MY SUMMER IN THE PLANT

by Brenden John (Film, ‘21)

The summer of 2020 is always going to be one defined by COVID-19. In place of millions of Americans traveling around the country, having get-togethers and just seeing each other, many of us were stuck at home. I spent most of my summer roaming around a factory floor.

For me, the summer was the first time I worked in an industrial setting which was an opportunity given to me by the pandemic. I was assigned to collect virus screenings, input the results into a spreadsheet and hunt down fellow workers who had an irregularity in the answers they gave. For the rest of my 12-hour shifts, I would wander the grounds of the food processing plant and enforce safety guidelines set for the virus. My official title was “COVID cop” (still ACAB though). With this, I got into a routine of monotony.

At this point, I shouldn’t be surprised by the resilience of others or myself. I did however shock my parents from going from the sedentary lifestyle of taking classes in my bedroom to waking up at 4:45 a.m. to drive to the other side of the city to make my 6 a.m. shift. This habit became much easier with multiple cups of black coffee and a can of yerba mate as a treat. For me, this lifestyle shift was a dramatic one but not nearly as difficult for many of my coworkers.

Shifts at the plant were for 12 hours for most floor workers, either morning to evening or evening to morning. I did not envy any of my coworkers that stayed overnight. I remember being particularly heartbroken after a coworker coming off of his night shift told our supervisor that he would then be driving to Kentucky Fried Chicken to clock in for his day job. The plant paid $12 an hour to most of the floor workers I interacted with. The grueling hours and conditions made for a tough atmosphere. Hearing that someone had to go work again after a full night just to pay for whatever they needed was a tough reality. Stories like this were all over the plant. It wasn’t a place people wanted to be.

Over the summer I got close with a woman who we’ll call Diana to keep her privacy. She was a shift leader, Hispanic, perhaps in her late forties or fifties, with a buzz cut and also diabetic. She prided herself on her work ethic but seemed ambivalent about the job. She told me proudly once that she’ll often work 60hour weeks but that since supervisors knew she was dependable, they often gave her a few days off. This was even more of an achievement considering at least three other shift leads quit while I was there, with one even walking off mid-shift.

Diana complained occasionally about pain in her hands and feet, but it didn’t stop her from doing work or leaving the floor often. We talked about all sorts of things from the WWE, life and the job. She had the habit of often “accidentally” having extra food around me, like “accidentally” having an extra sandwich or order of McDonald’s fries. I always accepted the “accidental” food. I was grateful. I really valued our friendship in our strange pairing of two very different people.

Diana seemed grateful for the job despite her grievances. She was hired after being in prison and was glad that she had the opportunity to work. She liked being paid for the job but wanted to leave. She would drive over an hour from Rochester to Syracuse to visit her girlfriend multiple times a week. This distance was inconvenient but as Diana was on parole, this was the best option for her.

My coworkers were full of sad stories. Diana’s nephew, who she called Welchie (like the fruit juice), had to work to pay off a fine. After a night of drinking, he went out to his car to rest and sober up. A police officer found him like this and charged him with a DWI. He picked up the job to help pay the fine. Another shift leader would joke about how she was shot a few months prior to our meeting. It was good she could joke about it but, it’s terribly sad it happened in the first place. Luckily, she ended up being ok. Another coworker was very clearly being catfished by someone. It was mentioned as a joke after he showed me pictures of two very obviously different women that he claimed were just one. He would send money to her despite never meeting. Sure, there was some humor in the situation, but he was also someone who just wanted a connection with somebody, and he happened to find that with someone claiming to be someone else on WhatsApp. I can’t blame him. Being alone in the pandemic is hard enough as it is.

The floor was always hotter than outdoors, even in the summer heat. The always moving, buzzing, boiling and steaming machines keep the temperature high. This wasn’t helped by the dress code being jeans, boots and a t-shirt. This was also paired with a hairnet, safety glasses, a mask, a bump cap and a beard net for anyone with facial hair. I also wore a fluorescent yellow vest for visibility.

After about a month on the job, my supervisor said I didn’t have to wear the black t-shirts I was originally told were mandatory. From then on I exclusively wore workout shirts. Despite the more breathable material I still found myself running a paper towel over my chest and back to dry off the sweat.

One day while working I noticed an ambulance outside the employee entrance. A woman had fainted from the heat while on the floor and vomited when she woke up. The higher-ups hastily threw together pizza that had obviously been ordered earlier that day and compiled the mix of slices leftover into a box, placing it in the cafeteria with a paper saying, “free pizza”. On the same day, tubs of ice with water bottles were also added to the cafeteria. A coworker angrily yelled “It took someone to faint for you to give us water bottles?” His shouting was in vain. The higher-ups did not dine in the cafeteria for floor workers.

I only visited the upper floors meant for higher-ups and miscellaneous office workers twice. It was a bizarre contrast to the main area for floor workers. The upper floors were well lit by natural lighting as much of the ceiling was glass. The windows overlooked the trees that stood around the grounds and a small fountain and maze garden. Most bizarre of all was the supposed motorcycle of the late actor Paul Newman which was suspended from the ceiling. It felt like a place I wasn’t meant to be in.

One of the product lines the factory processed was the Paul Newman brand of dressings and sauces. This led to strange memorabilia being at the factory locations. An auctioned suit with a signed letter from actress Julia Roberts stood in a glass display on the second floor of the building. Another factory location nearby held a Paul Newman race car.

While I didn’t drive a race car, I found myself spending a lot of time in my mom’s 2012 Toyota Sienna. Her work had gone fully remote, so she no longer needed a vehicle to work. That van became my base of operations. I took my fifteen-minute breaks and lunches in the van. I’d fully recline the seat and eat my protein bar and kale smoothie. I would even close my eyes when I got too tired and set an alarm. The van also served as an impromptu medical tent for me. As most of my work was just walking the grounds, my feet were in constant pain. I had the regular pain of being on my feet all day paired with blisters. In the van, I would change the bandages on my blisters and apply Neosporin to make sure the blisters didn’t get any worse. You’d kind of forget about the sharp pain by just walking through it.

I noticed that despite constantly moving around, I had started to gain weight; my mom even pointed out my now visible “belly”. The factory had sapped all of my energy so when I would get home, I preferred to just rest. I often just ate something quick and unhealthy just to fill up. During all of this, I knew I was incredibly fortunate. I came home every day drained. Plenty of the workers were parents — they’re far stronger than me for being able to work all of that time then dedicate the rest to raising a kid.

In response to my weight gain, I made some shifts in diet that were very helpful and began to workout again. I started running at the track at my old high school Usually, I would stop noticing the pain in my feet halfway through the first lap. I thought running would be a useful change for me to get back in shape and also be aware of my own lung capacity. I always could be exposed at work so I thought that if I noticed my capacity to run suddenly dropped, it would be an indicator that I had the virus.

In late August I received a call from the coordinator that set me up with the position. I had been reassigned. I was told just a few hours before my final shift would end. I would be reporting to a location closer to my home and would only be working eight-hour shifts opposed to the twelve-hour shifts that defined my summer. The news felt bittersweet. I had kind of learned to love this place. Diana wasn’t working that day. I never got to say goodbye.

For me, I had this experience for a summer, and I might go back to work in an industrial setting of some kind one day but I’m still the lucky one. My tenure at the plant had an expiration date. I didn’t have to worry if I could make rent or raise any kids on the short wage and long hours. While the pandemic highlighted a lot of the problems experienced by the working class, it certainly didn’t birth them. The job was tough before Covid and living in America was already expensive. The virus was just another wrench thrown at the American working class.

My new assignment was at a factory owned by the same company. I was tasked with adding QR sticker labels to all of the parts inventory. This job felt like a vacation compared to my last position. I had defined tasks and I could listen to music or e-books while I worked, all while being let out four hours earlier than the shifts I had all summer. This position only lasted two weeks. When it was done it was time for me to start my final year at FIT remotely. In place of a time where I should have been celebrating or partying with friends in the city, visiting museums, and discovering college and city love, I was instead charging my computer in preparation for class from my kitchen table.

Nearly half a month after finishing the job, I noticed the blisters and the marks of wear that tattooed the soles of my feet were gone and fully healed. There wasn’t a trace left on my body of the hot factory that I spent my summer.