During winter breaks in college, I sometimes signed on with the local temp agency to pick up some extra cash for school. I hoped with all my powers that the temp agency would place me in a cool, creative job, something in line with drawing cartoons or designing moustache combs. Then the next day, I’d learn that they had assigned me to the frontlines of an assembly line at one of the dozen warehouses in town.

Most of the time, I worked first shift, which was ideal. Sometimes, though, the only openings available were second-shifts. Second shift isn’t too bad. Yeah, the hours are odd: you work through dinner and get off right when most people are considering brushing their teeth for bed. And scheduling a time to hang out with friends can be a hassle. But these cons are largely offset by the fact that you get to sleep in every morning. Plus, there’s little traffic to contend with coming home.

But twice, I got stuck with third shift. My friends were always gearing up for a fun night just as I was grabbing my steel-toed boots to take to the deserted, dark streets toward my gloomy destination. I drove through the cold nights listening to odd late-night-radio talk shows and thinking about how sleepy I already was until the flat, smoky tops of the warehouse buildings, Nos. 1 through 12, emerged in the distance. Often at this moment, I was overcome by an eerie sensation that if I released the steering wheel and let off the gas, a tractor beam would continue to pull me along to my parking space. I never tried it, though, for fear it might actually happen.

A dim, jaundiced light lit every warehouse I’ve ever worked in. It always took a minute for my eyes to adjust before I could clock in and hide the snack I had brought behind the expired creamer and Tupperware of mystery meat in the back of the break room fridge. Once inside the belly of the building, I walked with caution, for fear I might get struck by a fast-moving forklift or a skid of shrink wrap.  However, there were no known defenses against the dry warehouse air. By the end of the week, my lips would be chapped so badly they’d look as though I’d kissed a cactus. 

For this particular job, I worked as a package sorter on an assembly line. From my perch, I could see people being busy throughout the building. Interestingly, I was even able to uncover a few guys in my old high school class who I thought had been missing since my junior year. Occasionally, one would break free from his work, come up, open his wallet, and show me a mini photo of his baby.

But, overall, the racket of the machines and conveyor belts made it difficult to hear yourself think, much less talk to anyone. Some conversation would have been nice, too, but after I’d learned the gist of the job, they had banished me to a platform all alone.

Occasionally, my supervisor would tap me on the shoulder and tell me to take 15. Break time at 3 a.m., amounted to little more than my sitting in the break room with perhaps one or two other lone souls fighting to keep my eyes open until it was time to clock back in. Sometimes I’d stare at the plastic ashtray on my table until everything turned blurry. Other times, I’d pick up an ancient issue of Sports Illustrated that someone had left behind and read about the controversy surrounding the Brooklyn Dodgers’ decision to move to the West Coast.

I was put in charge of sorting little packages; that is, packages weighing less than 10 lbs (?). These packages held a variety of things, but most were green-tinted transparent bags containing biopsies being sent from hospitals to labs for testing. Each biopsy bag contained a sealed stubby cup of liquid, a vile of blood, or another transparent pouch containing a hunk of something, and they bumped down a conveyor belt from an unseen source. 

I can’t remember the exact details of the job. But whatever I did required my handling and separating these packages with latex gloves that waterlogged the skin on my hands so badly that it took nearly a half hour for my fingers to regain color and feeling. When it was finally time to go home, I’d pop the gloves off and wonder if my hands were ever going to turn back to normal.

Then I’d drive home just as the morning sun was poking through the trees. As I faded in and out of consciousness behind the wheel from lack of sleep, I’d wonder if any of those biopsies I’d sorted belonged to someone who draws cartoons for a living.

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I worked on a hog farm for a summer, so you can say I know some stuff about hogs.

For one, they produce a stink more toxic than a napalmed skunk. It shocks the nostrils and coats the whole mouth with an invisible paste. I’ve never heard of a child going blind from the stink, but I’d be surprised if it has never happened.

Another thing is that sows — the big, mean momma hogs — hate when you castrate their young. They literally want to chew the nape off your neck. Luckily, they’re penned up and can’t maul you. They sure try, though. They try with all their hoggish might. They snort and spit and tear with their pig teeth at the flimsy iron rods of their pens, all the while trying to laser you dead with their murderous, red eyes. 

This behavior does add a dash of thrill to the job. But, in general, I took no pleasure in this dirty work. I naturally felt sadistic, not to mention squeamish. Because I’m a male myself, the very thought of castration makes me want to triple up on undies and wear granite pants. I’m still not sure how I ever did the job without hyperventilating. I must have compartmentalized the trauma of the task in my mind somehow, maybe the same way soldiers sometimes do with their fears during battle. 

To the pig farmer’s defense, castrating pigs is a necessary evil. I know that much. Should the practice ever be banned, everyone’s bacon would taste tough and rubbery like deflated balloons. Testosterone simply ruins pig meat, much as how the word slacks ruins people’s concept of pants. Furthermore, if left alone, these male piglets would ultimately turn into boars – ugly, vicious animals that would first overrun the farm and, eventually, the world.       

For the record, I did none of the actual castrating myself. I have neither the stomach nor the surgical hands for it. Instead, my job was to pluck the piglets from their pen, one by one, away from their 300-lb, snorting-mean mommas, with the principal rule being — steer clear of the sow’s bite.  

Then, I’d pass the piglets to my friend Shawn, who’d promptly clamp each one of their heads between his knees and grip their legs like handlebars for Uncle Wes, who performed the surgery with a razor and his best Freudian accent:”Yah goin’ ta feelu slight presha.” The procedure itself lasted less than 10 seconds; the mental images, a lifetime.

Wes would then douse the newly initiated eunuch with Bactine. Then it was onto the next piglet. Naturally, the female piglets were spared the rite of castration. However, they did get their curly tails lopped off. Pig tails, I learned, in their natural curly state, are prone to infection.

When we weren’t castrating pigs, we were either shoveling their manure in the heat or chasing one that had escaped back into its pen. So I learned a lot from working on a hog farm; for example, I learned that I would never want to own a pig for a pet, not even Wilbur from Charolette’s Web.

Categories: Odd Jobs
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