I am a monkey.
I can count to 10.
I can count to 10 ten times over, over and over again.
FINALLY EMPLOYED... TEMPORARILY
At 215 Kennedy Place in the industrial district of Christchurch City South on the lower island of New Zealand is a warehouse filled with 100,000,000 articles of clothing. One half of this massive, freezing and leaky building is the logistical distribution center for School Text, which produces all of the country’s primary school’s uniforms. The other half is for the island’s top retailer called “Posti Plus.”
I know this because touching and counting all of the 100,000,000 plus items has been my job description for the last two weeks. I was pimped out by one of the four temporary staffing agencies that I have signed up with to do this job. Apparently it is a special assignment. The necessity of this job was created after some renegade forklift driver, upon being told that he was being made redundant (that’s United Kingdom-ese for getting ‘the pink slip’ or ‘axed’ or ‘canned’ or, simply, ‘fired’) went absolutely crazy and broke into the warehouse during a weekend and did a big mix up job. He went through thousands of boxes and mixed up as much of the inventory as he could. The company is unsure what’s missing, how much they still have and where it is all located.
This is where I come in.
For the last two weeks I have spent 47 hours of my Monday through Friday and half of Sundays navigating a Segway-like machine with lifting capabilities down miles and miles of isles which contain 2’ x 3’ x 2’ boxes stacked 80 feet high. Every morning, I go to an IN BOX filled with excel spreadsheets. Each of these sheets tells me which boxes need to be counted. On a typical day, there are 12 sheets, with each sheet taking a little under 40 minutes to quantify.
Today it was counting by quantities of 30 but luckily I didn’t have to actually touch the products during this round of counting because a little black number on the outside of the sealed cardboard box told me how many Color: “Gunmetal Blue Steel”, Size: 2-4 years, boy swim trunks were inside. The trick to today’s task was being able to multiply 30 by 5 or 7 and sometimes 9.
FOREIGNERS AND FELONS
The thing about this kind of work is that it is work that only foreigners and felons will ever do in any first world country. When I dreamt up this little plan, it never occurred to me that New Zealand doesn't have any Mexicans to do the work that middle and upper class people won’t do. That's what they use traveling foreigners for. New Zealand's Government has cleverly created a poorly paid and voluntary work force willing to do anything under the guise of their Working Holiday Visa Program. Travelers wanting to be in NZ for an extended period of time can exchange this want for performing less than desirable work. They are to New Zealand’s economy as Mexican’s are to the USA’s.
It also didn't occur to me that NZ requires a certificate for every single job across the board. ALL JOBS. Even the jobs titled: Petroleum Dispenser Technician. There's not one job that doesn't require a piece of paper that shows you've paid to have a piece of paper that says you are not a monkey and that you can manage a single task job.
And, degrees or qualifications from other countries are about as valuable as a million Zimbabwean dollars. One of Heather's co-workers husband was a Quantum Mechanical Engineer in England (I don't even know what that is!) but is being told he has to take the equivalent exams, for like $5,000 NZD, in order to be able to work and be licensed. That’s fine if a person has that kind of money, but not if it’s for a special paper. You would think that all that would need to happen is to see all of his Professional Accreditations and Masters Degree from England, have him sign a couple forms and voila! But nope.
Dragging my body out of bed every day is proving to be a daunting task. Karl Marx's proletarian battle cry rings loud in my mind each and every morning as I walk in the freezing ass chill of the 6 am morning to the bus stop. I crank up my I-Pod to numb the humbling experience of what it is to know that after today's 8-hour shift, I will be $64.53 USD "richer." (Well $62 after the return bus ticket.) I sit shoulder to shoulder with the other blue-collar chumps making the daily pilgrimage. As you can imagine, in this group there are mullets, hangovers and second hand clothing. (So basically, I fit right in!)
This grind isn’t exactly what I had envisioned I would be doing during our working holiday. And I certainly didn’t expect it to be so difficult to find work. I mean “HEY-ZEUS CHRISTOS”, I've been told, "Sorry mate, we've got no place for ya" literally 100 times. It's been crazy. The worse part is the absolutely fucking miserable wage: A cool $13.36 NZD an hour ($8.01 USD). When I first arrived in Christchurch, I saw a news report about how so many Kiwis’ were abandoning ship to go work overseas for a better living. One guy who was interviewed at the airport even said, “I’m going to Oz (Australia) because it has the three “W’s”: Better waves, better wages and better women!” I had no idea how true it was.
But it is a job and the only thing that is getting hurt is my pride. A healthy pride never put money in anyone's bank account... well except maybe Ron Jeremy’s but that's another topic! And I am very grateful that it is indoors and not out in the cold wet rain. (Although, I do believe there is nothing better for the soul than to dig a hole on rainy construction site, I’ve done enough of it already in my life.) I also have really enjoyed getting to know all the other foreigners who are working there too. Except for the management team at this warehouse, and a couple other hardcore career worker bee’s, all of it’s employees are foreigners; every single one of them. This is actually what has kept me coming back. Listening to the conversation in the break room cracks me up.
The most expressive personalities in this 20+ group of temporary friends and workers are those of the Argentine couple, Matias and Particia (Mar-Tie-Us and Parr-Tee-See-Ya). Another funny couple is Callum and Emma. They’re the Scottish couple that rides a tandem bike to work everyday. The person I’ve gotten to know the best is an Englishman named Marc. He’s a little bit younger than me and really into scuba diving. He talks about ‘scuba’ at any opportunity. There are moments when he’s telling me about scuba that remind me of when Bubba was telling Forrest about all the ways shrimp can be cooked in the movie Forrest Gump.
He and his girlfriend are in a similar situation as Heather and I. They’ve been traveling for about 9 months, wanted to live in NZ for a year or so but are now thinking something different. We are both holding a candle for our girls. His missus is making good money teaching English but he’s struggled to find work as well. Back home he worked as a bookie at horse track. We both have a good time telling each other gambling stories gone wrong. We also joke about how my job is surely one that a monkey could do.
GET AMONGST!
Another aspect of this experience that I’m enjoying is the front row seat to get amongst some genuine Kiwi blue-collar sociology. It’s a familiar power structure. There’s the “pit” of the warehouse where the workers scurry about all day long in their brightly colored hi-visibility vests. And up above, overlooking the operations is a heated, organized and suspended “beehive-like” group of offices where the ‘white collars’ work. This is where the management team keeps their clipboards and emails about productivity. If you were to line up all of the employees in order of pay grade, you would be able to identify who are the workers and who the managers are simply by observing where the bundled up and tired looking people stop and where the clean looking and well dressed people begin.
Most of the management team is cool. Many of them take their breaks with us and tell as many dirty jokes as anyone. But there is this one snooty “be-aught-ch” who said something to me the other day that made feel a kind of rage that I have never known. It was the kind feeling that I am sure the United States Justice System would define as “Temporary Insanity.”
It was nearing the end of the day and I was buzzing from the lethal dose of instant coffee I had made during the last smoko. I came around the corner out of row BH17 and saw her coming down the way. Being as friendly as possible, I said, “Hey there! Another day another dollar!” (probably the dorkiest thing I’ve ever said in my life by the way.)
And all she had for a response to go with a hollow mean look was, “Elo worka" (North American translation = hello worker).
3, 2 , 1… BLAST OFF!!!
I was absolutely astounded. I had never been so belittled. It was like she said, “Hello lesser human being. Keep your distance from me. I am far superior to you and you clearly don't know this. If you were a real piece of poop, not just a human version of one, I wouldn’t even bother to clean you from my shoes if I accidently stepped onto you. I’d simply cast them to the rubbish bin even if they were brand new and otherwise unsoiled. That is what I think of you and I cannot be bothered. I do not tolerate even the slightest intruding into or onto my superiority.”
With my head still spinning and a rage drumming deep within, I took a step back and thought about it. I had to. I couldn’t even think of anything to say back. Was she taunting me? Is she really that curt? But after a moment, I decided that I wasn’t going to make an asshole of myself over two little words. I was probably just being the kind of paranoid that I am too good at being. So I went and did what any grown adult Madden male would do: I went and cried by myself in the bathroom for the rest of my shift.
EASILY IRRITATED MIDDLE AGED GUY
The most classic character of the workers around the shop is the Easily Irritated Middle-Aged Guy. I’m positive every warehouse in the westernized world has a version of this character. He looks about 50 but is probably only 35. His look is one of a person with an extensive and raunchy stash of something terribly deviant; in this particular case I’d bet Monster Cock Pornography. His style is a kind of Police mug shot look: terribly disheveled and ‘salty’ from a life of self-imposed hardship and poor decisions. He sports an unkept mullet with a matching dirty mustache on his gigantic head which doesn’t seem to have the ability to swivel on his 5’-4” body.
All day I feel him ‘mean-mugging’ me from across the warehouse. I occasionally catch him sniping evil looks at me up above from his mezzanine work area, which is a raised above the main level of the warehouse. It looks like it was probably added recently to provide for more storage space. And that’s HIS work area. It’s his own space to roam around, control and manage. I figure this probably not an accident.
Everyday he predictably throws passive-aggressive temper tantrums. These are the ones where he angrily slams his forklift to a screeching halt, hops out and starts flinging cardboard everywhere while grumbling about something that only he can hear. By the way he grumbles, I think he’s sure that he’s making a point for all of us ‘young cunts’ to learn from.
The only time that he is in a good mood is after a “smoko” (smoke break), during the last 10 minutes of the work day and while he’s telling anybody who’ll listen about the lessons he teaches people who tail-gate him in the mornings on the way to work. He loves it. He relishes the opportunity to tell of his miserably meaningless personal victories. But the way he tells them, they’re absolute triumphs of the working class man.
MATE, ARE YA CROSSED EYED!?
As far as the specific task of my particular job, it’s not so bad. Sure, counting to ten over and over again can get painfully redundant; but it’s becoming strangely meditative for me. And I find myself counting strange articles that I didn’t even know existed like aqua shoes for 5 month olds. What kind of amazing babies are walking, in water mind you, around so much that they need aqua shoes a.k.a. aqua-socks!? It’s this kind of stuff I’m finding rewarding. And this experience has also taught me that I apparently suffer from a minute case of dyslexia.
Either this or the repeated apathetic counting of 1-10 over an extended period of time can cause a synthetic form of it anyway. This is the only explanation I can up with because my supervisor is starting to get short with me. He and I have had several ‘behind closed doors’ talks about the importance of accuracy in counting the clothing I find in the tote boxes. And it’s getting more and more frustrating. “How can I be making mistakes?" is what I often think when he calls me over. But, in all honesty, I must admit that I have produced some astonishing errors in my counting.
For example, he pulled me aside Monday morning to tell me that last counts I did in the ‘bulk area’ on the preceding Friday afternoon raised some flags with the entire international company. Calls of concern were coming in from China. With the help of the company’s tracking system on their computers, I guess they already have a pretty good idea of what inventory quantities are looming around the warehouse but don’t know exactly where it all is. And the numbers I submitted were so far off, the CEO himself drove up from Dunedin to see if I was cross-eyed.
Of course, I had no explanation. I was just as amazed as they were. Surely I knew that I probably hadn't done an amazing job, but I was fairly certain that I had at least done an acceptably mediocre one. So, after a lengthy discussion, we all agreed (mostly them) that I had to go back and re-recount an entire line of clothing for the 4th time. But this time, I took my sweet ass time. I scrutinized each and every article very closely. And much to my delight, I figured out where I had gone so terribly wrong. This must have been an area of the warehouse where the sinister dick with a wrath of vengeance had done the majority of his damage.
Upon realizing that all of the Lolly Pink Onesies were in a complete cluster fuck after being mixed in with all different sizes, I felt personally vindicated but, at the same time, all the more demoralized and frustrated. Organizing and repacking all 6,000 items one by one meant that I would have to do it without my gloves. But I didn’t want to because it was a really chilly morning. But, I couldn’t allow myself to dirty up these little outfits. I imagined some hard working single mother forking over $15 at the store so she could dress her kid in something nice only to find black finger smudges all over it when she got home.
LESSONS LEARNED
When H&I left on this mission, we weren't really sure what we wanted from our lives. After these last 9 months, I can't say for sure that we're any closer to knowing exactly what that is but we are absolutely certain of what we don't want. We don't want to be eking our ways paycheck to paycheck. We don't want to have to live like scoundrels. And we sure as all hell don't want to have to live on the edge of poverty like we have been!
OUT
