Have you ever worked or work in a factory doing production line work? I worked in a factory part time to get some extra cash when I was 16. My job was to put glasses on to a conveyor belt for 8 hours. This was after I was making boxes for shot glasses for 8 hours at a time. I guess it must make you mentally strong with the same repetitiveness day in, day out.
[Edited 6/12/05 14:33pm]

My boyfriend worked the graveyard shift for one night in a production line. He had to put the caps on shampoo bottles. He had just gone into a temp agency with his friends because he was bored and got the job.

He made £50 that night and spent it the next night on booze.

Natsume said:

Thrilling. What were his hours?
[Edited 6/12/05 14:35pm]

JDINTERACTIVE said:

Something like 10pm to 6am, or 12am to 8am. He suspects that is the kind of work that his father does, only with food instead.

Natsume said:

Yeah, they made me do one night shift at the glass factory. I worked 10pm till 2am because I was only 16. I was pulling broken glass out of a furnace.

JDINTERACTIVE said:

that sounds dangerous!

Natsume said:

It was extremely unpleasant. They just gave you this gauntlet type glove and a pair of tongs.

I spent a year working a plastic extruder from eleven to seven in the morning.

sometimes I set up and ran the machine

other times I'd sit in one place packaging little bits of plastic that came down the line so fast I couldn't look away for even a minute. If they forgot my break there was no way for me to go remind anyone


It was a creepy hundred year old factory with sub basement after sub basement.

When I ran a line by myself finding tools and materials was up to me, so I had to wander the factory, my fork truck training was the boss telling me the keys were in it.

Other than making me feel I had been chained in hell it didn't really build mental strength