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Apr. 9th, 2009 09:44 pmThis is crazy.
That's what comes to mind when I consider the reality of my job description, and my previous ones as well.
#1: When I was piling lumber (anything from 16' 2" thick 6"+ width boards, one reaching your position on the line approximately once every few seconds) I had to eat two-three times what a normal human being has to eat to stabilize my weight.
#2: The amount of waste just in sawdust that is produced from a single shift - probably weighs in around your body weight (mind you, that all has to be cleaned up?)
#3: Any given job in the mill will likely build muscle mass over time. The only exceptions might be head sawyer, permanent lift operators, button pushers and stick layers. Otherwise, you're going to be working hard. Hard enough in some cases to remove all layers except for a shirt, or long sleeved shirt, in below zero degrees fahrenheit weather (no heaters on the dry line, except for heat lamps over your head. They are not very effective.)
#4: For any service you render, other than head sawyer or grader/supervisor, unless you've been there for a decade plus, you are probably going to make less than ten dollars an hour. That is a blue collar wage in the 21st century?
Industry is simply crazy. I'm going to be taking pictures soon, for future Album art, and I think I'll put them up on here so those of you who still read can get a glimpse of the depths of an industrial complex (at least the one I am currently experiencing.)
If you want to know why industry disappears in this country, why I think it has, read further.
You simply can not sustain an intelligent population on industry.
Menial task labor is not for intellectuals. As a population becomes more educated it will be less likely to seek out industrial-level employment. Industry likely has and will most assuredly face a lack of workers in the future. I already see that. Call it a brain drain. When you lose all of the intellectuals from the industrial workplace, what is going to happen to the products they produce?
The problem is the perception of industry, and also the kind of work it offers. What people forget to realize is that every product they hold in their hands is likely produced in a factory setting. Service doesn't play a role. I have yet to figure out the role service-based jobs have. I don't need someone to serve me a drink. I don't need someone to sell me something. These systems are meaningless and fast becoming outdated, and when technology achieves an adequate level, they will be replaced.
Tell me the purpose of salesmen in the 21st century? When you think of a salesman, what does it make you think of? The purpose of commercials? To obtain further dominance of a market. A market that should be determined by the quality of the product, not the amount of financial revenue the producing company can expend on advertising to reach a wider demographic.
If you are not playing a role in producing something tangible, you haven't done anything. That also means research, development, science and engineering all play roles in furthering the human race.
Coders, yeah, you guys produce something too. It's tangible enough to count, and many computer systems play a role at a production level in industrial settings.
Life Update:
Night shift is awesome. Apparently every supervisor I've worked with thinks highly of me, and it's led to me being moved around and trained on a lot of new things. I'm going to be trained on a giant lift pretty soon (it has tires with a diameter nearly as large as my height.) And I'm learning all kinds of things up at the green end.
Some people spent years in the dry line before ever being moved up.
It only took me 5 months of actual work, out of the 9 I was employed on and off throughout.
It's fucking amazing. Confidence boost to the extreme.
I also had to train somebody else on Monday!
That's what comes to mind when I consider the reality of my job description, and my previous ones as well.
#1: When I was piling lumber (anything from 16' 2" thick 6"+ width boards, one reaching your position on the line approximately once every few seconds) I had to eat two-three times what a normal human being has to eat to stabilize my weight.
#2: The amount of waste just in sawdust that is produced from a single shift - probably weighs in around your body weight (mind you, that all has to be cleaned up?)
#3: Any given job in the mill will likely build muscle mass over time. The only exceptions might be head sawyer, permanent lift operators, button pushers and stick layers. Otherwise, you're going to be working hard. Hard enough in some cases to remove all layers except for a shirt, or long sleeved shirt, in below zero degrees fahrenheit weather (no heaters on the dry line, except for heat lamps over your head. They are not very effective.)
#4: For any service you render, other than head sawyer or grader/supervisor, unless you've been there for a decade plus, you are probably going to make less than ten dollars an hour. That is a blue collar wage in the 21st century?
Industry is simply crazy. I'm going to be taking pictures soon, for future Album art, and I think I'll put them up on here so those of you who still read can get a glimpse of the depths of an industrial complex (at least the one I am currently experiencing.)
If you want to know why industry disappears in this country, why I think it has, read further.
You simply can not sustain an intelligent population on industry.
Menial task labor is not for intellectuals. As a population becomes more educated it will be less likely to seek out industrial-level employment. Industry likely has and will most assuredly face a lack of workers in the future. I already see that. Call it a brain drain. When you lose all of the intellectuals from the industrial workplace, what is going to happen to the products they produce?
The problem is the perception of industry, and also the kind of work it offers. What people forget to realize is that every product they hold in their hands is likely produced in a factory setting. Service doesn't play a role. I have yet to figure out the role service-based jobs have. I don't need someone to serve me a drink. I don't need someone to sell me something. These systems are meaningless and fast becoming outdated, and when technology achieves an adequate level, they will be replaced.
Tell me the purpose of salesmen in the 21st century? When you think of a salesman, what does it make you think of? The purpose of commercials? To obtain further dominance of a market. A market that should be determined by the quality of the product, not the amount of financial revenue the producing company can expend on advertising to reach a wider demographic.
If you are not playing a role in producing something tangible, you haven't done anything. That also means research, development, science and engineering all play roles in furthering the human race.
Coders, yeah, you guys produce something too. It's tangible enough to count, and many computer systems play a role at a production level in industrial settings.
Life Update:
Night shift is awesome. Apparently every supervisor I've worked with thinks highly of me, and it's led to me being moved around and trained on a lot of new things. I'm going to be trained on a giant lift pretty soon (it has tires with a diameter nearly as large as my height.) And I'm learning all kinds of things up at the green end.
Some people spent years in the dry line before ever being moved up.
It only took me 5 months of actual work, out of the 9 I was employed on and off throughout.
It's fucking amazing. Confidence boost to the extreme.
I also had to train somebody else on Monday!
