Stickers

When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I never once thought to myself "I'd really like to stick stickers on bottles in a large warehouse full of strange people," and yet these days I find myself dragging out of bed early every morning to go do just that. It's the temp job I've found to keep myself busy and the funds from reaching critical levels until I leave for basic training.

It's really not so bad. The people keep it interesting. I feel pretty certain that my supervisor hates me. She doesn't have authority to fire me, and I haven't done anything to warrant dismissal, so I don't care. I only started to sense her distaste for me when the first day she made an error (stuck some of the stickers on upside down), and then pinned the blame on me by saying things like "I don't want you to feel bad about this. Everyone makes mistakes, and you're brand new here, so I just don't want you feeling guilty about not doing this right." Since I hadn't been at all involved in the sticking of those stickers it really hadn't even occurred to me to feel bad, or guilty. I decided not to bother protesting or correcting her, and elected to remain silent.

The next day one of my coworkers made an error (this time the stickers were crooked) and over his loud declarations that he was the culprit of the crooked stickers, she announced to the team that I needed to be moved to another sticker duty because I wasn't cutting it in my current position. I again elected to remain silent and report to my new sticker station. Later that day she made an error that I felt compelled to point out, since it was sort of a huge mistake. Let's just say that after consulting her calculator to confirm that 11 rows of 8 boxes does in fact equal 88 boxes, rather than 99, she told a coworker in Spanish (because she erroneously assumes that I can't understand her) that I should no longer be allowed to package the products up because I make too many errors. The thing is sometimes I think I should maybe say something, or defend myself a little, but I really just can't seem to care enough to bother with it. I've decided there are very few things I can't do when there's a light at the end of my tunnel. My days at the sticker factory are numbered, so if telling people I suck at sticking stickers on bottles, and packaging products makes her day, why bother fighting it?

The crooked sticker guy is outraged by the whole thing, and told me that some day he's going to come to work and warn me to leave the building so he can burn the place down. He's also told me that every day he wants to stab our supervisor with his little utility knife. I guess I should just be glad I'm on his good side.

I also take my breaks with an odd little group of men. One has taken to talking incesssantly about his desire to live in Orange County so he can surf, but also fears that he will never get married because he hates Orange County women. Although from what I can gather he isn't too fond of Utah women either. He says we're not "real." I say "we" because ladies, I'm pretty sure he thinks that women in general aren't "real." Then there's our buddy with the chipped tooth, and tatted up arms who announced during lunch the first day that "I'm really not a good person." After telling me all about his most recent stay at the county jail over today's lunch break he told me that he does not actually consider himself to be a bad person. To be honest I'm not sure why he shares this stuff with me, but it sure makes lunch a lot more interesting.

Despite these little adventures at the sticker factory, the most exciting moment of 2011 thus far was tonight when I saw Kody and second wife Janelle from Sister Wives at Barnes & Noble. I stared, Kody saw me staring, I didn't stop staring.