The WorkGroup

I worked as a temp for a few days in a factory that specialized, at least while I worked there, in putting the labels on Fisher Price Toys. The line I worked on put the alphabet on the Little People farm silos.

I started the morning in quality control, going through box after box of completed silos looking for smeared labels. Then one of the women that ran the machine had to leave for the day, and I was promoted to the line. This was about an hour before lunch.

My job was to load the little silos (a three inch cylinder) into the label machine fast enough for it to decorate the silos at maximum speed. For some reason, I couldn’t get the hang of it. Here I am, a trained professional, bachelor’s degree recently in hand, and I can’t load these little cylinders into the machine fast enough.

Lunch couldn’t come soon enough. As it happened, I lived less than a quarter mile from the factory. With nothing left to lose but my sanity, I decided to get high before I returned to work.

Just before I left, I listened to some Bob Marley, and had the song in my head when I got back to the line. As the machine fired up, all eyes were on me. The PEOPLE IN CHARGE were wondering whether I’d be able to pull my weight on the big machine for the rest of the shift.

Within about thirty seconds of loading the machine, I found what I’d been missing before lunch, and my buzz. It was rhythm. I ran Bob Marley songs over and over in my mind while I loaded the machine to the downbeats, and the results were amazing.

As I loaded, the guy who got moved from loading to a MORE IMPORTANT part of the machine watched amazed, as I soon began throwing the cylinders in the air like Tom Cruise in “Cocktail” before loading them.

“Wow…” he said amazed. “This morning I thought you couldn’t do this. It took me a few months before I could load that fast.”

“It’s all about the riddem’” I said confidently.