Amazon staff toiled in 100°F+ warehouse
Temps stretchered out, local paper reports
I recall working at Stewart-Warner back in the summers of 1980 and 1981 when it got well over 90 (and quite possibly over 100) on the production floor…and the welders still had to wear their helmets and full body coverage clothing.
I recall working any number of summers in the construction business when it was easily in the ’90s every day for weeks.
I also recall working in an un-airconditioned warehouse for a couple of summers in the early 1980, and driving un-airconditioned cars all summer for years.
I call wimpage.
5 Replies to “Wimps.”
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Somewhat related: When I was in high school, football camp and band camp happened the same week (first week of August, hello heat rash), but in different parts of the school.
My junior year, I remember us band kids dragging ourselves off the parking lot and into the cafeteria for lunch, lugging our homepacked coolers full of PBJs and carrot sticks and empty bottles of Gatorade, covered in dust and zinc oxide … and the football team was already seated in their half of the room, crisp and cool in pristine polo shirts, being served pizza by their mothers. It was “too hot” outside, so they’d been watching films all morning.
We lost all respect for the football team that day. Never did get it back.
Back in my Freshman and Sophomore years in College, (paying my own way, with a tiny supplement via an ROTC scholarship) when I was out of money and rent was due or groceries were scarce, I was doing day labor…
The task I hated but was assigned more times than I could count was working in a scrap metal processing yard…
Imagine, if you will, suiting up at 7:00am on a May, June, July or August day in North Florida with work boots, 2 pairs of socks, long jeans, t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt, coveralls, respirator mask, work gloves and hard hat, and climbing into a railroad boxcar…
They would close up the sliding door, open 3 roof hatches and put a big blower output in one hatch and started blowing shredded aluminum into the car.
I had a snow shovel and my task was to shovel the shredded metal into the ends of the boxcar.
Every 55 minutes they’d shut off the blower for a 5 minute break- the shift supervisor would look down one of the hatches and make sure I was still alive, and then it would start again at the top of the hour.
I have no idea what the temp was but it had to be over 100 by midmorning…
I got a massive 35 minute lunch break at midday, then finish out the day around 5:30.
I was usually able to fill the car to capacity by the end of the day, and would get hoisted out of the top hatch …
I don’t know what they paid the labor company, but I made a whopping $7.60 an hour…
It killed me to find out much later that they usually put two guys in each car. Being the big ol’ boy I was, the company loved that they could pay half the price to fill up the car when I was on the crew.
Good times…good times…
I wonder if that job is still available?
I could really use that workout now that my metabolism has gone to Hell.
TBG
We never had air conditioning in our house growing up. My bedroom had North and east windows, so it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. My mom hated fans, so we never had one.
I roofed my way through college – commercial roofs. Try standing in 90+ heat on a shiny metal roof while laying down 180 degree tar.
When i worked in the plastic injection molding factory the average ambient temperature in the factory was 93 — year round. In the summer it was often over 100.
We are raising a generation of crybabies.
Yeah, we didn’t have AC till 1966ish. And my room, like yours, was the NE room and always cold and hot at the wrong times, even with AC and central heat…
It’s not just that kids today have never been without air conditioning — it’s the idea that kids should never be exposed to hardship, ever. Hence, they never develop into anything resembling a reasonable human being.