Alaskan Fish Plants
Created | Updated Feb 20, 2002
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An Alaskan Fish Plant is an alternate universe in which one voluntarily revokes the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in exchange for slime, misery and the pursuit of fish. There are a variety of reasons for seeking employment at a fish plant. Here are some of them.
A: A mildly masochistic streak accompanied by insanity resulting from Loan Anxiety.
B: A reference from previous Fish Plant workers who say that it's a great way to earn money.
C: A desire to smell bad, eat worse, and make friends and romantic relationship with men, or women, who are only slightly distinguishable from the Alaskan moose. (About which some people become confused because the Alaskan moose is both more plentiful and often less hairy than the average Alaskan)
D: The singleminded curiosity that prompts people to enter situations in which they have to to run very quickly in front of enraged bulls, race molten lava down the sides of volcanos, or make numerous calls to people during their dinner hour inquiring if they'd like to buy a sandwich roaster.
E: The temporary amnesia that is a precursor to "returning" to a fish plant, due to having blocked out all of the really nasty bits.
Upon entering a Fish Plant, you can expect to be interviewed with rigour and efficiency. The interview generally consisted of a quick pulse check and a polaroid (Ostensibly for the file, but more probably for the FBI, whom we saw snooping about on several occasions). You will then be supplied with a hydraulic spoon (Spoon with a hose attached) with which you will be expected to remove the blood line from an already gutted and guillotined fish.
The guillotine is a hydraulic knife (Knife that is driven by water pressure pumps) that operated with a foot pedal and has a nice full color picture of a man's hand being severed by careless operation and failure to use safety guards (Which everyone then proceeds to do). A good "Header" can take the heads off of 63 fish per minute. The fish is then unceremoniously shoved onto a router to remove bits of it's neck that tend to get in the way, and then slid onto a "Coastliner" which is a machine for taking out the eggs and guts. (The Coastliner is a machine that replaced the prestigious "Knifer" position. One knifer was known to be able to strike a grader on the head with a catapulted fish heart from 100 paces.)
They are then cleaned by you, the rookie. This process involves the removal of bloodballs and the first membrane that tends to stick to the fish, because during the fish's lifetime, it is essential that this membrane remain attached.
The fish are then graded. The fish scale changes from time to time (Actually it changes from hour to hour) depending on the sobriety of the grader, the quantity of fish yet to be graded, and the expected drunkenesss of the proposed clients.
A good example of this phenomenon is one in which the same tray of fish, in the course of an hour, went from #2 (Slight wounds and sores) to #1 (Practically perfect in every way) to Domestic (meaning, not good enough for the Japanese, so we'll serve them to Americans who don't know any better) back to #2's again, and then finally to "Texas Brites" (Still domestic, but sold to Texas for a Fourth of July feast)
Once graded by these rigourous standards the fish are bunched up by seperate but equal racks in which they will be frozen by huge blast freezers to prepare them for the packing process or else directly packed with ice for fresh shipping.
There then ensues a complicated Fish packing process before the fish are loaded by forklift into the backs of large semi-trailers and shipped off to consumers around the world.
The entirety of this job is accomplished between the temperatures of 20 and -20 degrees Farenheight under the assumption that it's best for the fish (Who, consequently don't give a rip because they're already dead). In order to speed production, the management generously offers musical selections that vary from "The Hip Hop Tape" to the "Metallica Tape". And then they repeat.
Shifts range from 0 hours a day, for disturbingly long periods of time, to 24 hours a day, for also disturbingly long periods of time. All efforts are made to maximise the number of shifts to ensure that, despite the rigourous hours, as few people actually get overtime as possible.
Diet consists of freeze-dried hamburgers and the occasional bowl of oatmeal. This is complimented by occasional installments of doughnuts from the managers (Though this was quickly discontinued as the workers had a dishearteningly strong tendancy to want to eat..."More than one")
After three months, one returns home exhausted, sick, and several thousand dollars richer. In most cases, this money is promptly confiscated by college tuition, and the fish worker vows never to return.
See aforementioned list.
><>
An Alaskan Fish Plant is an alternate universe in which one voluntarily revokes the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in exchange for slime, misery and the pursuit of fish. There are a variety of reasons for seeking employment at a fish plant. Here are some of them.
A: A mildly masochistic streak accompanied by insanity resulting from Loan Anxiety.
B: A reference from previous Fish Plant workers who say that it's a great way to earn money.
C: A desire to smell bad, eat worse, and make friends and romantic relationship with men, or women, who are only slightly distinguishable from the Alaskan moose. (About which some people become confused because the Alaskan moose is both more plentiful and often less hairy than the average Alaskan)
D: The singleminded curiosity that prompts people to enter situations in which they have to to run very quickly in front of enraged bulls, race molten lava down the sides of volcanos, or make numerous calls to people during their dinner hour inquiring if they'd like to buy a sandwich roaster.
E: The temporary amnesia that is a precursor to "returning" to a fish plant, due to having blocked out all of the really nasty bits.
Upon entering a Fish Plant, you can expect to be interviewed with rigour and efficiency. The interview generally consisted of a quick pulse check and a polaroid (Ostensibly for the file, but more probably for the FBI, whom we saw snooping about on several occasions). You will then be supplied with a hydraulic spoon (Spoon with a hose attached) with which you will be expected to remove the blood line from an already gutted and guillotined fish.
The guillotine is a hydraulic knife (Knife that is driven by water pressure pumps) that operated with a foot pedal and has a nice full color picture of a man's hand being severed by careless operation and failure to use safety guards (Which everyone then proceeds to do). A good "Header" can take the heads off of 63 fish per minute. The fish is then unceremoniously shoved onto a router to remove bits of it's neck that tend to get in the way, and then slid onto a "Coastliner" which is a machine for taking out the eggs and guts. (The Coastliner is a machine that replaced the prestigious "Knifer" position. One knifer was known to be able to strike a grader on the head with a catapulted fish heart from 100 paces.)
They are then cleaned by you, the rookie. This process involves the removal of bloodballs and the first membrane that tends to stick to the fish, because during the fish's lifetime, it is essential that this membrane remain attached.
The fish are then graded. The fish scale changes from time to time (Actually it changes from hour to hour) depending on the sobriety of the grader, the quantity of fish yet to be graded, and the expected drunkenesss of the proposed clients.
A good example of this phenomenon is one in which the same tray of fish, in the course of an hour, went from #2 (Slight wounds and sores) to #1 (Practically perfect in every way) to Domestic (meaning, not good enough for the Japanese, so we'll serve them to Americans who don't know any better) back to #2's again, and then finally to "Texas Brites" (Still domestic, but sold to Texas for a Fourth of July feast)
Once graded by these rigourous standards the fish are bunched up by seperate but equal racks in which they will be frozen by huge blast freezers to prepare them for the packing process or else directly packed with ice for fresh shipping.
There then ensues a complicated Fish packing process before the fish are loaded by forklift into the backs of large semi-trailers and shipped off to consumers around the world.
The entirety of this job is accomplished between the temperatures of 20 and -20 degrees Farenheight under the assumption that it's best for the fish (Who, consequently don't give a rip because they're already dead). In order to speed production, the management generously offers musical selections that vary from "The Hip Hop Tape" to the "Metallica Tape". And then they repeat.
Shifts range from 0 hours a day, for disturbingly long periods of time, to 24 hours a day, for also disturbingly long periods of time. All efforts are made to maximise the number of shifts to ensure that, despite the rigourous hours, as few people actually get overtime as possible.
Diet consists of freeze-dried hamburgers and the occasional bowl of oatmeal. This is complimented by occasional installments of doughnuts from the managers (Though this was quickly discontinued as the workers had a dishearteningly strong tendancy to want to eat..."More than one")
After three months, one returns home exhausted, sick, and several thousand dollars richer. In most cases, this money is promptly confiscated by college tuition, and the fish worker vows never to return.
See aforementioned list.
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