A day of darkness
It was still dark when I left my house Monday morning, and I wondered if I would see the sun at all that day. Work was scheduled to end at 3:30 p.m., and if it ran much longer, I'd be racing the shadows home.
When I arrived 20 minutes late, I approached the front desk, manned by a disheveled 40-something with bad posture. A sign over the desk read, "All temps MUST sign in before starting their shifts."
"In there," he said, pointing at the first brown door down the hall. He did not ask me to sign in.
I opened the door and walked in on orientation. About 20 people, of various ages and races, sat at two-person tables that were set up in three rows. In the front of the room, Pedro, a large Portuguese 30-something, and Grace, a stiff, Caucasian 40-something, flanked a wall-to-wall white board. To avoid confusion, someone had written their names above them in green marker.
I slid into a corner seat in the back as Grace read aloud: "There is no food allowed on the floor. Only clear bottles of water are allowed. No purses are allowed. All your personal items will go into a clear plastic case which you may keep with you. Your purses go into a cubby, but we've had a problem with theft lately so anything important you keep in your car, or at home."
Pedro translated the instructions into Spanish for his side of the room. When he finished, he ambled over and handed me a copy of the sheet Grace was reading from -- a list of company rules and regulations.
"We pride ourselves on speaking five languages here," said Grace. "We employ people from all over the world..."
Someone asked Pedro a question in Spanish, and he began to answer it in Spanish. "Pedro!" Grace snapped, her voice tighter than her bleached-blonde hair, the roots plastered with hair spray, the ends twisted into an angry bun. "Pedro, please translate the question!"
Grace moved on to the next rule. "We punch in four times here. Once at the beginning of the shift --"
"Four times?" someone said.
"Four times," Grace resumed. "Once at the beginning of the shift, once before lunch, once after lunch, and once at the end of the shift."
"Four times?" said another.
"Four?" said one with a thick Indian accent. "Four?" she said again, hesitantly.
"Four times. We punch in for our shift, out for lunch, BACK in after lunch, and out at the end of the shift. This is VERY IMPORTANT." She hesitated, as though she didn't know if she should voice the brilliance that had just flickered across her face. "VERY IMPORTANT. MOO-EEEY, MOO-EEEY, EMPORTANTAY," she said, grinning trimumphantly at the Spanish side of the room. "Pedro's been teaching me."
A few people mustered a half-smile. I wondered if one day I could be so gracefully multilingual.
Forty-five minutes later, we were herded into the warehouse.
Overhead, a huge sign proclaimed, "CAUTION! FORK LIFT TRAFFIC!" And then, as if on cue, a woman barreled around the corner honking and steering a fork lift stacked with several unmarked boxes. Grace talked over the honks and pointed at the gray time clock.
"This is where you punch in and out. To do so, you swipe your badge up or down, but not up AND down. If you do it up AND down, you'll keep punching yourself in and out. And how many times do you punch in again?"
"Four times," only a few people said, nervously.
"This is so confusing," one woman said to me. I nodded sympathetically.
We all practiced punching in. I noticed it was only 8:30 a.m.
"Now I'll introduce you to your supervisors," said Grace, calling off groups of three and taking them to their respective bosses. I was led to a short woman named Maria.
"You see dat doo-ah ovah dey-ah?" said Maria, gesturing behind her. "Dat's da exit doo-ah. If, God fuh-bid, an uh-mergency uh-curs, you don't find yo-ah friends. You look out fo-ah num-bah one. Cuz dat's what it's all about, right? Num-bah one. God fuh-bid some-thin terr-uh-ble happens, but if so you look out fo-ah num-bah one. Got dat?"
One of the people in my group was the Indian girl who hadn't understood the four-punch system. "You un-dahstand English?" Maria said to the girl. When she shook her head, Maria said disgustedly to another woman, "You -- take huh aside and talk to huh."
Maria led me to a pretty Cape Verdean woman wearing a Wal-mart-blue vest. I noticed that all the workers wore them. She stood over a box that sat on a conveyer belt -- one of rows and rows of identical conveyer belts that cut through the warehouse like so many prison bars. The Cape Verdean woman handed me a plastic gun and some price tickets, then wordlessly demonstrated how to ticket a shirt. "It's easy, huh?" she finally said.
I tried to strike up a conversation. "So, how long have you worked here?" I asked her mid-stab.
She spoke, in broken English, about her husband and children here, and her family in Cape Verde. Of her plan to get out -- to find another job once she used her vacation time. "I only stay for the benefits," she said, ticking them off with remarkable ease.
Soft rock blared over the loudspeaker, interrupted only when someone was paged. Everyone paged sounded decidedly "American" -- Brian Anderson, Stacey Smith...I imagined a posh office where so many Grace clones took their calls, summoning Pedro anytime they needed to talk to the help.
Eventually, my partner and I moved to another conveyer belt, and began ticketing jeans. When she left to get more boxes, I leaned back on the belt, thinking. The shirts' tags had said "Made in India," and a tag on the box revealed they had been shipped to JFK on December 22, a few days before its creators were devastated by the tsumami. How much of their lives had they invested into creating these clothes? Did they dread their work as much as their American counterparts seemed to, nameless behind-the-scenes players in this capitalist freak show?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maria approaching rapidly.
"Um, excuse me," she said. "We can't have you just standin uh-round. Maybe I should uh been more clea-uh ear-li-uh, but you always gottuh be doin somethin. If yo-uh supervis-uh leaves, you ask someone if dey need help."
Maria proceeded to tap on the shoulder of the woman huddling over the next conveyer belt. "Excoose me," said Maria, not addressing the woman by name. "Do you need any help?" She turned to me. "See, dats what you do."
At lunchtime, most of the workers assembled in the cafeteria. I wanted so much to save them. Instead, I rushed by the same man at the desk and got into my car, driving and driving while the sky faded to black.
When I arrived 20 minutes late, I approached the front desk, manned by a disheveled 40-something with bad posture. A sign over the desk read, "All temps MUST sign in before starting their shifts."
"In there," he said, pointing at the first brown door down the hall. He did not ask me to sign in.
I opened the door and walked in on orientation. About 20 people, of various ages and races, sat at two-person tables that were set up in three rows. In the front of the room, Pedro, a large Portuguese 30-something, and Grace, a stiff, Caucasian 40-something, flanked a wall-to-wall white board. To avoid confusion, someone had written their names above them in green marker.
I slid into a corner seat in the back as Grace read aloud: "There is no food allowed on the floor. Only clear bottles of water are allowed. No purses are allowed. All your personal items will go into a clear plastic case which you may keep with you. Your purses go into a cubby, but we've had a problem with theft lately so anything important you keep in your car, or at home."
Pedro translated the instructions into Spanish for his side of the room. When he finished, he ambled over and handed me a copy of the sheet Grace was reading from -- a list of company rules and regulations.
"We pride ourselves on speaking five languages here," said Grace. "We employ people from all over the world..."
Someone asked Pedro a question in Spanish, and he began to answer it in Spanish. "Pedro!" Grace snapped, her voice tighter than her bleached-blonde hair, the roots plastered with hair spray, the ends twisted into an angry bun. "Pedro, please translate the question!"
Grace moved on to the next rule. "We punch in four times here. Once at the beginning of the shift --"
"Four times?" someone said.
"Four times," Grace resumed. "Once at the beginning of the shift, once before lunch, once after lunch, and once at the end of the shift."
"Four times?" said another.
"Four?" said one with a thick Indian accent. "Four?" she said again, hesitantly.
"Four times. We punch in for our shift, out for lunch, BACK in after lunch, and out at the end of the shift. This is VERY IMPORTANT." She hesitated, as though she didn't know if she should voice the brilliance that had just flickered across her face. "VERY IMPORTANT. MOO-EEEY, MOO-EEEY, EMPORTANTAY," she said, grinning trimumphantly at the Spanish side of the room. "Pedro's been teaching me."
A few people mustered a half-smile. I wondered if one day I could be so gracefully multilingual.
Forty-five minutes later, we were herded into the warehouse.
Overhead, a huge sign proclaimed, "CAUTION! FORK LIFT TRAFFIC!" And then, as if on cue, a woman barreled around the corner honking and steering a fork lift stacked with several unmarked boxes. Grace talked over the honks and pointed at the gray time clock.
"This is where you punch in and out. To do so, you swipe your badge up or down, but not up AND down. If you do it up AND down, you'll keep punching yourself in and out. And how many times do you punch in again?"
"Four times," only a few people said, nervously.
"This is so confusing," one woman said to me. I nodded sympathetically.
We all practiced punching in. I noticed it was only 8:30 a.m.
"Now I'll introduce you to your supervisors," said Grace, calling off groups of three and taking them to their respective bosses. I was led to a short woman named Maria.
"You see dat doo-ah ovah dey-ah?" said Maria, gesturing behind her. "Dat's da exit doo-ah. If, God fuh-bid, an uh-mergency uh-curs, you don't find yo-ah friends. You look out fo-ah num-bah one. Cuz dat's what it's all about, right? Num-bah one. God fuh-bid some-thin terr-uh-ble happens, but if so you look out fo-ah num-bah one. Got dat?"
One of the people in my group was the Indian girl who hadn't understood the four-punch system. "You un-dahstand English?" Maria said to the girl. When she shook her head, Maria said disgustedly to another woman, "You -- take huh aside and talk to huh."
Maria led me to a pretty Cape Verdean woman wearing a Wal-mart-blue vest. I noticed that all the workers wore them. She stood over a box that sat on a conveyer belt -- one of rows and rows of identical conveyer belts that cut through the warehouse like so many prison bars. The Cape Verdean woman handed me a plastic gun and some price tickets, then wordlessly demonstrated how to ticket a shirt. "It's easy, huh?" she finally said.
I tried to strike up a conversation. "So, how long have you worked here?" I asked her mid-stab.
She spoke, in broken English, about her husband and children here, and her family in Cape Verde. Of her plan to get out -- to find another job once she used her vacation time. "I only stay for the benefits," she said, ticking them off with remarkable ease.
Soft rock blared over the loudspeaker, interrupted only when someone was paged. Everyone paged sounded decidedly "American" -- Brian Anderson, Stacey Smith...I imagined a posh office where so many Grace clones took their calls, summoning Pedro anytime they needed to talk to the help.
Eventually, my partner and I moved to another conveyer belt, and began ticketing jeans. When she left to get more boxes, I leaned back on the belt, thinking. The shirts' tags had said "Made in India," and a tag on the box revealed they had been shipped to JFK on December 22, a few days before its creators were devastated by the tsumami. How much of their lives had they invested into creating these clothes? Did they dread their work as much as their American counterparts seemed to, nameless behind-the-scenes players in this capitalist freak show?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maria approaching rapidly.
"Um, excuse me," she said. "We can't have you just standin uh-round. Maybe I should uh been more clea-uh ear-li-uh, but you always gottuh be doin somethin. If yo-uh supervis-uh leaves, you ask someone if dey need help."
Maria proceeded to tap on the shoulder of the woman huddling over the next conveyer belt. "Excoose me," said Maria, not addressing the woman by name. "Do you need any help?" She turned to me. "See, dats what you do."
At lunchtime, most of the workers assembled in the cafeteria. I wanted so much to save them. Instead, I rushed by the same man at the desk and got into my car, driving and driving while the sky faded to black.