White Collar Factory Part 2

It's Thursday afternoon, and I've just had a pretty stellar job interview. If not wholly successful, then at least enough to remind me that I can occasionally rise to the occasion. Bought a large sauteed veggie sub, and feeling good. On the bus, before I start reading, I see an attractive young woman wearing a tight green tank top, and am struck with the sorts of thoughts that inspired the advent of the confession in the Catholic Church (these things don't change). Have to savor this vitality, before my night job sucks it out of me. Uhrrrga-blech. Even thinking about it drains a few drops out of me.

Later, at the bus stop by the Walnut Creek Library, I'm eating trail mix and drinking Coke. Sitting near a few raspy-voiced and lively guys, who don't seem to be waiting for any buses, and thinking that if I had rum or whiskey in this here Coke, I could hang out with them all day. I take out a notepad to write down these very thoughts, and one of them asks me what I'm writing. Just some thoughts I had on the bus. He asks me if I'm a writer. I like to write....

He sits down next to me, says that he's a writer, and asks me if I'd like to hear a poem. He explains a bit of his ethnic background, though I can't quite make out what he's saying, and begins to recite a "black poem." It's brutal and touching, affecting me at a level I never expected to reach this afternoon. One of my favorite lines is, "How many more gold medals must we win for this country?" Fist bump. What's more, he augments the recital with gestures, like a noose around the neck, or a pistol fired in the air during "...my 40 acres and a mule." When he's done, I compliment him very sincerely, especially for the "performance aspect." "It's not a performance," says he, "it just comes out naturally." His name is Billy, and he waited tables for 20 years before deciding to become a poet. Waiting tables gave him bad hips and knees. Now he's got less money, but more freedom. Fist bump. He asks me if I want to hear another poem (yes), this one a "gay poem." "Don't worry, that doesn't mean I want to have sex with you." This one is more tender and reflective, but just as affecting. At this point my bus comes. Another fist bump, and Billy has given me even more fortitude with which to enter the factory.

At the factory, like everywhere else, the malady comes as a result of the prioritization of quantity over quality. Through and through, it's the way the system runs. It's the water we drink, and it doesn't matter where it comes from or how it tastes, as long as it keeps on flowing. We could be eating the delicious donuts that Grammy used to make, but they wouldn't be able to sell as many, and that's the bottom line. That's why the donuts are dry when they reach our mouths.

Several days into the job, I make up my mind to increase my output just enough to get the boss off my back. Just enough so that I don't have to hear about making my "numbers," so that I can blend in to my keyboard, become inanimate, at one with the machine. But of course it doesn't work that way.

By day six, I've gotten pretty quick. It's enough not to get hassled about my numbers, but now I'm told how I rank with other workers' numbers. The fostering of competition is the next stage of management, and it's lethal, because it works. The boss puts the top three numbers up on the dry-erase board, and we all get sucked in. Numbers, numbers, numbers, they chant. In my mind, I really don't care about this competition, but somehow, I work like I do. The result, thus, is the reality of the situation - that I do care about the competition. Competition, especially when encouraged towards a devious end, has a devastating psychological impact.

You know what might even be worse? For security and productivity reasons, we can't have cell phones in the factory, nor are pens and paper easily accessible. I'm writing this in quick and furious scratches on a piece of cardboard I tore off one of the boxes, whenever I think they're not looking. Just steps away from Sade, forced to write in his own blood when they took his parchment away in prison. Billy may spend his afternoon at the bus stop, but at least he's got freedom.

Ah, but this is only eight hours of my daily life. I have sixteen more to... sleep... and commute... and look for a better job. Jello Biafra may have posed the most pertinent question when he asked, "When will you crack?"