of Ford's money right now-at least a big chunk of it. The Expeditions and Navigators, they're sellin' big time. The rumor I hear is they're making like ten to fifteen grand per unit.

The way I started is I was going to school, Ferris State University. But after I got like a year and a half into it, I was getting s.h.i.tty grades and I was busted broke. So I was talkin' to my dad down here, I was visiting for Christmas. You know, and he's been working at Ford for twenty-eight years. He was an inspector in this plant when I was a kid. And I got an uncle who works in the Levonia plant. And my brother works for Ford, too. So my dad, he was always talkin' about getting me into Ford, you know. Good money. And then he told me that they'd pay for your schooling. They give you like thirty-eight hundred a year for school. To go do whatever-go for whatever you want, and they'll pay for it. So I lived on potatoes for like two weeks out there and I was like, "Man, maybe I'll do that. Make good money. Go to school." [Laughs] Well, I never did any more schooling, 'cept for one semester, but here I am, three years later-a factory rat. [Laughs]

Any auto industry job is like considered a really great job, you know. And it is. I get paid good at Ford and I get a lot of benefits. Everything is paid for, pretty much. You can't beat their benefits. And the hours, like you only work four days a week here-four ten-hour days. But they bust your a.s.s, you know.

Like where I work-when you're working on the line-especially if it's a vehicle that's selling real good, they've got to pump them out. We're in like high production-up to four hundred, five hundred trucks a day. So that's like fifty to sixty trucks an hour. Which is a lot, you know. And you're just like just f.u.c.kin' doin' the same s.h.i.t over and over.

In the morning, you wake up-the shift starts at six. You f.u.c.kin' walk in the plant. You walk back toward your job-a block and a half, two blocks, probably. That's how long a walk it is to get all the way inside where my job is. And it's like, I swear to G.o.d-every day you turn this corner, man, around a bunch of crates and stuff. Come around this corner, and it's just like a f.u.c.kin' heat wave instantly. Even in the wintertime. And, boom, you're sweatin'. And then you gotta go and physically work, you know.

There's different sections in the plant. So like, there's the trim shop, and cha.s.sis, and body shop, and there's a big paint shop. And it's a conveyor system. The trucks-there's like this elevator that brings 'em down. The whole body-no windows in it, none of that s.h.i.t, no door handles. Really just stripped-looking, you know? And then you just watch it go into each section and it just gets like slowly built up.

I've moved around a bit, but right now, I work in trim, on a job that's called "left-side kick panel." Trim is like puttin' in all the wiring, the interior and all that, except for the seats. We put in the dashboard, all the stuff that goes underneath it. Speakers in the doors, the covers on the doors, the carpeting on the roof. All the pedals and the radio and all that s.h.i.t.

Basically all I do is, like, come in there on the driver's side on the inside of the quarter panel, in the interior. There's no wheels or anything on it, you know. It's just the body of the truck on the conveyor belt. So when I'm workin', I'm like this. I walk up to the truck, the door is open, I go inside the truck. And I'm bent down like this-this is how I work on my job all day. Bent over like this. Shootin' like-I got an air gun. And it's got like a right angle on it. I take four bolts, and I hook up this wire. And you kinda tuck it in there, and there's holes and you shoot it in. It's already predrilled and everything. So you just zoop, zoop, zoop. Four bolts. It takes you about a minute.

And then you come out and grab a-it's called a brake booster. It probably weighs about five pounds, and it's about that round and that wide, with a long stem comin' out of it. It's part of the master cylinder. It's got four bolts on one side and then two on the other. So I reach up inside where the engine goes in, you know. It's all empty. Reach up in there and slam it into the firewall. I slam that in there, and then later they put the brakes on. That's another minute or so. Maybe three minutes.

Now the thing you have to remember is it's a conveyor system. They crank up that line and you're like-you can't stop. I mean, you get a forty-minute break in the morning and a twenty-minute in the afternoon, and then they shut the line down for lunch. But if you have to go to the bathroom or whatever, you have to get somebody to come. You can't just like, "Oh, I got to take a p.i.s.s" and run off to the bathroom. You gotta stay on your job. 'Cause if you're not there, the job's not gonna get done. And then the truck's going down the line and when it gets to somebody that has to have whatever you put on it there, then, boom, they have to shut the line off. And for every minute that it's down, they figure that's thirty to fifty thousand dollars that they're losin'. So you can't stop. So it's just a lot of repet.i.tion, man. Same s.h.i.t over and over. It's insane.

Ten hours is a long time doin' this, you know? It's just too hard on people. I've had three years in here and I'm like, I'm going to get the h.e.l.l out. [Laughs] I'm trying to get out of Ford and move to Green Bay, Wisconsin. I got a girlfriend and we have a kid, and you know, this job, you know, it's kinda taught me a lot about responsibility and taking care of myself and my family and paying for all my own s.h.i.t and stuff like that. It's been good like that. But if you're in a factory, there's-I don't know. I mean, for anybody who's never worked in a factory, I don't know how to explain it. It's just the most boring work you can do.

I look at it like workin' in here-it's like a prison sentence, you know? It f.u.c.ks with your mind. Ho-ho. [Laughs] I'm goin' crazy. I'm thinkin' all the time about everything. Everything that bothers me. I think a lot of psychotic s.h.i.t sometimes. Like when I was livin' apart from my girlfriend-we were livin' apart for about ten months when I first started here-I'd get in work, man, and [laughs] my mind would just roam and wander, and I would just be thinkin' all kinds of crazy s.h.i.t. Just thinkin' about her like maybe cheatin' on me or whatever. You just-all's you have is time to sit there and think about it. I hate it. I hate that s.h.i.t. It's bad enough you got problems-I mean, everybody's got s.h.i.t on their mind-but this job, man, it's so boring, it like causes you to obsess, man. I hate it.

It's really hard on your body, too. You're getting paid to be a slave, basically. And it hurts. I mean, I've never had a job physically kick my a.s.s like this one does. Like, wakin' up and bein' totally sore. My arms get all scratched up. You're a.s.s-kicked. Every day, you know? I mean, it ain't no big, big deal. I don't want to sound like a p.u.s.s.y or anything. My brother calls us "industrial athletes." I don't know where he picked that term up at, but he's like, "Oh, we're industrial athletes." And, like, if you're in a football game and you get a bruised rib, you don't go into the locker room-you just tough it out. Which is okay, I guess, you know? But week in and week out it gets a little old. Your back hurtin' from bendin' over all the time. Your feet, bein' on your feet on a concrete floor for ten hours. You don't know how bad it sucks when they make you work an extra hour like after a long day and your feet are all hurtin'. Yeah. My hands snap and pop now all the time, too.

I always wanted to be an oceanographer. Diving and stuff. When I was growing up, we had a quarry in front of our house, a rock quarry. They got like forty feet down and hit freshwater springs, and it filled up with emerald green water. Huge pond. And our mom married this guy and then that's where his house was and that's where we moved to. So my brothers and I all-we spent like eight or nine years out there and learned how to swim in that pond. And snorkel and dive. There's like big rock boulders down at the bottom that were all layin' on top of each other and like little caves and stuff in there to explore. I just really got into it, and I really-I liked science a lot too, you know.

So I was goin' to go into it. I was going to go into oceanography when I was in high school. I was all signed up for it and everything- had schools and stuff like on the East Coast and s.h.i.t for it. Then I got talked out of it kinda, by my mom. [Laughs] See, this is like a "lost dreams" thing when you're in a factory like this. That's what I keep thinkin' when I'm in there, and that's why I want to get out, you know.

The thing is, the money's good. Your average Ford employee is makin' forty to fifty grand a year, you know. The top pay is, like, it's always goin' up. Right now, with your cost of livin' adjustment, it's like twenty-two bucks an hour, I think. Which isn't bad. Most people in there wouldn't quit that job for anything, 'cause it's such great money, you know. But I mean, I don't think anybody really likes workin' here. They like the money, you know. But most of those people-like, you ever see that movie Shawshank Redemption? You know where everybody says like you're inst.i.tutionalized, or whatever? They get "factoryized," that's what I say. They just get in the factory so long that they start takin' everything in stride.

I think if I wanted to spend the rest of my life here, then I would tough it out. My buddy Kevin-he's the same age as I am, and that's all he ever plans on doing is workin' here. A lot of people in here are people that just got out of high school and jumped right into life. They started workin' and, you know, havin' kids and s.h.i.t right away when they were young. The job is so valuable to people like that 'cause-you know what I mean? Their lives weren't goin' that much further anyway. You know, that's a good life for 'em-and it is a good life. I mean, don't get me wrong. But I don't know. I think maybe 'cause I went to college and s.h.i.t, I maybe had a different idea of what I wanted to do with my life.

So you know, I'm seriously planning on getting out of here. My girlfriend and I, we're movin' out of the area, to Green Bay. Green Bay is like booming and it's about two hours away from where my mother lives. And you don't have to worry-like, if you live here, in Canton, you got bad areas. You gotta pay lots of money to get into a not so bad area, you know. If I move to Green Bay, I'll probably take a big pay cut, but I won't have to pay so much to live in a decent area, you know. And in Green Bay, there's every kinda job. Probably computers is what I'll go into. If I can. If not, I'll find something else. Something I enjoy somewhat. I'm not gonna let money decide everything. Money isn't worth that much to me to get my a.s.s kicked. It's just not.

I hire them and they leave.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR.

Sandy Wilkens.

Before my kids were born I spent six years doing human resources at a bunch of department stores. I was hiring people, dealing with their insurance, helping the stores set up attendance policies and stuff like that. This was in the 1970s. I was in my twenties and knew everything. [Laughs] I thought I wanted to do something more involved with people's real problems, something more rewarding, like counseling. So after I had my babies, I went back to school, got a master's degree, and I started working for this consulting firm as a vocational rehabilitation counselor. I'd get hired by different companies to go in and help their injured workers get back to work. It was rewarding, and I really liked it, but unfortunately, that job became a dinosaur. Private industry stopped wanting to pay outside people for the service. There was a recession on, and it was just too expensive, so companies became more competent about returning their workers to work themselves. The number of qualified rehabilitation consultants in Wyoming decreased from around six hundred to two hundred within several years of my entering the field.

By 1995, the firm I was with was no longer needing my services. It didn't seem like anybody else was wanting them, either. So I figured I would go back to human resources and I saw an ad in the paper for a beef-processing plant. I knew the place because everybody around here knows it. This company is very well-known in this area. The plant is just outside of town and it is not considered a nice place to work. It never has been. So I thought, oh, that's an awful place, I don't think I want to go out there. But nothing else was available, and I figured they would give me a shot and they did. I came out here in August of '95. [Laughs] It's been four long years.

I'm the director of the plant's human resources department. It's a mult.i.tasked position, but mostly I hire and train our employees-the people who process the cows and do the slaughter. I'd hoped that I would come in here and use some of my background. My master's degree is in counseling and guidance, and I thought I'd be able to take care of the employees if they had any problems and write safety policies and make sure everything was going smooth. And I do write policies a bit, but really, the job is a lot more basic than that. It's all about getting people in the door, getting workers. We just need bodies in this place. We're desperate. Because even though we pay a very decent wage, the working conditions are terrible. It's not a job that normal people want anymore. It's just very tough.

There are many different kinds of beef-processing plants; we're at the tail end of them. Your better plants deal with what are called "fat cattle," those are your best cows and that product is usually sold to the higher-end restaurants and markets. We process "caners and cutters," that means the ol' rickety cows. Kind of second-rate cows. We have some contracts with restaurants and markets, but lesser places. Mostly, we have a lot of government contracts. We sell a lot to schools for school lunches.