one of my jobs

[low_delta]

For about six months at the end of the eighties, I worked at a place that made premoistened towelettes. They were for specific uses - glass cleaner, furniture polish, I forget the others. Oh, here they are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5xtLrUhGjs

A big machine took rolls of towel, soaked it, stacked it and cut it. About a dozen people worked on the line packaging the stuff. It wasn't difficult work, and you were able to talk with the people you worked with. We had a good time, as much as can be said for a place like that. There were four types of people working there - Mexican, Hmong, old ladies and the rest of us. Everyone got along well. But management was shitty and generally annoying.

When I started, they offered me my choice of second or third shift. I told them that second shift was horrible so I'd have to take third. I started on a Monday. On Wednesday they told us they were ending third shift, so we had to come back the next day for second shift. I had an eight hour break that day. I told myself it would be okay, because if I was doing two shifts that day, I'd work six shifts that week and get overtime. But they told us we wouldn't have to come in on Friday. And Christmas songs through December. They often shorted people on their paychecks. But not usually white people. I was shorted when I quit, though. They were hoping I wouldn't come back. They agreed on the phone to fix it, but they didn't until I went in and stood in their office.

In January, someone mentioned that a company near my house was hiring. I applied there and got the job, leaving this place behind... as soon as I got my money.

Comments

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you got your money in the end. Stuff like that still goes on at some places ...not paying what should be payed. I just talked to my oldest nephew this summer about that happening to him recently when he changed jobs. Though hopefully they're fewer places than before.

[rivendweller.livejournal.com]

Whoa boy, can I relate. Once I had such a bad job that my boss got hauled out in handcuffs by the FBI. He was THAT dishonest.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Huh, I didn't realize there were other places that the Hmongs settled. There are large communities of them in northern Arkansas. They grow great veggies!

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_Americans#Demographics
Arkansas is where one of the smaller communities is.

I wonder why people from a warm climate are settled in cold parts of the country. At that company, I remember a guy coming into work with no coat, just two or three layers of shirts, and with gloves and a ski mask. It was really really cold. The kind of cold where people go outside during their breaks and start their cars, worried that if they sit too long they won't start at all.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

Wow, I thought we had a great majority of them. I have no idea why they would settle outside of their norm. I know the reason they came to north AR/south MO is because it is rural, mountainous, agricultural and the same type of climate they were used to. Oh, and cheap. I think most of us are here because it is cheap. :)

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Your region certainly makes sense. Maybe many came north because we're the ones who agreed to take the refugees.

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

That could be, and you guys have more jobs. Agriculture is about the only thing here.

[cierrablue.livejournal.com]

When I read the first sentence of your post I laughed. It just never occurred to me that people made towelettes. I have no idea why, because you need people to make just about everything. As if towelettes were just divined from the ether or something... Anyway, I started with a chuckle and then a happy thought because I remember Spiffits. But that smile got smacked off my face pretty quickly. What a bunch of jerks! Good thing you stuck to your guns about the money. It's jobs like that, that make us learn I suppose.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

If it matters, the place I worked for didn't own the brand. Dow, or whomever, contracted us to make them.

You're one of the few who remembers them. At the time, nobody I knew had heard of them.