10.24.95
Day Two at 112-09 Jamaica Ave., NYC
Today I sewed like a possessed woman. I sat on a stool, not even a chair. Yesterday at least I had a back on the chair so I could lean back and stretch. But today, I had a hard wooden stool. I sat nonstop for about 3 hrs. I believe then I got up to stretch, and my knees buckled from underneath me. I couldn't walk. The stool coupled with the constant peddling I had to do to operate my machine made my legs freeze into a locked position. My knees wouldn't bend. My butt was extremely sore. More graphically, my butt felt like I had been sitting on a stone slab and it had molded onto it. It ached, it throbbed. My shoulder blades were numb. My back was going out from the constant bending over. I pricked my finger a couple of times re-threading the machine that I felt like one more job and I would be bleeding all over the sweatshirts. My legs were numb. Every part of my body was numb. After a while, even my mind stopped functioning. My sole objective was to push myself to finish my batch. Just one more, just 2 more, 3 more. Keep at it. The monotonous drone of the machines behind me added to my complete shutdown. I had become an extension of the machine. I was a machine. No longer a thinking human being. I was there to make sweatshirts. That was all. I couldn't think. I lost all track of time and how many garments I had sewn. The only indication of the passage of time was the slowly depleting pile of unfinished clothes next to my stool. I was heartened by the ever increasing load of sweats I finished and placed to the right of me. Left, pick up an unfinished sweat. Pick up the sleeve. Attach. Drone, crone, drone, behind me. Attach the cuff. Make sure its even. Attach the sleeve to the body. Drone, drone, drone, the machine keeps going, check the seams. Throw finished sweat on pile at right. Pick up next sweat on left. Attach, sew, check. Attach, sew, check. Attach?Drone, drone, drone. Monotonous, the constant monotony. No human contact. No eye contact. No conversation. Can't turn around and smile encouragement to the others. There's no smile on the other end. No eyes lifted above the machines. Everyone staring at their machine, their work. Sew, check, sew, throw, get another. Oh God.
Then I try to get up. My legs are brittle. I get stares from people when I get up. I sit back down guiltily. No one is getting up. Back to the grind.
1PM rolls around and a couple of people leave. About 4 people. The rest are there. They never leave. There is no food out. The ones who didn't leave for lunch never take a lunch break. They were there before I got there this morning and were still there when I left. Not a bite to eat, not a sip of water all day.
My back is killing me. I feel like it is going to snap in half. I can't take a deep breath because every time I do, I feel a searing hot pain in my right back. My butt is so sore. It feels like I have been beaten. My legs feel like I have just run the marathon. Twice. I can still barely walk. This is after 9 ½ hours. The others have worked for longer.
I doubled my workload today. That made me so happy. I walked over to Nancy after I had finished my 150 sweats. All done, I say. I smile. She looks at me with disgust. "Done? Finally?" Finally??? Finally?? No, "Oh, OK good. Do some more." No words of encouragement, acknowledgment.
At one point during the day. Nancy came over to my station and put down piles of finished goods in front of me. Actually, she sort of dropped the pile. Clouds of dust flew up from the bales of clothes particles flew up my nose, into my eyes, dorm my throat. She sees me frantically waving away the dust. "Sorry," she says grudgingly. It's all my fault I am too sensitive.
Oh my back! My back is throbbing.
At the end if the day, she tells me I am too slow. I say, sorry. I'm new. I will get better. She tells me I have made $10.50 altogether. Wow. She gives me some more work to do. I ask her if I can leave. She looks at me incredulously. I back down. Oh, sorry, sorry. I will do it. I feel so guilty. So embarrassed that I was tired, my eyes were bloodshot, my knees were buckling. My calves were cramping yet I kept pushing myself on and on and on. I couldn't stop. After all those hours to have only made $10.50 I needed to do more, faster. No more breaks. Just sew, sew, sew, sew. I'm so tired I can barely think. Did I leave anything out? Maybe I will remember more later.
The final insult, after all this, all the humiliation you ask? The "finally" comment, the glaring from Nancy, telling me off because I didn't sew a sweat properly to her liking, the guilt from stretching, the stares from the other workers, when I walked up and down trying to get some feeling back into my legs and back, the way no one met eyes with me. After all that though, I get fired. Fired! I doubled my workload. Doesn't that count? I worked and worked and worked. And at the end of they day, after earning $10.50 plus the 24 extra I did?she fires me and tells me to come back in two weeks to pick up my money.
I feel I am repeating myself. I am going to stop now. I still can't walk. My legs are stiff. I have not eaten in 12 hours. I am beyond tired. I am exhausted to the bone.
11.3.95
Day I Try to Get Paid
I get to Nancy's at 10:39 to pick up my pay. She tells me I came too early and I need to come back in the afternoon. What am I supposed to do? Wait eight more hours for $11.00? She refuses to pay me then. What can I do? I have to leave. She tells me to come back later, or Saturday or Monday. I've wasted a morning getting out there. If I had come by subway. I would have spent $2.50 going back and forth and an additional $2.50 to get out there again. That's half my pay.
11.10.95
Today, I went to Miss Chu's under the recommendation of Hector.
She was in a high rise building in Manhattan on 40th Street. I
walked into a huge factory. There were about 50 people working.
I got ushered into Miss Chu's office.
Hello, I say in Korean. Hector sent me and I'm here to work. She gives me a blank stare. My heart sinks. I repeat Hector, Hector. She says, "Oh! I thought you were Chinese. I don't need any more Koreans." Well, I thought. That's a strange explanation. I said, "Well, I'm here to work." She says, "I have all the Koreans I need. You see. I have Korean doing better quality work and pay them more. But I thought you were Chinese, so I thought I would use you for lower quality work. But I'm very slow right now and don't need anyone."
Oh great. I think. Another rejection. I see no point in standing there and arguing the point. So I take her card and leave.
I'm frustrated that I can't find work. All this leg work, connections, just doesn't seem to matter in this industry. Are they really not busy? Or just feeding me a line? Two days of toil and nothing to show for it. No work, no pay. Its starting to eat away at my confidence. I feel like begging her to let me stay. I'll do anything. But I can't. There's no use in begging her to anyone. Just got to be there at the right moment.
11.14.95
Today I go out with a new found determination. Its a new week
and I'm easier to find a job at whatever cost.
I get to Manhattan. I go to a random floor (5) and start knocking on doors.
"Am looking for a job, I want work." No, No, No, Doors slam in my face. Some people afford me the courtesy of apologetically letting me down. They smile at me and say, "It's slow." Some places, they don't even look at me. The just shake their heads and reply, "No, no jobs," and try to brush me away as though I'm an annoying fly on their arm. After a couple of rejections. I finally hit a place which begrudgingly allows me to at least sit down and show them my skills. I am nervous. During my travels in the building, I came across so many people doing exactly what I am doing. Pounding on doors. I didn't realize how competitive it was to get a job as a machine operator. I am nervous that I won't even get the job.
I sit down and start sewing. I make a couple of mistakes in the beginning, but the managers are understanding. I start to relax, but not totally. I make yet another mistake. Another operator happens to glance over to my machine and catches my mistake. Her face fills with horror and stops my work. "No, no! Tsk, tsk." She calls over to the manager and shows her what I am doing. She tattles on me. The owner say's, "I'm sorry. I don't think I can hire you." I am humiliated. I pick up my bag and say, well, thanks for giving me a chance. As I walk out, I hear the woman who tattled on me telling everyone in a loud voice that I had made a mistake and how on earth could I ever even think about working on a machine like that. I had made the mistake of sewing the seams slightly askew. It wasn't even anything major like the seams were all crooked. My face is burning and the door seems so far away. I get to the door thankfully and escape. I am embarrassed. Will I even find a job?
I hit another building-again and again I hear the same excuses. No work, it's slow, check back again later on. I bump into people in the stairwell who crisscross my path. I smile at them encouragingly. I am going through the same anguish as they. Some smile back. Others glare as though to say, "Oh no, not another person we have to compete with!"
At the end of the day. I have a couple of leads. One man told me to come back tomorrow. Hope he will hire me. Please let him hire me. Oh please. I need a job.
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