I showed up at this place on my bike, ready to work. It was a tubing site. They took flat strips of steel and ran it through formers and dies and welded the edges shut and cut the tube to length on long machines covered with wheels and pipes and meters. At the end of the cutting process, the tubes were kicked out onto a ramp. At the bottom of the ramp was me and another fellow, collecting five at a time and placing them carefully in a shipping jig. Because the tubes, most of which were over ten feet long, had just come from the welder, they were still fairly hot and covered in the coolant the machine was constantly drenched with from sprinklers. So, we were wearing gloves and we wearing the draining coolant. Stuff stank, like old snot.

I was put under the charge of a fellow who seemed to know what he was doing. We worked together for a couple of hours before we took a break and I learned that he was a temp, also, who had only been on the job for a couple days longer than I. Lovely. I also found out that the manner in which he had been instructing me was seriously flawed. The cut ends of the tubing were real sharp and a little jagged, as the cutting blades would get dull and begin to rip rather than cut the metal. Well, the way the temp had me picking up the tubing and carrying it to the jig had the cut ends passing real close to my throat. One of the older employees, who had a scar on his neck explained how he got it. It was from doing what we were doing. The temp didn't blink. He said someone else had told him to do it that way. I didn't stay there too long, maybe three days. I got tired of being soaked in coolant and being inundated with constant and very loud noises. The place was filthy, too. The floors of the plant were covered with grease and dried coolant.