She's workin' 2-10, yeaaah

This morning I started my new summer job at GB Packaging. Yippee. For working in a packaging plant, it's really not that bad, though I can't say I did much today. When I arrived at 8am, I had the wonderful opportunity of filling out paper work, sitting through some basic safety/work environment information, and then sitting in a room by myself to watch 2 hours worth of safety and informational videos. Oh, those safety videos were just excellent--there's nothing I relish more than sitting in a 60 degree room freezing my tired butt off in a small, dimly lit room, being forced to look at pictures of possible accidents. For example, one such lovely image was of a finger that had it's skin torn off becuase the person's ring got caught in some machinery--lesson: don't wear any jewelry. Another fine example involved showing the back of someone's head after a scalping accident--lesson: don't wear your hair loose. Oh, and who could forget the touching vision of an eye with a piece of wire stuck in it--lesson: wear your safety glasses.

By the time the seemingly endless stream of videos ended at 11:15am, I was ready to do whatever the supervisors wanted of me. Sweep the floor, clean machinery, haul something, anything ANYTHING to get me out of that room!!! But, in reality, the rest of my day was easy. I had a quick lunch on my own in the break room, met some supervisors, and took a few hours with various people touring the plant. Not that the plant is THAT big, but the first guy I went on tour with showed me the basics, gave me a rough idea of various tasks I may need to perform, and made sure I knew where all the restrooms and breakrooms were--you know, the important stuff. Then he had to leave, so he introduced me to Bob, a jovial, laid back, rounded, middle-aged man who took his sweet time walking around, meeting people, and giving me more details about the plant, machines, boxes, and the odd jobs I'd be doing. You see, Bob, like MANY of the plant workers is all about making sure he's doing his job thoroughly...but that doesn't necessarily mean rushing certain more comfortable jobs, such as taking a summer help person like myself on a tour for a couple hours, timing it so that it isn't finished until his shift is done. Clever, Bob, clever.

At 3pm when the tour was up, I was left alone to figure out what the heck I should do for the next hour. After killing a few minutes by walking around, trying to look like I was available to help anyone in need, I finally walked up to a supervisor and asked what I could do. He sent me outside to help some guys shovel and rake up some paper dirt and debris that was spilled next to the building when they were emptying the containers over the weekend. Those guys had a similar ideology as Bob--working outside is unusual, so why not enjoy the fresh air as long as possible--don't work too fast. ::sigh:: Yeah, I could handle that.

I can also handle a couple of the interning supervisors ;) Too bad that's spoiled a bit by the fact that my brother Scott is also a supervisor working in the same office. Then again, Scott met his wife at GB Packaging while he was an intern and she was summer help. So it's not completely off-the-wall. Of course...perhaps I should consider the fact that plant dress code doesn't exactly exude...hotness. In fact, if it were to exude anything, it would be the exact opposite of hotness. It's like one of those inverse proportions: The degree of hottiess exuded by Katie is inversely proportional to how dressed she is for work at GB Packaging. Don't believe it? Well, picture this: clunky steel-toed hiking shoe-boots, dark regular fitting jeans with 2 pairs of gloves bulging and sticking out of the pockets along with a tape measure attached to one of them, a plain loose dark green T-shirt, dark blonde hair slicked back and pinned in a small bun, ear plugs, no jewelry, and safety glasses with a thick black plastic edging along the top that comes to a sort of dip making me look like I have a giant unibrow so that I appear to be perpectually concentrating. Yeah, that'll be sure to draw an intern's attention. Only thing I've got going for me is the fact that I'm like 1/5 women in the plant at all. Which is cancelled out by the fact that I'm supervisor Scott's little sis. ::sigh:: Whatever :P "She works hard for the money, she works hard for it, honey!"