Temporarily speaking

I was reading through my post about the temp jobs I'd had and I realised I'd missed a few out.
A few years ago I worked at a plastics factory in Kettering on the 6.00- 2.00 shift. I made black plastic dustbins. And yellow builders buckets. And the perspex "glass" windows for red telephone boxes. And casings for modem units, etc etc etc.

The principle for each of these products is exactly the same. You have a steel mould and some plastic pellets. When subjected to enormous pressure, the pellets liquify and flow into the mould. When the sequence ends, you take the product, examine it, trim off any excess and stack it ready for despatch. If the product is faulty, it's ground down into pellets and re-used.

The products are very hot when they leave the mould, and you can't wear gloves, so you handle them carefully. The dustbins were the easiest because each one took a minute or two to form. The hardest to make were the ubiquitous plastic stacking chairs. I just couldn't trim the seat and fix the metal legs in the time between each extrusion. I was a failure.
I didn't care to be honest. I was a temp, and more interested in my music career. Other temp jobs came along and the plastics factory was taken over by another firm and production moved up north. The factory remains, an empty shell.


Another production job involved making hydraulic and brake pipes for the automotive industry. There are several ways of making them. I started by placing pre-cut lengths of hose onto a jig. These jigs went through a process that hardened the hoses into the shape of the jig. Easy peasy. The next time I worked there I had to dismantle, move and reassemble a roomful of dexion warehouse shelving. It was hard work and awkward to work with, as anyone who has tried to assemble dexion will tell you. Then I was called back to paint a water pipe that ran from one factory to another at about eight to ten feet off the ground. At least they left me alone so I could work at my own pace. Nobody else was pushing themselves, so I didn't either. Then I was an electrician's mate, pulling cable and helping him rewire a factory. He took very long lunches, and so did I.
It was easy work, and fun while it lasted.