The Idler

Powder Puff

I worked in a small cosmetics factory one holiday in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I was relegated the two jobs that absolutely no one else wanted to do. Initially this involved screwing ridged caps on tubes that were fired off a conveyer belt.

If you were too slow, and the things splatted all over the ground, you then had to clean up the mess and spend after hours catching up. Mind you, this turned out to be paradise, at least I had some human contact. Two weeks later I had huge blisters on my hands from screwing the lids on and couldn’t do it anymore. So they shifted me to the powder room, aka ‘The Isolation Chamber’ for the next six weeks.

It was just me and the powder funnel nine hours a day, day in day out. The funnel needed to be refilled every hour with powder which came in huge drums. I had to climb up into them to scoop the stuff out. Then I had to climb to the top of the funnel with a bucket to pour the powder in. Each refill took four trips. To make matters worse I was supposed to mix this with scenting stuff to give it a pleasant smell. Despite wearing a mask and being covered in overalls, powder still got everywhere. I was a walking powder puff for the next six weeks. Every breath I took, everything I saw, ate and drank, looked or tasted of powder. To make matters worse, I had my pay docked as they had consignments of peach scented powder returned because I had either filled it with lavender or forgot to put in scent.

The experience continues to haunt me to this day.

Anon