When my brother and I would drive to our job as cheese shredders at a factory that packaged shredded cheeses, there would be a point in the drive, about a mile before the factory itself, where there would be a hill. After reaching the height of the hill, one could see for the first time the factory sitting whitely on a hill to the right, still about a half a mile away.

This first hill served as a marker of reality, the reality of shredding cheese for another eight hours. Because of this, when we began the ascent of the hill that hid the factory, my brother and I would ask one another questions of hope.

Do you think it burned down?

Do you think it disappeared?

Do you think it’s been bombed?

On the way up the hill, we would also repeat to one another, “Is it there? Is it there? Is it there?” until we reached the height of the hill, saw it was still there, and then swore or sighed, dismayed.

*

The cheese factory had a large warehouse connected to it, wherein large blocks of cheese were stored. A single block of cheese would be about four feet high by four feet long by four feet wide, and weigh 640 pounds. This 640-pound block of cheese was transported by forklift from the cold warehouse to a mechanical cutter. One had to use a mechanical lift with circular steel plates that one would direct around the cheese and then push a button so the circular plates would slowly narrow toward the cheese to eventually grip it tightly. The 640-pound block was then raised by this mechanical lift, and one would manually swing it into place on the platform of what was really a very enlarged cheese cutter. Once on this platform, another circular plate mechanically pushed the cheese block through steel wires that cut the cheese into 16 blocks of cheese, weighing 40 pounds each. These 40-pound blocks were stacked on a push cart, and taken to a line with a conveyor. A worker in back would place the 40-pound blocks of cheese on the conveyor which traveled to an employee mistakenly called a cheese shredder. My brother and I were hired as cheese shredders. Mistakenly, because we didn’t shred the cheese, but merely cut the 40-pound blocks into still smaller cubes. Perhaps we were cheese-cubers, if anything. The cheese cubes would then fall onto another conveyor belt, where they proceeded to the actual shredding machine. The shredded cheese came out into a deep bin and then traveled up another conveyor belt to a rotating drum where it was coated with a white powder, to prevent the cheese from sticking together. The shredded cheese continued on, dropping onto a conveyor belt with shelves that moved vertically and then dropped the cheese off into a vibrating, multi-chuted area that somehow was able to determine how heavy the cheese shreds were (8 ounces, 1 pound, etc.) before the properly weighted cheese fell down a cylinder that had already heat-sealed a plastic package below for the cheese to fall into. This machine also severed the bag from the next one, and the fully-sealed cheese package would drop onto another conveyor belt, which took it to the packagers to place in boxes, 12 packages to a box. These packages would then be shipped out and delivered to various groceries and supermarkets in Wisconsin.

*

We worked second shift for the most part, but one day we were told that for a couple of weeks we would be working third shift, when the entire place was cleaned thoroughly.

Neither my brother nor I were enthused about this change. One reason being the time switch, the other reason was that the third shift was entirely janitorial, and, as it proved, very humid and warm from the hot water being used to clean the equipment and floors. Additionally, we were upset because there were co-workers that lived closer to the factory than we did, who could have been chosen before us. Also, our manager had been asking us to come in on weekends in the weeks prior while our co-workers did not have to come in as frequently.

Did I say not enthused? I meant pissed. It felt like management was not being fair with the scheduling. Our resentment was also motivated by the fact that a couple of these scheduling changes involved us working second-shift Friday night, to then work the sole weekend shift on Saturday morning. Add in an hour to get there and back, and I think one can see where some anger was generated.

So, when we were told this news from our lab-coated manager, we began to argue, my brother more strenuously than I. I was ticked off, but remained quiet about it, while my brother not only spoke his mind but included, the next day, calistenic arm exercises to get his point across.

The next day we were leaving the factory floor, and walking into the packaging part of the plant when we saw our manager’s manager, the man in charge of the day-to-day operation of the plant, walking toward us, but not to talk with us—he was just passing by. He was not seen very often on the factory floor. He was like a cookie cutout of the type of manager one always encounters. Slim, with a short haircut, a tie (beneath the required lab-coat), and a serious disposition. My brother is 6’1” and stood a good six-to-seven inches above him. My brother stopped him to talk about the unfair scheduling practices, with which he did not seem entirely fluent, as our manager did the scheduling, not him.

I was standing about ten feet away, and was watching. The plant manager listened to my brother, but was not going to make any changes. My brother became more excited as he was realizing he wasn’t going to get anywhere with the manager. It was at this point that my brother’s arms came up from his sides, and he began to use them to more forcefully make his point. But the gesturing, at some point, took a wrong turn. My brother’s hands, and arms, for that matter, were moving back and forth on both sides of the plant manager’s head. As my brother was doing this, I couldn’t make out the manager’s head from where I was standing, as one of my brother’s hands would be obscuring it briefly.

Nothing came of the conversation—the plant manager walked off, and my brother came walking toward me, and we began to walk out of the plant.

When my brother began to cool down a bit, I asked him if he realized what he was doing with his gesturing. He looked at me with a confused look on his face, like he didn’t understand the question or had even thought about his gestures, as they seemed to be spontaneous.

I said, “Jon, you had your hands and arms on both sides of his head.”

“I did?” he said.

*

During one of these third shifts, I developed a strange pain in my ass. It became very difficult to bend over, a necessary movement for the janitorial work of third shift. It was even painful to walk. I had no idea what the problem was.

I was raised as a Catholic, so I was embarrassed about anything having to with my body. Perhaps, though, it didn’t have to do with Catholicism fully—maybe it was just me. I was and am a person interested in keeping many matters private, especially matters concerning my body, these work stories obviously withstanding.

At the end of the night, after thinking it over for a few hours, I decided I had to tell my third shift boss that I wouldn’t be able to come in tomorrow because of the pain I was experiencing. I was too young then to understand I could just tell him I had a medical problem, and leave it at that. Instead, with uncomfortable delicacy, I told him what was going on.

He seemed to understand what the problem was, and seemed nonplussed about it. He told me it was probably a hemorrhoid, and that I would need to treat it in various ways.

My only previous encounters with anything having to do with hemorrhoids was through some Preparation-H jokes people told, and through hearing the Kansas City Royals’ great third baseman, George Brett, had them during The World Series, a few years prior. I remember back then thinking that Brett must be a bit of a wimp to complain about them during such a huge event as The World Series. I now fully understood where he was coming from.

My boss seemed discrete and open and treated the subject with the decorum I had hoped for. I felt relieved.

I had to go to a doctor for treatment, and was out of work for three days. When I returned to work, I returned to second-shift with my brother, as our third-shift duty had ended while I was out of work. I arrived in the locker-room area to find the first shift people leaving, and subsequently welcoming me back. They also seemed to have slight grins on their faces. One woman I barely spoke with offered me her sincere blessings, out of the blue, and under her breath, for my painful experience.

I didn’t want her sincerity, her blessings, or even her serious face. I wanted to go on barely knowing her, having her barely know anything about me. I began to reel, mentally, as I saw people laughing in the corners, grinning about things. And suddenly all of the laughter seemed to be about me and my experience. I began to feel I couldn’t trust anyone’s laugh or grin as genuinely being about anything else. I wanted to run from the room, from the factory.

It didn’t get any better, as a woman I knew from second shift, who flirted with me, and I with her, made some slight, gentle joke about it as we passed by one another. I was so embarrassed that she knew about it, I didn’t speak to her again for another two weeks.

It turned out that the third-shift manager had told the entire third shift crew, as well as some second-shift workers, and the story moved around from there, to include my regular second-shift manager, who greeted me and followed me back to my work station. On that day, my first day back, I was stationed in the back area and supposed to place the 40-pound cheese blocks on the conveyor for the worker/cheese-cuber, as it were.

My boss was showing his concern, but I wanted him to leave me alone like I wanted everyone to leave me alone, and so I began arranging things around me while he was speaking. I had to open some cheese that had plastic around it, so as he was speaking I looked backward and saw the knife stuck in the cheese behind me. I nodded to whatever he was saying, inactively listening, and reached back to get the knife while looking at him. I grabbed the knife and pulled it out, and immediately dropped it. In blindly grabbing for it, I had squeezed the blade into the meat of my pinky finger. Blood came out pretty readily, and as I was shaking it, dancing around, as one does, I put my hand over the cheese, unconsciously. My boss, his mind set on the more important cheese, quickly grabbed my arm, and directed my hand away from the cheese. No blood got on the cheese.

I grabbed some nearby towel and wrapped it around my finger. I pulled it out once to look at it, and I could see air between the space in my finger, while more blood flowed out. My boss said, “Well, c’mon, you’ll have to go to the hospital to get that stitched up.”

It was less than ten minutes into my first day back from my hemorrhoid problem.

*

Cheese shredded for different brands was, in many cases, the same cheese. Everything was the same except the packaging the cheese dropped into. They would be packaged in different boxes, and arrive at the groceries and supermarkets as competing brands, but the cheese was exactly the same.

*

Every employee in contact with the cheese had to wear a white lab-coat, a hairnet, and latex gloves. There was to be no drinking or eating while on the floor, either. This policy didn’t include the owners of the business, however.

On more than one occasion I saw an overweight corporate man in an expensive suit and tie dig, barehanded, into the deep bin of just-shredded cheese and stuff some in his mouth on his breezy walkthrough with the others.

Other times, one would be walking around on the floor with his just-opened bag of shredded cheese, and eating cheese every now and then out of his hand.

One of these gentlemen, a tall, gray-haired, elegant sort of man, actually deigned to interact with me as he was passing through. Noblesse oblige, as it were.

I didn’t want to talk to him, because I knew he’d give his little “Ain’t life grand!” speech that they always give, and then, probably, pat me on the back, like he was still “one of the boys”, before moving on to the next sap. He didn’t know me from Adam, had no idea I was going to college, what my circumstances were.

He intoned seriously, avuncular, “So, fella, are you going to make a career of this?”

At this very moment, I was randomly testing sealed cheese packages for leaks, by putting them under water and checking for bubbles.

I said, “What? This?”

“Yes,” he said.

I said, “Would you make a career of this?”

He seemed shocked for a moment, then chuckled, and said, “Oh, no. No, I wouldn’t.”

I told him that was my answer as well.

*

I would and wouldn’t like to say that when I had my hemorrhoid lanced by a doctor, I was bandaged at the clinic, but that didn’t, shall we say, do its job in full. I met with my mother at a local restaurant after the clinic visit, and told her I needed something to stop the bleeding. She had nothing to offer me, except a feminine pad. Desperate, I had to use it, wear it. And I continued to wear them for the next three days. It was the most ridiculously frustrating and uncomfortable sensation imaginable. I have ever since pitied the pre-menopausal.

After the procedure, my doctor informed me that the leading causes of hemorrhoids are the result of too much sitting, alcoholic binges, and the unremarkable consumption of cheese.

at
a
factory



james
wagner