The History Of Me

Gobble, Gobble

My day job is an electrician, and thanks to this economic crisis, my industry has slowed to a crawl. Check Craigslist for electrician, and you’ll see a ton of them looking to do jobs for you at substandard costs. I would even go so far to say that electrician is the new masseuse in the Craigslist world of bartering.

That being said, my company is having a hard time placing me on a project. I’m a project foreman, and I tend to find myself managing large scale, high stress, tight scheduled jobs. Right now that shit just ain’t happening. We do have something in the works, awaiting a contract. Project in question? Butterball turkey plant. They want a new fire alarm system, not that it would do them much good. The plant is a fucking accident waiting to happen.

During my three day survey, I found a larger amount of “not an exit” signs opposed to the more sought after contradictory sign. If a fire starts, most likely, you’re screwed. Rest assured though, your soul can occupy an afterlife populated by the thousands of butchered turkeys that gave their lives for our societies carnivorous nature. At present time, however, the turkey slaughtering has been contracted out, and I wasn’t privileged enough to witness any activities that would put me on PETA’s shit list.

Of course, my inquisitive nature required me to research the plant online. For the record, I am not an animal activist. With the exception of eating them, I don’t particularly care for them. My wife has two cats. She had two others, previously, and it took fifteen and eighteen years for those little fuckers to die. And when they finally did, she replaced them with younger versions. Hence, I am destined to live my life with these little freeloading critters that offer absolutely nothing to the quality of life in my home. She had a snake once. Dead. Hamsters. Dead. Fish. Dead. A Bearded Dragon. Thankfully dead. I didn’t get a chance to eat any of them either. A waste of space, in my opinion.

I’ve already been called insensitive by friends, so save your breath. I have a buddy who is ex-Army. He was in the first gulf war and he cried like a baby when his dog died. I wanted to tell him that there’s a million other ones just like it, but felt he wasn’t in the mood. Regardless, just like my wife, he did get another one. A smaller cuter “another one,” and I’d bet money that it does the exact same things as the dog before, or the neighbor’s dog, or your dog. They bark, eat, shit, run, lick,and so on.  Same with cats. Sure there are minor differences, but for the most part they’re identical. The only pets that seem to have a noticeably different personality, are the ones who’ve been abused. Of course, they shake and hide and freak out just like the other abused pets, so scratch that. Basically, you have abused and not abused. You decide which one fits your personality.

OK, so how does this tie into the turkey plant? Spoiler alert: They killed and abused the turkeys. Now, I would imagine that if it was your full time job to slaughter turkeys that you would be a tad insensitive to their feelings, but, during my research, I uncovered some fairly upsetting information about the practices at this location. Apparently, the workers, while attempting to hang the turkeys by their legs on a conveyor system, would do such things as sit on them, smash the heads of the “out of control” ones on an adjacent wall, and stick their fingers in the occasional turkey pussy. In short, the turkeys fall into the “abused animal” category. Kinda fucked up. Dead animals don’t bother me. We all die. Abused and tormented animals: a different story. After all, they do feel pain, and I can tell you first hand that pain sucks a little. I’m not a big fan of it.

So, anyway, Butterball doesn’t let us take camera phones, which pretty much includes all phones, into the building. Workers wear hardhats and hairnets. There is a strict “colored smock” policy that hinders access to parts of the plant. Don’t even get me started on the “inedible room.” Thank Christ that I only have one fire alarm strobe in that room. All in all, not a happy place.

I also found out that this location has laid off about four-hundred, almost half, of their employees. It is still operated by Butterball, but has been purchased by some Mexico based frozen food company with some Mexican name that I don’t care enough to look up again. This leads me to believe that this isn’t exactly the best project for my company to invest in. Chances are, we won’t get paid. I’ve relayed this information to my project manager, and he seemed quite intrigued by it. I can’t say I blame him, but he really could have investigated it himself.

Basically, I give the Butterball Turkey Fire Alarm project two wattles down, and I hope that we don’t get the contract. I don’t like being unproductive and struggling to get a full paycheck, but I would welcome unemployment before I would justify working at this facility. As I said earlier, I’ve spent three days there. Today I am sitting at home, no work, no pay, but Butterball-free and happy.