"You my nigga," Larry said, patting me on the shoulder as I feverishly stacked rows of big brown corrugated cardboard boxes. It was my second day and apparently my work ethic had been making a favorable impression. It had to -- I needed this job. Two weeks earlier I had been laid off from another local factory where I had endured five years as a metal fabricator to pay for school. Now I was beginning to work as a temp in a place that manufactures cleaning products and markets itself as a "family company". Like any industrious "family" whose product is "known the world over" it is very selective about who it lets into its company. The permanent production workers belong to the family, then there is the lowest level that consists of temps, the half-way house flunkies and desperate seasonal college kids hired to watch product production for next to nothing. It's all about the allure of something better, that's really how I got myself in this position. I had thought that this job would be a just a short-term experience until I found an entry level position in some media-related field. Now, all I look toward is stability, a pay wage that doesn't continue to get lower, and maybe a polyester shirt with a blue patch that has my name stitched in white.

Four months earlier, I was receiving an artificial leather binder that supposedly held my ticket to a decent paying job, and, of course, ultimate happiness. My post-punch drunk eyes focused on the guy handing me my diploma -- the same guy from career services who, when he heard of my major in mass communications, sighed, shrugged, and sent me elsewhere. I turned my tassel, signifying the end of a $32,000 four-year transaction that left me a penniless free agent.

So who are the coworkers of this successful recent college grad? Kem, a midget decked out in a shinny Adidas track suit, who has wide-flying monkey eyes, sporadic facial hair, and is moving epileptically as he repeats the words: "I'm the Daddy of the Mack Daddies" along with the radio. Kem decides to get off the Soul Train, and he joins me as I stare at the product descending on a conveyor. We observe as the rectangular blue boxes move by us on their way to be sealed, dated, and put into trays with their brethren. There are three other lines running around us. The disharmony of bells, alarms, and yells echo in our ears all day long. After my fourth cup of coffee and a Snickers, my eyes were propped up enough to notice that we still had nine hours left. Kem explains to me that we, the only two white males among our fellow temp workers, were brothers only in pigment -- that he "kept it real". Kem had grown up on hard streets of our Wisconsin town, in a neighborhood where the paint, if there was any, was usually peeling and was what the locals liked to refer to as "the ghetto." Kem, in an effort to shock me, revealed that he had been drugged and molested as a child. Also wanting to appear that I could "keep it real" if needed, I began to conjure up a sordid tale of deflowerment. "My grandma...she, when I was fourteen, --," I began, in the hopes of outdoing his knowing look of world weary torment, "she took out her teeth and then she --" It was right about then that our other co-workers had begun to moan because their I'm-gonna-grind-on-your-this-and-bump-on-your-that song had been interrupted because "some dumb muthafucka drove a plane up in the World Trade Center." While they had a feeling that it was one of them crazy white boys who shot up the schools, I wanted to wager that it had been someone who must have worked in another place like this.

There is an unspoken cardinal rule in the factories I've worked in: "You only deserve clean drinking water and most times you're lucky to have that." This is the working class mentality that has been instilled in me by my various co-workers while doing skilled and unskilled labor in the two distinctly different factories that I have experienced. The need, regardless of where my co-workers have done their time -- the big house or third shift in a slaughter house -- to turn anything into a battle scar competition, has shown me some of the major differences. Skilled laborers have various levels of ambition. They typically have some mechanical know-how, come home covered in filth and often earn their paycheck while taking years off their life doing intense physical labor. Depending on how seriously they take their job, they think its more than just passing time. These are welders, mechanics, and construction workers, among others.

Unskilled labors, like where I now work, fall into two camps: 1) the I-need-money-this-is-good-enough and 2) the-why-the-fuck-should-I-care-I'm-still-making-money. Having a pulse and being able to pass a piss test are the major skills necessary and one of the two can be faked. Granted, there are those of us with feet in both camps but if you have any sort of self consciousness or work ethic you feel guilty when sitting for twelve hours has left your ass so sore that it leads you to wonder if hemorrhoids would be considered a work related injury and if it qualifies you for worker's comp.

I say little at work. However, being quiet gave me the skills of translating my coworkers. For example, in a rare conversation, my junkie co-worker Tommy asked, "Timyougotanykids?" What this really meant was: "Iwanttwentybucks." Answering that I didn't have a family or child support payments made me an attractive mark. You see, unlike my other co-workers, I was the only one who didn't have children, hasn't spent a night in jail or has/had an addiction.

Upon graduating, I strived to hopefully do something with myself that had some value. I wanted to contribute positively; I wanted to do something that had a purpose. Packaging cleaning products was never a clear part of my life plan. In the factory, I worked in an area where we produced in bulk a big cloth mitten that was alleged to have a cleaning agent on it. And what does this fine product do? It's used to pick up dust with much of the same effectiveness of say, one of my old socks. During the course of the day I was either putting the product in the never-ending parade of trays, inspecting the boxes as they passed on the conveyor, or stacking finished boxes. A mason lays brick and that results in somebody having a place to sleep. I fill boxes with an arbitrary cleaning product for lazy people.

"Tim, you ever punch a muthafucker in his head while he asleep?"

"No. Why would--"

"Ta see what happens, yaknowwhatamean? Doez he get all lumpy n' shit. Or doez he juz bruise up."

"Like does he wake up?"

"Yeah. Yeah, you getting' it, you getting' it."

This is a typical conversation with "Crazy" Chris. It doesn't matter if it's the half hour car ride at five-thirty in the morning or as he buzzes in my ear as we work together on the line, he coughs up tobacco-stained, incompressible gibberish and I silently nod. Chris will openly tell of his split personalities "Chris" and "Charles". He is "Charles" when he means business, and, of course, "Chris" is more of his everyday face. According to him it was "Charles" who lashed out at someone with a lawn mower blade when he was drunk. "Chris" alleged that there's a police report to back this up. What brings us together is that his Caddy had ceased to cough and wheeze its way to work and I started playing taxi to make some extra Christmas money. The money paid for two weeks gas and most of the time I enjoyed the company -- unless the money was late.

"Snoop Dogg got people off crack cuz he raps about the chronic. I know he dun that for me. But, I gots to have me a lil "Happy Smoke" to get me right in the morning, ya know what I mean?"

It was also around this time that the economic slow down had begun to effect what had been the booming success of the cleaning mitten that we mass produced. Snake, the head of the department, told us that we would be needed sparingly until about mid-January when hopefully things would pick up. Snake advised us to file for unemployment so that we'd see something for Christmas. This concept sat poorly with me. Wasn't this why I went to school? So I wouldn't be this kind of statistic? These thoughts were floating through my head at break, as I looked at the local classified ads. Sitting across from me jawing at his usual breakneck speed was Karl, a preacher in training who had a weakness for inhaling various barbiturates and sometimes liked to mix them while at work.

"Hey. Substitute teaching. I could do that," I said, noting the ad. Karl stopped heaping his orange with salt and stared at me. Rolling his eyes up to the Lord to help my poor dumb soul, he decided to take a time out and explain like he felt he had to with all of the classic junior high dirty jokes that he regularly told me.

"You can't do that," he said.

"Why not?"

Again, his eyes went skyward and upon their return sent me a glare that said: "Silly Cracker, that's job for smart people".

"What," I said, "I've got a degree."

"Haha... From what-- junior college?"

"No. Four years." Karl's bulging eyes hemorrhaged from their sockets.

"I...You? You, you can't... I, I didn't know," he said.

"You never asked. And, you know, I got your fucking jokes. I didn't laugh cause they weren't funny."

Soon after that I had a brief stint as an enigma where I was asked to interpret astrological signs, fix computers, and provide legal counsel for those with a parole violation. I was the Madam Cleo of the factory's department -- too bad there wasn't a 401K to be gotten. While I expounded my private theories on how to cauterize a knife wound, Kem, stood in front of me and begged my feedback on the evolution of his "Thug Mug".

"Does this say: "I ain't-yer-baby's-daddy-so-take-yo'-broke-ass-some-where-else'," he says while furrowing his brow, ears shifting upward as his pug nose protrudes and his eyes sink to slits. Kem's second attempt nearly renders him cross-eyed, but instead of feeling terrified he conveys discomfort, as if he has discovered a nagging pebble in his shoe.

Later, Larry brings me a crossword puzzle and wants to know if I could help. "You went to college," he said. "This ain't shit, right?" I didn't know what an eight letter word for a portion of Iberia or a three letter word for intrigue. I did know Burt Reynolds co-star in Smokey and the Bandit.

"You paid all that money, went to to all them classes. Got you a degree..."

I nodded.

He asked what it was I hoped to do and I repeated my speech about the media related job I wanted where my skills could be further developed.

Larry shook his head. "Maybe you in the right place after all," he said.

The struggle to find any semblance of a permanent job continued with the same pains as the pile of frank rejection letters from film production companies, T.V. stations, radio stations, software companies, fringe hobby magazines, clothing catalogue departments, ad agencies, cable stations, offices, and other entry level jobs continued to grow. I lacked "the qualifications and work experience" to be an intern, an office temp., an assistant associate video producer, an associate editor at a hardwood floor magazine, a field investigator, or even a jelly bean counter at a Jelly Belly factory. Some places were considerate enough to send a rejection letter, most refused to communicate in any form. I had begun to reconsider my skills. What again were they? Composing a resume worth looking at requires carefully worded experiences, skills, and traits that scream potential. I am the facilitator, liaison, procurer, and, of course, team player that anyone would want among their staff. Sadly, there are only so many ways to stretch the character development learned from mind-numbing dead end jobs.

On this particular afternoon we have been told that there will be layoffs, which has not slowed any of the guys from playing Blackjack for their paychecks. As I watch them throw down cards in frustration, I solely am doing everyone's job. I fill the trays, respond to buzzards, grab deformed products, and stack the finished package. Larry's words once again fill my head. You my nigga. And I realize how all along how right he was. Before we left for the day, Snake broke the news to me that because I was lowest in seniority, I was out of a job. As I walked to gather my things I looked around at everyone, their dull eyed stares hiding the relief that it was me and not them. I wanted to scream "Me? ME?! I can pass a piss test. I haven't gotten any sores from sitting. I haven't shown up drunk or called from jail. But, but...I have a degree!" Because they understood, Chris and Tommy bought a case of beer which we drank as I drove them home, and thirty minutes after that I flopped on the couch, too numb to move.

As I lay on my mom's couch, eating Mint Chocolate chip ice cream from the carton, I pulled the blanket of self-pity up over my eyes, and then the phone rang. It was Tommy. He said I could have my job back if I wanted. I did. The next day upon my return I heard how this door of opportunity had reopened. One of the guys, Reggie, had been taken in police custody while at work; he had escaped from a local jail a few years ago. Two counties worth of undercover cops had surrounded the area, and, as the police drew closer many of my old co-workers had put their hands behind their backs with nervous anticipation.

As I write these words I am ten hours away from being laid off for the fourth time in nine months. In the two months following Reggie's arrest and my return, my job's uncertainty has been on the line every week. I was almost let go last week, but because Chris didn't show up from what we later learned was a crystal meth overdose, he ended up being the one. My employment balances on the whim of a suit who has never set foot in our work area and to whom I am merely a number being crunched. When did the future stop being a promise and start being a threat? This whole experience reminds me of a prank I use to participate in as a kid. I hung out with a group who lived to terrorize the neighborhood. One of our favorite things to do was to use plastic bags to pick up dog shit and then smear it under the door handles of neighborhood cars. In the morning as we walked to the bus we'd watch with nervous glee as our unsuspecting victims emerged to go off to work. Even as kids we had an inkling of how the system worked, sometimes shit is just waiting no matter how good the day looks.

We're a generation that wants the results. Ask us how and we'll cop an answer, and whine as we put in the grunt work. We expect to have at least what our parents had and screw you if you say we can't. We don't know how to do the work to get there, but at least we know what we're worth. After all, we're entitled, right? A college degree doesn't equate security. It doesn't entitle a nice car, a surround sound stereo, or even a paycheck. In college we were handed sticks and sort of shown how to rub them together, and that's where it stopped. You get out of it what you put into it, and with any luck, something can be made from that. The challenge comes in finding something where we can derive value or at least decent wages if we can't find our worth at work. I suppose it's all chances we take and where we find whatever it is we're looking for -- just hopefully it won't turn out to be a stinky mess smeared all over our hands.