Working: Day Three

After working a full day at the redemption center I wasn't so filthy to be embarrassingly caught in the grocery store buying bread. Nor was I dead tired. But my brain was definitely fried. Never had I been so nervous for an enter day.

Before buying the bread I let the cashier know that Allen, the bakery dude, said that the prices were marked wrong on the bread, but ring them up per the coupon price. Sure enough the register misread the price. The cashier calmly whipped out her cell phone with slide keyboard from her bra (no lie) and manually calculated the refund. Then she went through an elaborate series of keystrokes – more than what would be used to write a short story - on the register. As she performed this amazing feat I looked at the other cashiers and elevated my appreciation for the job.

Presently I feel doomed to run back and forth to the dump for four days a week to face computer programs that are filled with glitches. The customers have been impressed to see our new portable office, a computer system run on solar and the “local material” bamboo structure that serves as the staging area for the operation. But I know I am using a system that has no mistake proofing and more bugs than the cockroaches that wander around the center. I can just about enter anything in any input field and the computer will let me get away with it. And since I am the lead, I’ve slowed the sorters down so that I’m sure I enter everything correctly. Due to one typo I made, the guys had to reweigh over 300 dollars worth of glass. And you only get twelve cents a pound. That’s a lot of glass. It was my fault. I felt really bad. I apologized to them and the waiting customer, but as I explained, “otherwise, you owe me seventy cents.” Because that was what the computer said.

Not all the problems are mine. This morning, my first solo day as lead, the computer and the scale refused to communicate. I’m getting way to familiar with the software tech guy in New Hampshire. He walked me through all sorts of troubleshooting but to no avail. Meanwhile we were swamped with customers. Maybe it was because the local paper ran a little write up about the new business operating the redemption center. Everybody and their auntie came to recycle and check us out. Don’t these people go to church? Thank God I wasn’t talking to a guy with an Indian accent. My two-man sort crew resorted to weighting the barrel and manually computing the scrap values for aluminum, glass and plastic. Not as simple as .05 cents a can.

Finally the owner’s son arrived. He set up the computer so I could manually enter the material, weight and tare weight. The rest of the day smoothed out after lunch. At the end of the day I came up $10.00 short. Piss. I couldn’t find the error and by 5 PM I was blinded by an eye migraine. I couldn’t even see the numbers.

At least I didn’t have to jump into a bin of aluminum cans to retrieve plastic. I did that on my first day. Wading up to your waste in – well waste – isn’t something you get to do everyday. Getting into the bin was easy. Getting out was difficult. Mixed recycled material can result in a ten grand fine by the state.

And the cops didn’t come and take my scooter away like they did to one of my coworkers. He bought it on Craig’s List two weeks ago. A customer recognized it was his and called the cops. It had been stolen. Now my coworker is out $900, a scooter and a ride to work. But because the ad was still posted on Craig’s List, they nabbed the guy who sold it to him.

And yesterday the cops showed up looking for a homeless guy named Frank who had been by the day before. Apparently, after he collected a few bucks recycling, he used his redemption money to buy a few pills and booze, then fell off the rocks at the harbor and drown.

If I were a writer, would I have material!