Thursday, 9th


August 2018


East Cork


Business


‘Working in the Factory – Insider Perspectives’ -


runner beans or whatever, by DR ROSARII GRIFFIN


Introduction Last week, I wrote about a


lot of different holiday jobs I had which in some ways, were character forming. You learn to work with the public, you learn to work in difficult situ- ations, you learn to deal with all kinds of people, from all kinds of backgrounds, with all kinds of issues. You learn about inclusion, equality and diversity. But most of all, you learn about hard work and the value


of money. That


is why I think it is good for students to get some holiday work experience, to broaden their perspectives on life, and to teach them some valuable life skills. But enough of that, let me tell you about one of the most interesting, if mun- dane job, I ever had to do.


Factory Work Close to where I lived was


a vegetable factory. Original- ly, it was called ‘Erin Foods’ and then ‘Fresh bake’, and then ‘Universal Foods’, and possibly it had other owner- ships in between. The local farmers would deliver trailer


their loads of farm pro-


duce: runner beans, broccoli or cauliflower to the factory yard. While the factory was in operation all year round, they needed extra workers during the summer months, as a lot of the work was seasonal. Hence, it became the perfect employer for students seeking summer work, such as myself. In fact, most of my siblings worked in this factory at some point, as did my friends and neighbours. In fact,


it kept


a lot of households going in the surrounding areas, and for that, we were always truly grateful.


First Stop At


the entrance to the


factory, the men would pike the heaped farm produce


onto the conveyor belt on the ground floor of the factory. This was where most peo- ple started out working. The conveyor belt would carry the runner beans from out- side the factory into the main factory area, with twigs, tree leaves, birds’ nests, field mice, and sometimes even frogs en- tangled, that got caught up in the harvester. Our job was to clear out as much of this debris as possible. The men used to love setting up the newest comer to the factory by planting a frog or a mouse to jump out as the beans were sailing by the newcomer on the conveyor belt. Their re- action would give everyone a great laugh. The sight of a frog or mouse unexpectedly leaping out was alarming. Af- terwards, we set these animals free into the wild if possible. Once our individual crates were piled up with twigs and other such material caught up in the harvester, we would empty our crate into a nearby skip. Often, I would stack two or three crates before bring- ing them to the skip. This was physically demanding work. In some ways, this was the hardest belt to be on, but because there was so much work to be done here, the time would fly by, especially if you had someone interesting working across the belt to talk to. My workmate was Maria, she was hilarious, great fun, and as a result, for me the time flew by.


Working Hours As the factory worked on


a clock in-clock out basis, it was always a struggle to get to work on time. Maria used to laugh at me arriving in last minute to clock in. As we had 3 minutes grace, I always managed just to clock in at the last second of


the third


minute, frantically running towards the machine. But, I did not wish to be docked for 15 minutes if I were late, so there was an incentive to be on time. The first shift was from 7am to 3pm. The sec- ond, from 3pm to 11pm, and the third shift was from 11pm to 7am. The night shift was by far the hardest as it was difficult to stay away with


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the hypnotic motion of the conveyor belt. During the peak of the season, we were able to work 12 hour shifts to earn extra money, which we used to take advantage of. So, it was a case of 7am to 7pm or 11pm to 11am. I used to do 12 hours shifts for 13 days on the trot, taking every sec- ond Sunday off. It was hard work, but financially very re- warding. I felt rich for the first time ever, coming home with a very nice wage packet at the end of the week.


The Gear There was a lot of gear to


put on in this job. You had Wellingtons on your feet, as the machinery was constantly being hosed down with cold water throughout the day, the ground was always wet and cold. Therefore, it was im- portant to have waterproof shoes, boots or Wellies on, or else you would know all about the cold by the end of a shift! Then, for hygienic purposes, we all had to wear white over- alls and a white plastic apron over that in order to stay dry, plastic gloves on our hands, a hair net, a white hat, and some people wore earmuffs too. So, the only part of the body visible was the face. We could have been in Saudi Ara- bia! One day, when American cousins came to visit me and dropped by the factory to say ‘hello’ before departing. They got a fit of laughing when I emerged. Outside were blue skies, sunshine and the summer’s day was really hot. They were kitted out in shorts, tee shirts and shades, and I emerged like someone from the artic circle. To add to their gaiety, I showed them my layers of clothing under- neath my white overalls. No less than three or four layers including woolly jumpers and polo necked shirts! It was like another planet in the factory: cold, dim, dreary, but ironi- cally enough, despite that, it was a fun place to be!


that


The People I mentioned last week it was the local peo-


ple that made the factory a great place to work. The wit, laughter and slagging match- es were great. The constant


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incessant banter - hilarious. The regular workers were so witty that sometimes I would get a stitch in my side from laughing at some joke or fun- ny story they regaled with great gusto. I was no match for their story-telling ability or comic performances, apart from providing them with some material when I got caught screaming at a mouse or frog planted on my con- veyor belt providing a laugh for everyone else, including myself eventually! But the factory was full of great char- acters, all local, and full time. The student population in the factory was transitory – often University under-graduates or post-graduates trying to earn money for their next year of college. At that time, we worked with PhD, Mas- ters and BA students, but my preference was to work with the locals, as that was where the craic was.


However, if


anyone cared to take an IQ test


of all the people that


worked in the factory at that time, they might have pleas- antly surprised at the quality of worker to be found in this particular vegetable factory!


ing the night


Sleepy Sometimes, especially dur- shift, people


used to wear their ear- phones to listen to music, the news, or the radio. At that time, ‘the Walkman’ was all in vogue. The quality of sound was great. I also remember those that took ‘fag breaks’ were also lucky, as they seemed to be able to take breaks on a very regular basis. Normally, you only had 15 or 20 min- utes off as a coffee break in the morning, and a half hour or so for lunch. Clock in, clock out. During the night shift, I often drifted off to sleep, almost finding myself going along the conveyor belt in a dream-like state. Then, I would get a pea pod thrown at me, or a spear of broccoli, or worse, a cauliflower head! That would wake you up al- right!


News One day, on the morning


shift, my friend Maria said to me from across the con- veyor belt, ‘Did you hear the


news?’. ‘What news?’ I shout- ed back with interest. ‘Lady Diana is dead. Killed in a car crash last night’. ‘You are kid- ding me!’ I said in disbelief stopping what I was doing to take in the news. I thought she was only joking. But no, Maria was right. over the


It was all news that week,


and for the remainder of the month, if not year. Those are the historic moments in life that you will always remem- ber where you were when you heard such news. Like my Mam said about John F. Kennedy’s death, or more re- cently, when 9/11 happened. Indeed, sadly, the news about Lady Diana’s death was true. A terrible


tragedy had un-


folded in Paris the previous night. That was the summer of 1997.


Vegetables. As I mentioned, this was


a vegetable factory I worked in. We dealt mostly in peas, carrots,


broccoli and cau-


liflower. Sometimes, if the workers got bored, we had cauliflower flights. You had to duck because a head of cauliflower coming your way could be fatal. Bored, the factory floor would be alight with heads of cauliflower fly- ing in all directions like canon balls, from people ducking behind different machinery like trenches. That was fun, but it never lasted long, be- cause ‘a look out’ would spot one of the supervisors com- ing along, and everyone got back to work as if nothing had happened. Sometimes, I was sent to ‘repack’. This was where they froze the veg- etables. I hated repack as it was absolutely freezing there. You had to inspect the goods before they went into frozen veg packets for ‘green isle’ or some other brand. My hands used be frozen trying to chase down a stray black pea that managed to escape detection on the conveyor belt up until this point. I tried to avoid re- pack at all costs. It was bor- ing,


freezing and isolating.


Another area of the factory I also tried to avoid was the area that they processed dried vegetables (for ready-made soups). This consisted of dried veg that hopped along a hopping machine. Whoever was on this belt, their job was


to pick out the bad veg. I hat- ed this section too, as I used to get dizzy from the ‘hop along’ hopping-drier machine, and the dust from the machine used to make me cough. You had to wear a mouth mask here, together with all the other gear. I was sent here if they thought I was chatting too much to Maria. It was a sort of punishment. For me, it was like solitary confinement. I could not wait to return to the main ground floor where I was happiest. Eventually, I always returned.


Dinner Sometimes, after a hard


day’s work, I would return home, and my wonderful mother or Nana would have a lovely hot dinner waiting for me. But often, it had veg- etables as part of it. I nearly got sick at the sight of them on


the plate, having just


spent the pervious 12 hours isolating the bad veg from the good veg, especially peas which could drive you dotty! That made me wonder about a friend of mine who used to work in the local meat fac- tory, and left that as she felt she could no longer work with meat, and subsequently became vegetarian. Now she was working in the vegetable factory, so I wondered what she would end up eating fol- lowing a season of working with vegetables! I dared to think what. She


probably


took to the drink! Or became a fruitarian!


Broccoli. At this factory, I learnt how


to cut broccoli into spears, and cauliflowers too. I like working with these vegeta- bles. For this particular job, you had to wear an iron glove for fear of cutting your hand. We used big, sharp knives to cut the broccoli. We placed the cauliflowers onto a differ- ent conveyor belts that would carry them to another part of the factory. Sometimes, the vegetables went through a


cooking machine, which


steamed the food. This was prior to it being frozen. This was a nice place to work if you were cold, as the food came out nicely heated on the far side, and easy to work with. Again, there were al- ways four or five people on


Earnings At the end of the summer,


I was exhausted. But I had a very healthy bank balance for the next year of College. It was then I had the urge to ‘splash the cash’ not having had the chance to do any shopping during the summer months. I would then go on a very welcome one-day shop- ping spree to stock up for the next year on clothes, shoes, makeup and what


not. It


was now a bit of ‘me’ time. I found I learnt a lot from time in the factory – about people, about


time keeping, about


discipline, about ‘having the craic’, about life. I ended up doing two summers in this factory. My brother before me had given a summer in this same factory to making wooden crates to contain the vegetables, and my sis- ters, neighbours and friends also all gave a summer to the factory. It was a good experi- ence, and one where I made some great


lifetime friends.


And what could possibly be more rewarding in life than that!


Profile: Dr Rosarii Griffin is a


Governor, Lecturer and Researcher at UCC, and Fellow of the Roy- al Society of Arts in London. All views expressed herein are her own. Rosarii can be reached on info@ eastcorkjournal.ie or @ rosarii_griffin. Copyright Rosarii Griffin.


Tel: 021 463 8000 • Email: info@eastcorkjournal.ie • Web: www.eastcorkjournal.ie every conveyor belt sifting


through the veg to ensure all the bad ones were taken out. Sometimes, the machinery would break down, and all the veg would stockpile up. I remember this happened one night and one of the supervi- sors Denis arrived, and was not at all stressed by the fact that the entire factory had al- most come to a halt (despite tight deadlines for the pro- duction of foodstuff). Instead, he came up beside me and recited a Kipling poem about being patient and not loosing the head, ‘and then, you will be a man my son’, reciting the last line of the poem. I laughed. This was the kind of place where you found all kind of learned people. And Denis’s asset


to the factory


was that nothing ever seemed to faze him. It was a salutary lesson.


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27


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