The Idler

No boxes, just card

Ignoring the fact that any form of labour, either physical or cerebral, is a basic insult to the human spirit, I’ve had a number of shit jobs. Chief amongst them were the twelve hour night shifts I used to regularly do at the cardboard factory near my house. This particular firm didn’t make boxes, or signs or any of the many interesting things that you can fashion from cardboard that might have injected a note of variety into the whole enterprise. Just the cardboard itself. All fucking night long. My ‘job’ consisted of standing next to big industrial binder, dumping pallets in front of piles of cut cardboard and pressing one button to wrap the cardboard to the pallet. No manual dexterity or variety was required, unless I was lucky enough to knock one of the piles over, in which case the line would have to stop and the regular staff, bon vivants and raconteurs all, would stomp over, swear and make jokes about students ‘not having any common sense’.

Is there anything more gut-wrenchingly depressing than a manual job that requires just enough concentration to prevent you from falling asleep, but is so mind-numbingly repetitive that your mind melts into gibberish whilst you do it? The noise was constant and loud and ear defenders had to be worn by all, so singing/talking to anyone/hearing yourself think was out, as was simply switching off altogether, as the piles of card might fall over. ‘Lunch’ was ten minutes in 12 hours and, reasonably enough, all the smokers had to squeeze together into a tiny metal shack outside for the fire risk. I now work for a London PR firm, so I’m still wrapping up monotonous shit into presentable packages. But at least my co-workers don’t have spider’s webs tattooed on their arms and fuck-off big mullets.

Tim Wild