I’ve been doing the job since last Monday (if I get it permanently that’ll start in May sometime) and it has involved a bit of an adjustment. Essentially I now have a very large “evening” and I may have overestimated the potential that affords me. While I am only working four hours it’s a fairly intensive four hours coupled with a significant bike ride involving hills (6 miles round trip) and yet in my mind I have this massive expanse of time in which I must get things done resulting in me doing essentially 12 hour days and being surprised that I’m knackered at the end of them. A balance will be found and I think it’ll be a good one. Already my weekends are for doing things rather than recovering since the recovery happens on Friday.

One idea that might have to be reconsidered is doing other cash-in-hand (yes, I do declare them) jobs during the week. I popped over to Jez and Nat’s new house yesterday to help them shift an inordinate number of bricks which the movers had refused to touch and while it was an okay job on it’s own, coming after my normal morning (not to mention cycling from Northfield to Moseley) I was fucking knackered afterwards. That leaflet delivery job I did last year (posts here, here, here and here) is coming up again and I’m having to seriously think about whether or not I can do it. Even spread over two weeks it’ll still involve 4+ hours of walking a day and that sort of walking has a tendency to hurt (remember a good walking speed is 4mph). I could bring someone else in on the job but they won’t be allowed to fuck up of Nat will never speak to me again. We’ll see.

Actually, it was interesting seeing Nat’s reaction to the news of my potential job. Everyone else has been fairly positive about it but the look on her face was one of sheer horror. Their new house is lovely (and very, very large) but needs a fair amount of work, a significant proportion of which had been earmarked as “Pete can do that.” Suddenly I’m slightly less able to, and that’s not a good thing. One forgets the intrinsic value of being someone who is invariably available for odd jobs.

What was really weird was how different the morning felt. When I’ve pulled an all-nighter at home it’s all perfectly normal, but walking through an industrial estate at dawn (and it was a lovely dawn today – shame I don’t feel comfortable taking my camera to work…) and getting the number 11 bus just as the commuters and school kids were kicking in was very odd (and really annoying what with the absurd amount of traffic on the Birmingham side streets. I’m so glad I don’t have a “normal” job). I guess when I set my own schedule I’m quite segregated from society but in this case the juxtaposition is quite stark. Not in a bad way – I do like night shifts. They seem to go by much faster than day shifts for some reason.

And so I’m off to bed. Enjoy the day.

An hour later the lovely Ms K phones again with another job. This one’s based in the centre of town picking litter and pushing a barrow about the place for the council. Bingo! I love that sort of work! It’s a Tuesday – Saturday job. Ah, I’ve got to go down to Winchester on Saturday to clean my mum’s house after the building work. Is that a problem? Not sure. 20 minutes later, yes, it’s a problem. Balls.

Around noon and another job, this one at Five Ways at a bank… Oh, I’ve done that one before. Have you? Yup. 8am start, right?

At least it’s work, but damn! I could have been digging graves!

Since Polish Rob was “let go” I’ve been working exclusively in the big lorry at the end of the conveyor belt on my own. The boxes come up the belt, I take them off the belt and stack them. As the lorry fills the belt retracts and then I move to the next lorry. They have a capacity of 40 tonnes and while I’m sure I’m not lugging that much weight I am filling an average of three of them in a night. That’s a lot of boxes. All the parcels sent from Birmingham as it happens.

While it’s tiring work I actually quite like being in the lorry on my own. I can work at my own pace without having to work around someone else’s stacking strategy and more importantly I don’t have to make inane talk with anyone. We don’t go home early like we did when Rob added to the numbers but that’s not the end of the world.

We had a staff meeting today. A “WLM” which I assume means “Weekly Line Meeting” but I’m just guessing. The manager wanted to let us air any grievances and issues we might have whilst reminding us not to clamber over the belt like monkeys, especially when visitors from head office were in. It was a nice gesture but it did put us back a good 20 minutes which is not handy when you’re on task-and-finish (get paid for the full shift no matter when you complete the job). Amongst other things he said that stacking was really good at the moment. That’ll be me then. I guess I should have some pride in that but to be honest I’m just being anal. There are some key rules – heavy at the bottom, light on top, not too high, slot everything in efficiently – and it’s satisfying to play by them, especially once you get to know the different varieties of boxes that come down. But of course I don’t care because I’ll be gone soon. I’m taking a long weekend and in a fortnight I’ll be in Winchester helping mum and stepdad put their house in storage and then I have this book to start writing, so someone else will take my place. Maybe they’ll also be anal, but they probably won’t.

It’s interesting how agency workers are such a normal thing in the workplace these days that we get treated as part of the team. They seem to assume I’m going to be there for the next few months if not longer, which many temps are. I once worked with someone who’d been “temping” at the same place for three years with no sign of being taken on full time. They could be let go with a few hours notice with no recourse, which is kinda sucky, but they probably won’t because this is how it works these days. It’s telling that we’re rarely referred to as “temps”. It’s “agency” with no indication of time.

So I’m something of an anomaly in the agency game. I’ve been with the agency for nearly two and a half years but I’m definitely a temp. Sometimes I feel I need to remind people of that. I’m a temp, as in temporary, as in probably won’t be here in a month’s time. By all means make the most of me while I’m here but don’t get too comfortable else you’ll miss me when I’m gone.

(And no, I’m not boasting. You should see the state of some of my fellow “temps”.)

Off to London today, for the first time in ages, and back Monday evening, so no updates (and probably lots of retarded comments on the blog so just ignore them). Busy Saturday at the Celebrating Andy gig/event and Sunday is a Flickrmeet but feel free to text me if you fancy meeting up.

Today all the temps got a phone call. You know that scenario where migrant workers in the southern United States are digging a ditch by a freeway and the charge-hand drives up in his pickup with a list of names of who will be coming back the next day? It’s a bit like that only it’s all done with mobile phones. Polish Rob was the first to get the call before he’d even arrived saying he wouldn’t be needed next week. Soon after I got the call saying I would. Which was nice, if a little fucking awkward. Rob was a gentleman about it despite the fact that he’d been there three weeks longer than me and is by far a better box lugger than I. He called me “old man” the other day when my cold was affecting my 3D Tetris skills which was weird and possibly marks some kind of milestone in my life, but I digress.

Rob’s a funny one. Like I said, he’s one of the many (millions of, apparently) Polish migrant workers in the country at the moment thanks to the country’s recent joining of the EU. I remember back when I lived in east London (circa 2002) getting a night bus home and being surrounded by Slavic voices and since the East End has always been the first port of call for immigrant communities it’s not too surprising that pretty much every industrial job I’ve done over the last 6 months has had a Polish guy or two working there.

On the whole I’ve gotten on with them. Like many immigrants (and I’m aware I’m generalising horribly here but please bear with me – it’s either this or I qualify every statement extensively, or just write nothing at all) they’re hard working, friendly and shockingly over qualified, which probably explains why I get on with most of them. For example, one guy I was working with at an office supplies dispatch warehouse was wearing a Linux t-shirt so we got talking about open source and computers and stuff which inevitably turned to me asking why he doesn’t get some computer related work, with him inevitably replying that his English wasn’t good enough for the entry level jobs but that he was trying (and working on his English).

Rob didn’t seem to have any particular skills but he had a plan. He was taking English lessons during the day (which continued during our conversations with those awkward questions about how the language works to which native English speakers just shrug because they don’t know – it just does, somehow) and working at night, trying to save up enough to get a driving license so he could get a better job so he and his girlfriend could settle down and raise a family. Only he wasn’t getting enough steady work to pay for the driving lessons and his relationship with his girlfriend was pretty rocky. And he was tired all the time.

And now he’s been told by the gaffers at the depot that, given the choice of four temps from the agency they’d rather not have him. Which, amongst other things, meant the parcels were not gently stacked in the truck this evening.

What’s interesting, if that’s the right word, is the choice of temps consisted of a white English guy (myself) a black guy, an Asian guy and a Polish guy. I’m as native as it gets in this mongrel nation. The black and Asian guys are probably 3rd generation. Rob’s been here for a year at most. Can you see what I’m getting at?

I can only speak from observation and I wouldn’t give much weight to my opinions but it seems to me that in the years since I first did the industrial temping game in my early 20s the black and Asian workforce has become a lot more integrated, a least at the manual labour level. In 1994 or so I worked at a factory where the factory floor was entirely staffed by Asians in red hats supervised entirely by whites in white hats while the dispatch area was white only. There was no movement between departments and the whole place stank of some kind of institutionalised apartheid. Conversely in most of the places I work now you’ll find a full spectrum of Asian, African, Caribbean and white workers mixing at all levels from shop floor drudgery to lower management (upper management is still the preserve of the overweight middle-aged white man but that’s a whole ‘nother issue). While I’m not denying the frequent racism that does exist in this country this does strike me as a glimmer of hope for the future.

Except, of course, for the Poles. They’re at the bottom.

The job, ladies and gentleman, has taken it’s toll. After an initial burst of godlike magnificence at the courier depot I’ve started to feel the effects. The 16 mile cycle ride every day and the relentless lugging… On Friday morning I woke up with bruised muscles, a blinding headache and a very sore thumb and let me tell you, it felt awful. Still, I made it to work and home again though I did sleep like a baby last night (and only recovered enough to write this now).

Oooh fuuuuckk….

(Back on Monday!)

But even in these Icelandic (!) conditions I was standing outside the depot having a fag in my t-shirt, for that is how hard I am right now. Oh yes. Today the blokes scanning and throwing the boxes onto the conveyor belt were working kinda slowly it seemed to me and I was getting well narked. We’ve been finishing early every day since me and the Polish guy teamed up in the back of the lorry and I don’t think that’s a coincidence for we rock. Bring it on, I said, but the trickle remained and after three hours they stopped for a break! You what? We don’t have breaks here – we go home early! So the Pole grabbed a scanner and we carried on without them, the rubes.

I mean, a break? You don’t need a break! Just go and have a fag and cup of tea for five minutes.

Breaks… tchh…

The fitness, ladies and gentlemen, is back. After three days of feeling like a relative wimp at the courier depot I was put in the lorry at the end of the conveyor belt to basically fill it up with boxes. The belt is relentless and the boxes are heavy and have to be stacked about 8ft high. Towards the end of Friday’s shift I was on fire, hurling 30kg boxes like they were so much candyfloss, and let me tell it, it felt good!

Fuck yeah!

As such there’s not much to report other than it’s something of an eye-opener seeing how parcels are treated. Or to be more accurate, the minimal levels of packaging people use for fragile items is somewhat shocking. Suffice to say you should always wrap your item with the assumption that it will be thrown a good 10 metres, potentially dropped from a reasonable height and probably stacked under a number of very heavy boxes. And to paraphrase The Incredibles, when everything is marked “Fragile”, nothing is considered fragile. And for the record, every parcel-related courier works along these lines. It’s how they get them across the country in 24-48 hours.

So anyway, I started this job on Friday and it was okay. The foreman guy asked if I wanted to come back this week and I said yes. He intimated that he wasn’t too happy with one of the other temps and it appeared that I’d stolen his job. Go me. On Monday that foreman wasn’t there but the guy who I was supposed to be replacing was. Thinking nothing of it I started work. An hour or so in the boss, who wasn’t there on Friday, looked at me for a long second and said “I don’t know you”. Turns out this whole I’m-replacing-someone thing hadn’t been communicated to him but he graciously let me finish the shift despite it taking them over their staffing budget. As you might imagine I was rather annoyed from a cash point of view but towards the end he casually told me to come in on Tuesday. As I left I jokingly asked him if he was sure and he said to come in for the rest of the week. Which I’ve been doing, along with the guy I’m not replacing anymore. I guess the budget has been increased.

Other than that piece of incompetent vagueness which is par for the course in the temping world it’s been brought home to me how unfit I’ve become over the winter. I haven’t had a real labouring job for a few months and haven’t been cycling a whole lot and, while I’m probably still fitter than most of my peers, I’m well out of practice. As the job is in Perry Barr, exactly the opposite side of the city from Bournville, I’d been getting the number 11 bus which is as tedious as ever so since it wasn’t raining I cycled in on Tuesday. 16 miles on the bike and six hours in the depot later I was a physical wreck and felt like shit this afternoon, but I think I’m getting used to it. It always surprises me how quickly the body gets out of shape – like treading water except you don’t notice you’re drowning…

I did finally get some work on Friday which should be permanent for the next few weeks, working at a courier depot humping parcels in and out of vans and trucks every evening which, as you might know by now, is pretty much my perfect job. I haven’t had a box humping job for what seems like ages and it’s great, like a workout only you get paid. Unfortunately it’s on the other side of the city but I’m coming to terms with the fact that there’s very little industrial work in Bournville (despite living right next to the blimmin’ Cadbury factory!). The shift does mean all the gigs I was planing on going to this month have been knocked on the head but, while a bit of a pisser, it’s not the end of the world, especially as I’m going to be around for whatever passes for daylight at this time of year. Once my fitness levels build up again (the car park didn’t do me any favours in that department) I’ll probably start cycling there too, weather permitting, which should get me ready for the Outer Circle Flickr Bike Tour, especially as I suspect it’s going to need a number of goes to cover properly.

As for the ennui I’m reluctant to blog a bunch of moaning but at the same time it’s probably useful to get this shit out in the open so it’s revealed as the pointless niggling it really is, so stand by for that.

At a little after 1800h the kettle broke.

And I’m sure you can imagine what would have happened should the guys have come in the next morning to find they couldn’t make a cup of tea. It would have been… well, I wouldn’t like to say.

So after a phone call to the manager of All Car Parks, Solihull, who was at home having his tea, I was dispatched to find a shop that was still open and able to supply us with a new kettle. After a frantic rush around Mell Square (Argos: closed, Boots: no, Dixons: no, Woolworths: yes except we’ve sold out) I eventually found one in Sainsburys for £5.48.

Phew!

(I’ve been doing extra days at the car park this week hence the quiet…)

So on my first day I was gingerly opening the door, wondering what the hell I would do if I stumbled upon such a scene but soon it became part of the routine. But then, on Saturday afternoon, I approached the stairwell to hear voices, so I took a deep breath and entered, whacking the handle of the door right into the back of a teenage girl. Oops. But then what did she expect leaning against a door like that. I was greeted by about nine teens, the girls all dolled up like Lolita and the boys looking quite shockingly ugly, like teenage boys tend to do. Fags and a bottle of Bacardi were being shared and I felt a little sorry for them since this was obviously the only place they could go to share their fags and drink their Bacardi without being bothered. But it was my job to move them on. Initially we had a stalemate with the girl moaning about her probably bruised back and me just standing there, wondering how I was going to shift them, until I realised I was wearing a large fluorescent jacket and therefore represented authority. Plus my being there kinda ruined the whole hiding from adults thing so as long as I didn’t leave them I’d win. Eventually, after apologising to the girl and explaining that this was an exit and couldn’t be blocked, they asked where they should go, and I was slightly flummoxed. Where could these kids go? I glibly suggested a park bench or bus shelter and a couple of them took the lead and left, saying thanks on their way out. Thanks? What was that all about? I was expecting to be sworn at and maybe subjected to some spit. But then these were Solihull teenagers after all.

So anyway, having been offered and turned down numerous jobs when I was ill, some of which were pretty keen and in one case terrifically local, I of course had nothing last week and was getting somewhat desperate. December is always a dry time for industrial temping (the factories shut down for Xmas so the supply chain grinds to a halt) and if I’d thought things through I would have worked solidly through October and November and done GDFAF now, but I don’t think things through because spontaneity is good and I am stupid. But I finally got the call from Wide-Boy Tim at the agency with some work and somewhat amazingly it’s a job I’ve never done before. For this weekend and every weekend up to the new year I shall be a car park attendant in Solihull.

Possibly the best thing about the job is the jacket. As you know, I’ve become something of an aficionado of high visibility clothing and have acquired quite a collection of waistcoats, but I’ve never worn a jacket quite like this. You probably know the sort – a large padded waterproof jacket commonly worn by persons working in out-door traffic related activities that don’t involve a lot of movement. I’d suspected they might be warm but never imagined how comfortable they are. It’s like wearing a perfectly tailored duvet, snug but not restrictive, large but not balloon-like and quite sleekly cut. At the end of the day I put on my own padded US Army issue extreme cold weather parka and it utterly paled in comparison. I covet this coat. I need this coat. Unfortunately it’s got a huge Solihull council logo on the back so even if I do manage to “acquire” it I can’t really wear it in public, but they do sell them at the army surplus store. That said, I was told to write my name in it so when the job is over, who knows…

My job is to support the full time guys during the busy pre-Xmas period. Part of their job is to walk around the car park checking everything is okay, taking abandoned trollies back, checking for lost property and looking disapprovingly at badly parked cars. Probably the main job is just to be a bright yellow presence, deterring the criminal element and making the place seem less like an abandoned concrete maze. Meanwhile the other guys deal with jammed ticket machines, lost tickets and other ticket related traumas, of which there are a lot give the state of most of the customers.

It quickly dawned on me that a multi-story car park central Solihull allows you to experience people at their worst as they move from driving to shopping. Driving turns people into impatient maniacs for whom every second has more value than life itself. Shopping turns people into arrogant tossers who are under the delusion that the world revolves around their solipsistic ego-centric arseholes. And the delightful 1970′s decaying concrete environment of the car park offsets this quite nicely. So a one-way system is seen not as a means to ensure smooth traffic flow while keeping pedestrians safe but as an irrelevance, while areas not designated as parking spaces are seen as parking spaces with no thought as to why they might not be designated parking spaces. And the maximum speed limit would appear to be about 30mph.

My induction was somewhat customer oriented, as everything appears to be these days, so on my first few rounds I made eye contact and smiled but was greeted with so much sour-faced bemusement that I gave up and just ignored everyone, which wasn’t hard as they were ignoring me. Of course the hi-viz does turn you into invisible street furniture which might explain it but my colleagues expressed similar sentiments about our customers. This, by the way, is why you rarely get good customer service in shopping centres. It’s not that the staff are bad people or poorly trained. It’s that shopping centres bring out the worst in people and when you’re subjected to this day in day out your armor is up and there is no benefit of the doubt. Customers are the enemy and will crush you with their words if you give them half a chance.

Thankfully I wasn’t on the receiving end of any of this because my job was simply to walk around the car park every half hour and drink tea. Which, while potentially boring, is actually quite interesting because I’m really getting to know every inch of this car park. It’s the sort of public space that people don’t generally dawdle in and I’m getting paid to dawdle so I’m seeing it in a new light. I took along my old camera – the compact point’n'shoot with the broken battery lid held on with wire – and am taking photos. So far they’re nothing special but I’m hoping by the end of the month I’ll have uncovered something, or at least painted a picture of a car park that not many have seen before.

Oh, and I did get to tell someone off today. On one trip I noticed a car parked where it wasn’t supposed to be and I sighed, tilting my head to one side as I stared at it, wondering how someone could possibly have thought this was an okay place to park. On my next round the car was still there but someone was walking towards it. I approached her with a smile and told her how wrong she was. She expressed confusion and launched into a long and somewhat surreal explanation of how she thought this was okay because somewhere else was okay which I brushed aside and, after telling her not to worry about it (we don’t issue tickets or anything like that) told her her quite sternly not to do it again, which felt really good. With a grin on my space I went back to the office and proudly announced that I’d got one to great cheers from my associates in car park attendance. Unfortunately she was the only catch. I really wanted to get that tosser who parked in the disabled bay without a badge. I mean, what is it with people?

Multi Story Car Park set on Flickr which will be added to over the month.

On Wednesday night, having decided enough was enough and that I wouldn’t be going back, I returned home to a big Amazon box. It was finally here. Once my tax rebate cheque cleared I’d ordered a Fuji Finepix S7000 from Amazon which had caused my bank to go into spasms as it was the largest sum I’d spent on my card since neolithic times which then led to my first experience of phone banking (“I’m phoning India and this isn’t a problem… I’m phoning India and this isn’t a problem… Christ alive, I’m phoning India!”) to unfreeze everything, and here it was, all lovely and new and with a respectably large instruction manual which was digested with glee all evening, the bad vibes of the week to date suddenly banished.

This morning I’d arranged to meet Andy and Alex at a local cafe for breakfast at ten but the knackerdness of the past few days had caught up with me and I was woken at ten by Alex’s text telling me they’d be a little late so I rushed down to the Last Chance Cafe in Stirchley on what was an uncommonly warm October morning. The greasy spoon was suitably greasy and full of men in hi-viz jackets. I’m at work, my sleepy brain said, and I ordered the Full English and waited. No sign of Andy and Alex. I ate my breakfast (not bad but nothing to write home about) in the slightly bizarre cafe (rockabilly theme with random kitsch on the walls in such magnitude it transcended mere kitsch and came out the other side) with still no sign. Breakfast finished I phoned Alex. They were in a different cafe on Bournville lane that I’d never noticed was there despite the massive “Cafe” painted on the wall. So I trundled over there for another cup of tea and to show off my camera. “Have you given her a name?” asked Alex. “I don’t think it’s a girl” said Andy as the somewhat phallic lens extended. For future reference their breakfast was judged better than mine.

We then wandered up to the deli on Linden Road and I continued up to Cotteridge to loop around back down through Stirchley to try out the camera. I’d noticed a load of interestingly crap shops from the top deck of the bus and they were indeed interesting even at ground level. By the time I got back to base I’d taken over 100 photos, 26 of which you can see here.

All of them were taken on automatic with no fiddling about. I did play with the zoom a fair bit because, hell, I’ve never had a zoom before. Zoom rocks the fucking bollocks! I was a bit concerned about camera shake but they all came out crystal clear, most astonishingly this leaf which was taken from about three metres away. I’m not sure I can give an honest review of the S7000 because my experience has been like moving from an 100cc moped to a Ducatti but I’m incredibly impressed with the handling and control it gives, not to mention the quality of the shots. It’s also worth noting that while most of my photos with the old digicam have been carefully tweaked in Photoshop these hardly needed anything.

But what of the Nikon, you might be asking. Well, I got my first batch of slides developed and scanned about half of them in using a dedicated slide scanner and I’m not overly impressed. Yes, I know it takes time to get the manual exposure right, yes, I know I shouldn’t be overly critical of my first attempts, and yes, I know it’s a wonderful piece of kit with great potential, but it seems like a backward step with far too much hassle involved. Once I get some time I’ll have a hack at the photos in Photoshop to see if any are worth making public and once I’ve had a play with the manual controls on the S7000 (yes, it does fully manual exposure and focus) I may return to film just to see. But right now digital rules. Enormous potentials have opened up and I’m keen to explore them.

(In case you’re wondering, the camera is a joint family combi birthday/Xmas present so thankyou mia famiglia!)

Back to temping today for the first time in months.

Office job on telephones. Haven’t had an office job, let alone one involving telephones, for at least two years.

Job involves phoning people to check they still need medical equipment that has been loaned to them.

First stage is checking the database to make sure they’re not dead already.

When phoning them they quite often turn out to be dead anyway as the database isn’t that accurate.

Only in the wacky world of temping…

About 18 months ago Keith met a Romanian girl. I’m not sure how, but he did. They fell in love and she moved over here with him. Thing is, she was a girl of expensive tastes, always wanting jewelrey and the like and demanding to stay in expensive hotels. She also had a family back home – her brother and mother – who needed money because they were poor. A new bath to replace the tin they washed in, that sort of thing. Keith, because he was in love, obliged. A few months later he went over to Romania and was greeted by a lovely house with a luxury bathroom. Other things didn’t quite add up and he went to the police. They showed him mugshots of the girlfriend, brother and mother and told him he’d been had. The brother was her pimp. They were sucking him dry.

And they had. He was over £100,000 in debt and on his current salary wouldn’t be able to pay it off ever. He filed for bankruptcy which was lifted a few months back. Now he’s in the process of getting back on his feet (I assume he lost his job at some point but that wasn’t disclosed – actually there are a lot of gaps now I come to write it up) temping while looking for a new home and job. He’s in a pretty bad way financially.

So far, so sympathy inducing. You hear such stories from time to time and here’s someone who actually went through it. Poor guy.

Here’s the twist. He’s got a new girlfriend. She’s Romanian. He’s (somehow) paid for her to come over here just recently. When he phoned her in Romania she kept cutting him off to talk to someone in the background, as if she’s getting instructions on what to say. She says this is her “brother”. She always phones him on payday asking for money. He’s pretty sure he’s being taken for a ride again but does he break it off? No. He doesn’t. Why? Fuck knows.

Here’s the next twist. He doesn’t stop talking. At all. And he’s not talking to people, he’s talking at them. At speed. Loudly. Non stop. His internal monologue is pouring over anyone in the vicinity. It’s very annoying.

By the second day he’s starting to get on people’s tits a bit, especially as he’s not actually pulling his weight work wise. We have a tacit arrangement with Maureen, the boss, that we can take more breaks than usual because of the tedium and eyestrain of the job, but we don’t take the piss. Quick fag breaks are one thing, half an hour is another. Usually I don’t care if another temp is slacking off. That’s their lookout and as long as we’re not on task-and-finish (where you get paid for 8 hours no matter when you complete the job) it doesn’t affect me. Here, though, it’s starting to bug me.

On the third day it starts to come to a head. Keith turns up quite late and within ten minutes goes for a coffee. Maureen notices and goes to get him. She says I’m to say when the breaks are and for how often. I raise an eyebrow. Since when was I management? Soon after we finish checking a pallet and as I’m preparing it to take back to the warehouse I tell the others to start their break. I do this partly so I don’t have to sit in the canteen with him. Everyone’s scheduling their breaks around him as much possible. Having gotten a new pallet and made a cup of tea with the slow kettle, I go into the smoking room where Keith is addressing the room with his sob story for the nth time. I roll a cigarette and suffer his bombardment for five minutes, trying to shut him out and look out of the window as he talks right at me. He then goes to light another fag, at least his third, and I explode. He’s had his break. Time to go back. We had a nice setup here and he’s been taking the piss, ruining it for everyone. To top it all Maureen’s told me to keep and eye on him, and I’m not getting paid to do management so I’m pissed off. “How long is a break?” he asks, all wounded like. 15-20 minutes seems to be standard in most places I’ve worked. Since he’s been here I’ve fetched a pallet, made a cuppa and smoked a fag. He wanders back to work muttering about how it would be nice if someone actually laid out how things worked, as if he’s noticed for the first time how utterly wrong he’s been.

After he’s gone the young lads who work for the other quality checking company talk to me for the first time ever. We actually have a conversation about him. This guy is so annoying he’s united everyone against him.

For the rest of the day we all have our walkmen on full volume and try to ignore him, but it doesn’t help. He’ll just keep talking, non bloody stop. When he’s on one of his breaks I mention to one of the guys that I think he needs help, that he’s psychotic or suffering from trauma or something. He says he needs a kick in the head, which while not particularly constructive does have its merits.

Thankfully he’s only covering for toothache guy and Thursday is his last day. With any luck I’ll never see him again. In fact I’m tempted to ask the agency never to put me on the same job as him. I’ve never felt the need to do that before.

With the benefit of a couple of days away I’m not as wound up as I was, but it’s kinda interesting how working class industrial places deal with this sort of behaviour. There’s no sympathy. He’s a twat. Get rid of him. I’m wondering whether he was a twat before the whole Romanian thing happened or if this bizarre behaviour is part of his fall out. Given the degrees of insanity he’s displaying I really hope not. In which case he does need help. He need counseling and some sort of anti-psychotic medication or else he’s just going to get worse, especially if he’s working in environments where people really don’t care and just want him to fuck off. Some day someone really is going to kick him in the head, and the frightening thing is he won’t have a clue as to why.

The funny thing is, it was a repetitive strain injury. I got an RSI headache.

This job I’ve been doing for what seems like months but is really only for days last week and three this week looks like lasting many more weeks, which is quite depressing as, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s the dullest. Pick up thing, look at thing, put thing back. 160 things in a tray, three trays in a box, 32 boxes on a pallet, a little over one pallet processed a day, seven pallets to go.

What we’re looking for is bad soldering. If you rip open your computer (not right now) and look at the larger things that are stuck on the circuit board, particularly those which are cylindrical, you’ll see they’re attached by two or more metal prongs. Where these prongs meet the cylinder there’s a blob of solder. People like me make sure that solder is there. Aren’t we great?

So I’m picking these things up and holding them close enough to check the solder. This involves focusing on the tray, then pulling into macro mode for the solder, and back to the tray again. And this happens, let’s see now… 15,360 things per pallet with four of us working… I reckon about 4000 times a day. After the second day I noticed it was taking a little while for my depth of field to recover. Today I started getting the pain.

So I went home a little early (the pain was only there while I was doing the close-ups so cyling wasn’t a problem) and called the agency to let them know that I might not be there tomorrow. To be honest I’ll probably be fine but a day of rest would probably be a good idea. Plus I do have some things I need to do…

Yay!

(If you don’t get the Yay you’re obviously new round here)

Weird thing is, I last did this job exactly one year ago. Odd that.

Update: Just had another call cancelling the job – they’ve transfered someone internally so don’t need me. Cockteasers.