Dull Days at the Factory

I've just finished college and this is my first interview.

It's a big conference room. Seven or eight people are sitting in a circle. One of them is looking over my answers. "Ooh! What did you answer here, Mr M?" he suddenly asks with a mocking grin. I know he represents the company in some form, but I don't know who he is. Nobody introduced anybody. "Well, my answer is right there," I state the obvious. I sense I've failed already. "Sure it is, but please, say it out loud, we all want to hear it!" I repeat my answer. The room bursts into laughter. "Ok, thank you! That would be all," he tells me. The recruiter comes in swiftly and shows me the exit door, "we'll let you know." My first interview is over.

I began my Electrical Engineering studies back in 2003. It is now 2008. "Half of you will not make it," a professor told us one day. He was right. From the initial 125 students, only 43 of us managed to make some sense of all the mathematics and physics. Luckily, my diploma says I was top ten among those. I've had great hopes for the future, but now I'm beginning to tone down my expectations. I either fail the interviews or don't get a call back. The companies that do make me an offer are not really interested in my studies, either.

For example, I could paint buildings in Photoshop for a living. This company installs architectural lighting and wants to show potential clients how their buildings would look beforehand. Or, I could supervise the cement production process for a nearby plant. This position also involves a three-year retraining period to become a chemical engineer. Finally, at the recommendation of one of my former professors, I could drive around the country and sell medical equipment for little more than minimum wage. The probation period is three months with half the pay, hardly enough to pay rent. They are all looking for engineers, nonetheless.

I eventually pick something from this list. I will also have to move from C to B, a much smaller city and I will work in a factory. "Can you design the electrical wiring for this conference room?" J, my future boss asks me. Back in college, we designed the electrical wiring for a whole factory. This is just a small conference room with four chairs and two neon lights. But my better judgment wins me over this time. I am by now experienced in the arts of the technical interview. I can look the audience in the eye and give them what they want, "oh no, of course not!" This time, we all laugh. Both J and his boss like my answer. I'm hired. It is my first job. I'm an Engineer.

And so I cram everything I own in my backpack and move out from the student's campus like I always did during the summers. Only this time it's for good. It was beautiful here. I will miss it. There is not much I own except some clothes, a few books and a computer. I will rent for now. It is my first home, a one-bedroom apartment on Snowdrop Street.

The mandatory training period runs smoothly. Pleasantly, even. I sit next to Blue, an assembly line worker. Thankfully, she's very friendly towards me. I can use some warmth in this new, unfamiliar place. Our instructors smile and dress nicely but they also have something mechanical about them. "I have a kid at home nearly your age," Blue teases me one day. I fake disbelief. She produces a picture of a dude, "Here! See? He has those sweet blue eyes, just like yours!" I blush. "The wiring harness is the car's nervous system," I hear our instructor. But I still look at my temporary colleague. After this short period is over, we'll probably never see each other again. "We do things differently around here. If something breaks you call your supervisor. Someone else will fix it," the instructor goes on. Yes, I wouldn't normally meet or be friends with people like her, no matter how much I'd want to. We exist in two different worlds. "Everyone has their own responsibilities around here, we're all about efficiently and safety."

After two weeks of safety training, standard procedures, a tour of the factory, the company's glorious past and its bright future, I finally meet my actual colleagues. We're in a big room, a relatively quiet open-space of about 70 or 80 people. To my right sits our Coordinator. To her right is Big Truck. We're sort of a mini-team. In front of me sits Jessica. She is beautiful and full of energy. She has that sparkle in her eyes and that gorgeous smile on the left corner of her mouth. I ask her to be my lady one day. "M, you and I are not compatible." So she says.

Big Truck shows me around. We go into production where the main action happens. We are assembling wiring harnesses for the automotive industry. Each assembly line consists of big white boards slowly and endlessly moving in a loop. Each line worker stands in front of these and performs the same movements all day long, adding their own tiny pieces to a giant puzzle. What starts out as a single wire ends up swallowing hundreds or maybe even thousands of wires, cables, connectors, seals, fasteners, insulation tape and who knows what else is needed by these cars. The end product looks like one big black octopus with gazillion tentacles, which we then test, package and ship to other countries.

Our mini-team is responsible for ordering the components that go into these octopuses. That is also my official title, "Components Management Engineer." I learn how to use our internal software. One tool is for checking warehouse stock in real time. Its interface makes me feel like we're back in the '90s. Big Truck only shows me the basics. He keeps the advanced features for himself. Sometimes, when I just can't seem to find something, he logs in and within seconds, and with great pride, gives me the answer. Coordinator shows me where to find our technical sheets, how to read them, how to spot mistakes, who to ask for extra details. The job, as I soon find out, looks more like clerical work than engineering work.

We all have the same black chair, the same gray desk, the same computer and, unlike our line workers who wear colored vests, the same white coat with the company's logo written on the chest. We must wear our white coats everywhere we go. We are also required to take them home and clean them from time to time. There is no difference in style or working conditions between a 50 year old and a 20 year old. They even talk among them as they were of the same age, as they were kids playing in the park.

I soon receive my first "challenge," a task nobody wants to do. The business is booming and we keep hiring all the time but we're running out of space, even though we work in three shifts already. It dawns on me that among the perks of having a college degree is the luxury of being allowed to sit in a chair and work only a single shift. The company has rented a new building and the plan is to move one of our assembly lines there. We're now about 20 engineers packaging, labeling and loading everything up. Somebody teaches me how to use a hand-powered forklift to move boxes around the warehouse. We switch roles from time to time so I also take up boxes and stash them neatly inside these big trucks I've only seen on the outside until now. J is working side by side with us. "J," I try to point to him the silliness of the situation, "if we wouldn't have truck drivers, we'd have to drive these trucks ourselves!" But he sees nothing wrong with that. "Yes, of course!" he replies bluntly. So here I am, a young engineer loading up trucks as one of my first assignments.

It takes us about two weeks as we also have to unload everything in the new location. There is a group of senior engineers waiting for us there, guys in their 50s, the only ones who know how to assemble everything back again. "I've called their director," one of them is telling the others, "we've forbidden them to take our women. They'll reject all their applications." There's a rumour that around 30 of our line workers are planning to switch jobs en masse and go to our competition.

There are countless buses with workers coming in from nearby villages and even from faraway towns. One line worker tells me she wakes up at 4 for the morning commute, "I need to water the garden, feed the chickens and make food for the children. The bus leaves at 5 and I'm here at 7," she goes on. That's four hours per day spent on a bus. "But we're lucky to have a job and we even get paid extra for the commute," she goes on. She is actually employed by a different company. We lease workers in bulk for limited periods of time when our demand is high. If we were to hire them, it would be difficult to get rid of them during a bad season. Since the work is so repetitive and unskilled, we can train new people relatively quickly.

I, for one, get out of the house at 7:20 each morning. I take the main street and mingle with the passersby. I don't know if they're the same people each morning or different ones, we don't look into each other's eyes. I then go straight ahead until I reach the train station. There is a narrow passage that goes right under the rail tracks. Then I go uphill on a winding, narrow road that leads out of town. There is hardly any sidewalk for the last hundreds of meters except for a thin patch of dirt. When it rains, the drivers honk me. The road passes by the mortuary house and by the cemetery. Then comes the factory, a tasteless big gray box. They make these things look so appealing in the movies. But they're not. This box is so dull. I'm here by 7:50. We enter the premises like sheep through large metallic turnstiles. Bip. Bip. Bip. I need to scan my badge. Then bip to check in, then bip to check out in the afternoon and bip whenever I move from one department to another. There's even a bip when I have to go to the bathroom.

We cannot exit the box during work hours, which is the standard 8 hours plus 45 minutes for lunch break. In case of emergency we can exit with special approval but we need to make up for the lost time. Either way, there is not much to see nor do outside as we're in the middle of nowhere.

With time, I receive other challenges. One is to keep the rework catalog up to date. It's a thick album with pictures of special screwdrivers and the correct way to use them. "Our women" use it in production to fix the octopus when they've attached the tentacles the wrong way. I take pictures and draw rectangles. Red ones are for "don't do this" and green ones are for "this is the correct way." I also update the big white board. I glue components on this board and underneath each component I place a sticker with its exact location in our warehouse. It is used by our line feeders to find things faster. I also go scrapping in our dumpster. The dumpster is a much smaller, unofficial, clandestine warehouse just for our mini-team. We throw in there all our garbage that we think might come in handy in the future. It's usually stuff that we've ordered by mistake or somehow didn't use. I sometimes spend an hour or two in there sorting things out, looking for useful components. I even find something now and then. That is pretty much all I have to do around here. These are my responsibilities.

The work soon gets boring, repetitive and tedious. It is not that it's too hard, but rather it is too easy in a way. There is little innovation, close to zero personal independence and no variation from day to day. Everyday looks like all the others. My skills are not needed and I begin to feel like a highly-trained chef handling prebaked pastries. It begins to be a challenge to keep my day interesting. My computer has no internet. I would need special approval for that. Needless to say, I'm not special around here. Nor there is any other kind of software on it.

So I bring a pdf book at work one day to kill the monotony. I read up to maybe fifteen or twenty minutes a day. But it doesn't take long for J to make his appearance, "What are you doing?" he asks in his calm, soothing voice. There is no use in pretending. "Please don't use the company's resources for your own personal interests, ok?" he instructs me. I try to explain. I try to change his mind. But I fail. I delete this amusement and go back to my standardized existence.

I observe that Coordinator is talking with our German colleagues in their own language. There is a German to English dictionary on my computer as part of the standard software package approved by the IT department. I ask her to forward me some emails. I read them one by one and use my dictionary to translate and write each word in the official notebook I've received from the company on my first day here. Some words I write multiple times, but it's alright, I'm not looking for perfection only for ways to pass the time.

Thankfully, the global economic crisis adds some spice to my otherwise dull days at the factory. Our assembly lines are not needed at their full capacity anymore. We now try to get rid of people and we implement cost-cutting measures. For example, one of our senior colleagues is promoted to a management position. The following day the position is eliminated from our org chart and we don't see him anymore. No compensation package, either. I randomly see him and his 6-months pregnant wife one day in the city and we chat a little. Naturally, he is pissed off and hands me over a big bag of fucks to carry with me on the winding road with no sidewalk up to the gray box.

The company is also forcing unpaid time off from everyone. Two days per month. The Worker Union is against the move. Without their approval, we would break the law. I wonder why they don't just make a phone call and fix the law. They do find a loophole, though. If all of us, 2000 or so employees, agree individually to the measure they can bypass the Union. For some reason unknown to me most of the employees agree. Officially, I remain the only one who doesn't. A misfit. The atmosphere is tense and Big Truck is mad at me, "it's people like you man, I swear! Damn you all!" he starts. "Because of you and your stubbornness we are all gonna loose our jobs!" J invites me into his office to resolve the conflict, "Listen M, you either sign this paper or we'll take other measures." I can't win this battle. I sign. One month later we all receive our diminished paychecks. Big Truck is roaring now, "I got bills and loans to pay, damn it! And a small child on the way! Fuck these bastards for stealing two days from my paycheck!!!"

Big Head, our plant manager, thinks the cost-cutting measures take too long to be implemented. So he himself goes into production and decides which neon lights to stay on and which should be turned off. Back in college, we've learned about industrial lightning. I remember that it has to be of a certain intensity and distance from the working surface, depending on the industry. When you look at the same white board for 8 hours straight, the eyes take a toll. But there are more important things to save now than some silly eyes.

Big Head is on a rampage. He goes after our industrial freezers. He says the temperature in there is too low and we consume too much energy. So he orders it to be raised by a few degrees. A few days later, tons of black gooey stuff used in production as sealant have hardened inside the barrels. We'll have to throw everything out. "We've told him! We've told this fucker that this is gonna happen! Chemistry is chemistry!" a colleague tells us. I suddenly remember I might have been a chemist myself. Would it have been better? Or even worse?! Who knows. We all have a good laugh and, even though we're not happy about it, we're not sad either.

J invites me to a smoke one day. I don't smoke. "Listen, M," he breaks the silence, "I regret joining this company a few years ago. I was happy in C. I was a Manager there. But I was born here in B. My parents left me a house and the company made me a really good offer. It looked good on paper, though it doesn't look good in reality." He is in his 40s. I'm in my 20s. I bet he knows better than I do. I accept his warm advice.

After all this, I relax a bit. This is no place for me. I enjoy my two extra days per month. I explore the city and its surroundings. I continue to fill my notebook with foreign words. I keep the catalog and my board up to date and otherwise go on with my daily activities of checking the warehouse stocks, ordering components and diving in the dumpster. I also take longer walks through the factory. People know me already. The warehouse ladies always greet me with a smile. If there is something good about this place, it's the people. They're friendly. They're smiling. They talk with each other. They tease one another in that innocent, childish way. They share their stories. They're family. "Oh, M, how are you? Come, sit down with us for a while." And so I sit, and we chat, and time flies more pleasantly for all of us. Sometimes an hour on end. I'm now prepared for J and his slicing questions. When he asks where I've been, I say I've had professional matters to attend to.

I even explore the toilets out of boredom. I try to use a different one each day. See which one is better. While toileteering in this way, I play again with the idea of reading during work hours. Maybe I can lock myself up in one of these, relax a bit and imagine myself in a park, on a bench, catching the sunlight. And so I print a few pages from a book, fold them up neatly and try to read some poetry in the factory's toilets. But the lights go out constantly. There are motion sensors installed. Efficiency. I struggle with the logistics of it for a few days and I finally abandon it.

I get a call on day from Professor inviting me to join a PhD program back in C. They have a research project. Then he says something about me having been a studious, smart, hardworking student and other stuff I can't remember. It even pays better than my current job. I wasn't expecting this lifeline. I take a few days to think about it. But, to be honest, what is there to think about? I accept it. We're starting in three months.

From now on, the first thing I do each morning is to cross off a day from the calendar. X it, blow it of, curse it. Day after day. Then I look at the remaining days and hope it will be over sooner. With one month remaining, Professor calls me, "M, you need to come in and sign the papers." So I take a day off and go sign the papers. I also have to present my research project in front of a commission. I didn't prepare for this so I repeat what my Professor told me last time, only in a hardly coherent manner. Even so, I get admitted. "Well, see you Monday," Professor tells me before I leave. "How do you mean Monday? I'm still employed," I inform him. "Well, quit already! We have work to do. Be here as soon as possible!"

I announce J I'm leaving. I've managed to survive a whole year on top of this barren hill. It was my first job. I'll never forget this place nor its people. We go into J's office, just the two of us, like in the good old days when we used to smoke together. He congratulates me. There is a moment of silence where I wait for a sneering comment. But no, he is honest, he is really happy for me. I finally get to break the law this time as we shorten the mandatory notice period in half, to just two weeks, by writing an earlier date on my resignation letter. Big Truck is pissed that he'll have even more work to do from now on. Some of my other colleagues find new hope in life, "Yes, show them! Show them that people can also leave this place by quitting rather than being fired!"

And so I again cram everything I own in my backpack and leave my first home on Snowdrop Street behind. I'm gonna be a scientist.

© Mihai Olteanu, 2025