Event Threshold

We’d gone several weeks at Greenstar without a serious breakdown. We’d had the little, uncertain ones where they keep us around while they fix things. But yesterday we had the kind where they throw up their hands and say, “Send everyone home!” I was home and cleaned up by noon, and I put the day to very good use, running errands that had to be run during business hours. Among other things, I finally have toner in my printer’s cartridge again!

Today in that final two-hour stretch after lunch, everything went down, and an eerie silence settled over the behemoths. Ralph and I busied ourselves with scooping overflow debris off the floor onto the belt and sorting it out. But the belt wasn’t moving. Then Punkin got the word on the radio clipped to his shirt — down. “We’re down. We’re down.” The universal long-distance hand signal for this is the thumbs-down — you know, like for killing a defeated gladiator. That gesture. The universal symbol for break time is to mimic breaking a stick in two. We always look to Punkin for these signals that govern our days. At cleanup time, he always orders two temps to follow me to the clutter-catching chamber beneath our deck — always the same, but he always gives the order, and we don’t leave the deck until he gives it.

Well, when the “down” signal came today, Punkin sent Ralph and me over the rails to clean the catwalks — yes! I love the catwalks.

Dan (the awesome line boss from the other line) had just handed me a broom from the gantry above for no reason that I could fathom. Since I work in the front position below that catwalk, guys are often handing me things from the upper realm, and sometimes it’s a real challenge figuring out what I’m supposed to do with them. I’ll be working, and I’ll hear a loud “YO!” Someone is there, wanting to hand me something. So I’ll clamber up onto the rails and receive it. If it’s a tool, usually there’s a reason, and someone is waiting for it. Sometimes it’s a porno magazine, in which case I dutifully receive it, hand it across to Ralph, and he passes it on to Yum-Yum — who sometimes waves it away. Interestingly, I’ve heard guys refer to such magazines as “books.” They’ll say, “Hand me those books!”

So anyway, I had this broom from Dan, so I handed it to Ralph, and I grabbed a shovel off the wall — it was the only tool. We each have a catwalk on our own side, always smothered in the trash that falls from the feed chute. I clambered down onto mine with my shovel, and I noticed there was another temp working at the far end. I was just freely shoveling the stuff down into the chamber below (making sure no one was working below me), since I figured we’d be cleaning that out later. Gravity is our partner: we clean what’s high, then we clean what’s low.

The other temp came up to me with a nervous air and said, “They told me to throw the stuff onto that belt.” He pointed to the belt below us, on Dan’s side of the wall. I cheerfully said, “Okay,” and began directing my shovelfuls onto that belt. The guy looked relieved. I don’t know why, but many of the temps are like that — they seem to think I’m some sort of boss, like they’re afraid I’m going to yell at them.

When the catwalks were done, Ralph and I descended and cleaned out the debris chamber. We still had about an hour to go to the end of the shift. He went out front, and I knew it was time to look for Gizmo.

Gizmo was actively seeking me out. He plucked the shovel from my hands, leaned it against a wall, and said, “I have the perfect job for you. You’re the guy for this. I told ’em I’d send ’em the best.” He urgently beckoned me to follow, and I wondered what it could be that involved no tools. But he was fairly hopping with excitement. Back we went, through the catacombs, and he pointed up a long yellow stairway to a yellow bridge that crossed before a gray fuse box to a battered hopper, high and remote. He gave me my instructions. When I got up there, he said, I’d see a maintenance man. (They wear red hardhats.) Then I’d know what to do.

I went up the stairs, and at the landing, I met Howard coming down. “How’s it going?” he asked, looking kind of dazed.

When I got up there, I realized the enormity of where I’d been sent. This was the Event Threshold . . . Ground Zero. The point of the breakdown, where things had gone foul and brought “Texas-based giant Greenstar” to a standstill. I always wondered where and how this happens. Now I was seeing it.

I was face-to-face with the Greater Boss, John. I should have said, “Hello, Mr. R___!” but instead, what came out was a surprised, merry, “Oh, hi!” He didn’t seem to mind. He greeted me in much the same way. The red hat was inside the hopper, digging out cans and bottles with his hands. Gizmo had told me to help him, but there was no way to get inside the space with a guy already in there.

I looked questioningly at John. “He’ll get tired soon,” he said with a grin, meaning that then I could go in and spell him. So there I was, standing next to John, doing absolutely no work at all, waiting. It felt weird. John will fire guys for standing and leaning on their brooms. He fired three temps this week for not wearing ear plugs — they got sent home with DNRs — “Do Not Return”s. The red hat didn’t seem to be getting tired. I wondered if I was really supposed to be there, at the center of things. Then the awesome line boss Dan appeared in the narrow space behind the machine. He’d been trying to drag junk out from the back of it. Now John turned to me and said, “Take that broom and clear all that stuff out.” I should have said, “Yes, sir!” but what I said was a bright, “Okay!”

I’m a doofus when it comes to protocol. I once rubbed elbows in a cafeteria line with the President of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod — the top man of our international church body. I confess that I did not have a clue who he was — just some distinguished Lutheran guy at the International Center in St. Louis. He said, “Hi!” in a way that seemed to suggest, “If you would like to say something to me or ask a question, this is your chance!” I asked, “Is this decaf coffee?” (In retrospect, I don’t know why on Earth I asked that. I’ll drink either, decaf or caf.) He looked a little puzzled and said, “Yes. Yes, it is.” That’s probably one question that no gung-ho young missionary had yet asked him.

Dan told me to hold off a minute while he used the broom handle to knock trash out from the back end of the machine. This was all very close quarters — not enough room to pick up a cat, let alone swing one.

Then Spider looked around the corner of the hood. I was up there at the Event Threshold with John, Spider, and Dan. You simply do not get any closer to the crucial center of things. “All right,” Dan said, thrusting the broom into my hands. “Pull all this sh** out of here and push it down those stairs.”

I nodded and jumped to it.

Do you have any idea how satisfying it is to shove great waves of cans and bottles down a metal access stairway?! Crash! Rooarrr! Clatter, clatter, clatter! Grrr-rrooaarrr, clatter, clatter! Straight down the stairs, while Gizmo, at the bottom, nodded approvingly. Spider appeared down there with him in the next second. He truly lives up to his name. I think the only way he could have gotten down there that fast was to skitter down a web.

Another red hat materialized beside me, wading through the trash, working on fixing the breakage to the machine. I tried to clear him a foothold while staying out of his way.

Then Spider — up with us again! — said, “Fred, you have to sign out at 2:00. And it’s about five minutes till.” All temps were being released.

I’d gotten the bulk of the trash — maybe three-fourths of it.

“Come on down!” called Gizmo.

I used those five minutes to help Gizmo clear the stairs. He pulled with his broom from below; I pushed from above. With my feet, I shoved cans and bottles out through the open risers as he hollered encouragement. When we were done, I joined him below and said, “I didn’t get it all, but I didn’t want to get in that guy’s way.” Gizmo said, “You did great, brother! Sign out! I’ve got all this. I told ’em I was sending up the best. They wanted the best, and I sent up the best. Thank you!” I said, “Any time!” He laughed and said, “I know!”

I met Ralph at the sign-out sheet. He said, “I guess we’re out of here.” I said, “Yep.” We talked as we headed for the punch-out trailer, then all the way out to our cars. It wasn’t much of a loss in pay — just an hour early. And getting off an hour early makes for a pleasant day. Catwalks, the Event Threshold, and being sent up to John, Spider, and Dan as “the best” Gizmo has to offer: not a bad day!

What makes me happiest is that when Gizmo needs something dramatic done, he thinks of me. Soli Deo Gloria!

 

9 Responses to Event Threshold

    • Shieldmaiden says:

      When I log in I don’t get the subscribe box option. Sorry I haven’t figured this out yet. Any help or ideas would be great.

  1. Preacher says:

    Fred, your whole temp experience this summer reminds me of my summers as a temp when I worked at a wharehouse when I was at the seminary. Very different world than I was used to, and some of the most satisfying and fun times I ever had! I’m guessing you’ll be using these experiences in future stories, from character names to giant machines eating garbage. I know several of your friends on here are waiting for you to get a job that befits your superior intelligence, but I’d say, enjoy this while you can. When you’re teaching at a university one day, I’m pretty sure you’ll have times when you’ll wish you could be back standing by the belt, hands whipping in all directions, sorting, ducking, and laughing. I really enjoy hearing of your adventures at Greenstar! And no matter where you are, Fred, dealing with high prose or smelly garbage, you’re ALWAYS the best!

  2. fsdthreshold says:

    Preacher — wow. What can I say? Thank you, dear friend!

    Yes: when I do move on from Greenstar, I know I’ll miss it. I’ll miss this summer with Ralph, and My Man the Rat, and the growling engines, and the catwalks and cavern spaces, and all the rest. My boss at the staffing agency has been trying to convince me to take a job at a candy factory, but I turned him down. It would be a little more money, but it would be longer hours, and I know that I wouldn’t like it nearly as much. It’s farther away from where I live, and instead of a hardhat, I’d be wearing a hairnet, and the environment would be all sanitary and air-conditioned, and I doubt I’d ever see a rat . . . Not nice! Greenstar, I told him, has character. I agree that I should move on from here — but not to a factory.

    Anyway, today, it was a good thing I was wearing my hardhat. Something really substantial hit me square on the head — WHAM! I didn’t see what it was, but a coat hanger fell onto the belt in front of me, just after the impact. I suspect that the coat hanger was hooked onto something heavier, like waterlogged paper, which fell away. I asked Ralph about it later. He didn’t see it, either, but he heard it. He knew something had clobbered me. But since I wasn’t staggering, he went right on working. 🙂

    • Hagiograph says:

      Obviously your experience temping has been fun and fits well with your desires and passions outside of writing (strange as that may seem). As I pointed out earlier, remember that Charles Bukowski was a letter sorter and actually enjoyed the work enough to practice at home (back in the days when humans did that), yet he was also a relatively famous poet in certain circles.

      I had a friend who worked at a chocolate factory in New England. He indicated it was a relatively unpleasant experience and he couldn’t stand the thought of eating a chocolate candy bar for a long time afterwards.

      Temping, imho, sucks, however. I’ve seen it used far too often to the detriment of the worker. Of course my temping experience was personally painful so I could be somewhat more jaded on the proposition.

      Sitting in a break room having some executard try to tell me how good it must be to be a temp because I could “check out the company” to see if I wanted to work there should a job come open!

      Then at another time, when I was working around a piece of equipment for several days (leaning over it to reach somewhere else) I got the supremely happy experience to see a different executroid meader through as he toured a visitor.

      “Be careful not to touch that piece of equipment,” he said to his visitor-friend, “It’s contamined with radioactive iodine” (they use some radioisotopes of Iodine in pharma labs as tracers I think, that wasn’t part of my job.)

      I asked him if I should be concerned because I’d been crawling all around that piece of equipment for the past several days while setting up the liquid chromatography rig.

      “Nah,” the executroid replied. And that was the end of it.

      Yay! Temps, apparently the great thing about temps is they go away after a while!

    • Morwenna says:

      The Strange But True Temporary Agency has a listing for someone to help “row” a moveable city across the countryside. This job “requires exceptional strength and an interest in travel.”

  3. fsdthreshold says:

    Well, Hagiograph, there are a few up-sides to temping that I’m taking full advantage of. Greenstar always runs on the Saturday following a national holiday. They’re running this Saturday, for example, to make up for Labor Day. To my way of thinking, a holiday you have to give back at the end of the week isn’t a holiday. So I simply tell my staffing agency, “I can’t work this Saturday,” and they say, “Okay.” The uniforms at Greenstar have to work.

    Also, the last week in September, I get to be a visiting author at a middle school and library in central New York State. Yesterday I told my boss that, and he said, “Okay, so you can’t go to Greenstar that week.” (The librarian is paying me more with her grant money than I would make in the week of working at Greenstar, plus putting me up in a hotel.) Through a temp agency, as long as you arrange things in advance, you can pretty much take any time off you need. Of course you don’t get paid for it. This is not a long-term solution, to be sure, but it does have its advantages.

    I really love the physicality of the job. It’s so refreshing to be able to just move, use tools, get paid for it, and not think about the job at all when you’re not there. I’ve never had that before in life. As a teacher, it was always prepare, prepare, prepare. And it is really nice not shaving until the weekend, when I see people other than people at work! Yes, when I have to go back to “real” work, I’ll miss this in many ways.

    • Hagiograph says:

      Hmmm, let’s do the tally:

      1. Don’t take work home (I don’t do that now)

      2. Get days off without lots of hassle (kinda do that now, with pay, up to a limited amount)

      3. Get people to pay for your travel (well that was most of 2010 and 2011 for me too)

      4. No need to shave every day (thanks to a lower than normal testosterone level I’m already on that train!)

      4. Physicality and Manliness Quotient (that I am indeed lacking that, but I do have a nice 1 mile walking trail around campus here which I use daily. And it’s a haul over to the free coffee. And I have exceptionally strong typin’ fingers, which in certain crowds, does get the ladies as you no doubt know.)

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