Afternoon
I
saw it as some form of achievement to have seen out my first full week at
T.F.L. without throwing myself under a large vehicle like a lorry or a train or
Butch Sue. The second week began with the more social able start of two in the
afternoon, but it took a Monday morning of being wide eyed and aware of the
impending doom to figure out that the early shift was going to be preferable. Nobody
wants to be told of their execution; it is better for the soul if your head is
wapped off from behind, unknowingly. Sulking around hoping that two o’clock in
the afternoon would never come is not a good look. Wide awake and terrified?
Na, I’ll take asleep on your feet, only coming round with the first break. And
so I longed for the early shift when I resembled a slumbering, frozen lobster
lowered into a bubbling pot.
By
the time I’d start work at two in afternoon, the lad trio of law-unto-himself
Luke, Big Dick Ben and ‘Captain America’ would only have two hours left of
their day. Bastards. It was all the more apparent that without them I’d have to
up my quest for new companions.
Britney
did it again and again and again all day, but not without the help of Madge’s
‘Beautiful Stranger’ and Lou Vega’s host of wanton women. Sluts the lot of
them. Probably sipping champagne pool side bolstered from the royalties of
endless factory play while I stank of meat and hoped the end was nigh.
I
packed all day with faceless white topped workers who wouldn’t dare be seen
looking an orange hat in the eye. A time ravaged woman, BitchDeVill, saw fit to
make a non-existent point of repacking one of my so-called attempts as it
whizzed past her on the conveyor belt. She looked at me as if I’d wriggled out
of a week old chicken carcass. She tutted to a colleague, Bitchzilla, who shook
her head in abhorrent disgust.
No
ladies, you are right, tut away. I am scum.
I
had spent all morning loose in civilisation hoping for time to stand still, now
here I was fielding the savage looks of people who could align meat better than
me, hoping for the end of time. Tick...... tock........ tick.......
tock......tick.......... Hey! It stopped! The clock stopped! For a few seconds,
I’m sure, it stopped! Butch Sue! Call the Prime Minister! It is an
injustice.......!
Shania
popped in for three minutes and twenty five seconds to proclaim that she felt
like a transvestite. Again. Bitch. The white windowless walls crept closer and
closer. Those not rooted to the spot wandered hither and thither looking at
clipboards whose non-existent information told them nothing about everything
and nothing. Butch Sue appeared, then vanished and then reappeared to tick
boxes and scour the factory floor for a problem she could doubtlessly ignore.
In, out, in, out, tick, tock, tick box, tock, tick, tock, in, out, suck,
exhale, suck, exhale, thigh, breast, leg, tick, box, tock, orange, white, fade
to black.
Three
pounds and ninety four pence an hour? Sign me up for life.
Wet
Afternoon’s
at T.F.L. were less populated than the mornings and I couldn’t care less why,
it just meant that there were fewer people to call me a ‘twat’ in the canteen.
At least Olwen and Co. were in residence. Emily smiled at me as I sat down. I
think she was, as it is in known in the trade, taking a shine to me.
“What
are you having?” she asked looking at my plate of sausage and chips.
“Smoked
haddock and green beans.”
“You’re
funny,” she smiled. Our high level flirtation was curtailed when Olwen beckoned
over a man with a face like the inside of a poacher’s satchel.
“Hiya
Karl love. Alright?”
“Breathin’.
Just.”
“This
is Tom.”
“You
on sweet an’ sour Ol?” he asked, refusing to acknowledge my existence.
“We
all are,” Jeanine said brightly.
“I’m
on Thai chicken. Can ‘ardly get the machine to pack this afternoon. I’d ‘ave
taken a metal bar to it. In another life.”
Silence.
A scowling woman cradling a Ribena bee-lined for our table and sat opposite me,
two seats down from Karl with Olwen wedged between.
“’Ow
are ya, Joy, love?”
“Alive.
An’ not just from the waist up.” Karl winced and took it into his tea.
“Nice
weekend?”
“Not
really Ol. ‘Ad a fuckin’ pain in my ‘ead for fourty eight hours.” Karl squashed
an escapee pea on the table with a fist.
“My
sister gets migraines. Lavender tea is the only thing that smoothes it. Some
days she just has to lie in a darkened room for hours,” Jeanine said.
“It’ll
take more than that, love,” Joy bit, stabbing the foil straw cover of the
carton, “I’ve ‘ad it constant for twenty two years.”
“That’s
a long time Joy. You should see a doctor.”
“A
lawyer an’ a piece of paper would take it away.” Olwen looked forlornly for a
Jaffa cake, but she’d vacuumed them all. She looked to Karl, but he stared
straight ahead. “Problem with the pain in my ‘ead is that it makes a dull,
repetitive noise, a bit like a castrated bear fumblin’ for ‘is forgotten
balls.” Karl slowly closed his eyes. Olwen looked desperate to depart, but she
was hemmed in.
“I’ve
‘ad pain in my groin for the last twenty two years an’ all,” Karl reported.
“Maybe
you should see a doctor too?”Jeanine continued. Olwen was trying in vain to
lasso her eye.
“That
wouldn’t help. It’s external. Got a pair of claws in my wallet.” Joy sucked the
carton dry as Karl continued, “I’ll tell you what I did at the weekend. I went
to see a marriage councillor.” Jeanine caught the lasso and said nothing.
“Any
good, Karl?” Joy asked, indenting her fingernails into the cardboard.
“A
complete waste of fuckin’ money as it goes, Joy.”
Silence. “Although there was one moment of revelation.” Silence. “The
councillor wouldn’t ‘ave it that we ‘ad nothing in common an’ asked us to think
long an’ ‘ard to find somethin’,” Joy had reduced the carton to a mere ball,
squeezing forth little drops of purple to join the pea green squish, “’I got
one’ I said eventually. ‘Neither of us like givin’ blow jobs.’” Olwen was
gazing so far into her lap that her forehead was almost on the table. Jeanine
swallowed a laugh, but it got stuck and struggled back up so she morphed it
into a cough. Joy, with eyebrows raised and eyes closed, slowly got to her feet
and leant over Olwen towards Karl.
“Go
fuck yourself, you twat.”
Headless pecking
order
Christina
Aguilera was warbling something about wanting a genie in a bottle or that she
had had sex with a genie in a bottle or that she’d built a ship in a bottle and
a genie had sat on it: or something. I prayed that Butch Sue would intercept
and whisk me away to another task, but she was snowed under with continuously
flicking back and forth the same piece of paper on her clipboard and so I
rejoined the turkey steak line. BitchDeVill and her sidekick Bitchzilla shook
heads in tandem, “Yes ladies, I’m back and hopefully more retarded than ever
before.” Bitchzilla intercepted my first tray of turkey and the tone was set.
Are these the women who write into points of view to object that a presenter’s
smile was too intrusive or offensive? Or pen a letter to the Sun entitled ‘It’s
the youth what is ruining the country’? Do they pace their front room ruing all
those trays that were a tenth of a fraction off a perfect formation and spend
weekends prowling supermarket aisles buying up rejects that slipped the net?
Very easily so.
The
character assassination continued as one in four of my trays were intercepted
and corrected when, like a Knight in oddly assembled clothing, William turned
up as drunk as a grouse. He absorbed some of the silent bullying as he arranged
steaks in a care free fashion then dumped them onto the belt, steadying himself
after each one by clinging to the stainless steel shelving. The Bitch sisters
were inconsolable to the point where, after a monosyllabic conflab, Bitchzilla
huffed away to tell tales to Butch Sue. She nodded sagely and was about to
intervene when a clipboard must have called her in the office, because she
disappeared and was not seen again for an hour.
Eat and be eaten
Will’s,
myself and our orange hatted kind were the lowest on the T.F.L. hierarchy food
chain. Savage Ann and the Bitch sisters had done everything in their power to
suggest that a new worker was in fact lower than the poultry. After this the
pecking order was somewhat blurred. Everyone wore a white hat, red if employed
in hygiene, but workers were set aside by varying levels of ‘skill’. Lee, it
would seem, as a meat man was higher up than Savage Ann and co. because he bore
more responsibility. If he was tardy with a delivery, then it affected those
packing below him, but if the machine broke down, then Lee, like the workers
was instantly hamstrung. Therefore the ‘machine managers’ had many below them
by the collective goolies. And they knew it.
They
were the chest out, strutting, spanner tinkers who firmly believed they were
the heartbeat of the factory. Despite all machines being relatively fool proof
to operate and maintain they still postured as if they were bomb disposal
experts placing themselves between life and death. When a product backed up and
armfuls of plastic bound inside its guts, they’d spring into action, tighten a
few screws, tweek a bunch of bolts or just clout the stainless flanks and hope
for the best. Though like any blagger worth their salt they toiled in such a
way as to suggest to the on looking packers that their job required an
engineering degree from Havard and not, as the case maybe, a 75% attendance
record from the technical college, Hereford.
It
was difficult to ascertain if the ‘trolley boys’ were above or below the
machine managers. These guys were the wheels of the operation. They transported
the goods to the departure bay. Although their skill was effectively mastering
the art of walking, they too treated their position with a high calibre. They
may not have been rooted to the growling machines, but they were in charge of
large hydraulic trolleys decorated with a dashboard of multi coloured buttons,
although they only ever pressed two: up and down. They impressed that the
trolleys were ‘not toys’ and in fact, as Stefan told me, far more serious than
that. He caught me looking, tethered up his steed and strode over.
“Impressive
bit of kit, innit?”
“I
suppose, but it’s affectively a piece of metal on wheels isn’t it?”
Stefan
was offended. “Oh, reckon you could ‘andle ten ‘orses do you?”
“I
thought we were talking about trolleys?”
“Over
ten ‘orse power in that bastard.” I looked blank, “ah yeah, not too cocky now
then? She could do some serious damage. In the wrong ‘ands.” And what hands
would they be then? ETA? The IRA? The Herefordian’s Independence party? “You
orange ‘ats are all the same. You get good at pickin’ up a box an’ think you
can drive a forklift.”
“But
that is not a forklift.”
Stefan
was getting restless, “might as well be,” and he stomped away to restrain his
ten horse drawn forklift trolley.
I
see; the forklift was the holy grail. I bet the trolley boy pretenders paused
down at the departure bay and stared in awe at the whizzing professionals
loaded with gas canisters picking up tonnes of bird in one stab. I imagined
that the forklift operatives parked up to break open a Yorkie and smirk over to
their lower placed colleges who could stomach nothing more than a Twirl. I
would have to tread carefully in here. I could see a lot of nerves to be
touched.
So:
orange hat – meat – white hat worker – meat man – machine manager/trolley boy –
forklift driver - .........
So
where did that leave Butch Sue then? The fact that she didn’t do anything made
it difficult to place her. Actually, hang on, of course: the fact that she
didn’t do anything made it easy to place her. Human Resources. Way above everyone
else: on level par with a Colonel. The hirer and firer, the eat or be eaten
and, judging by her size, she’d consumed a fair few workers. There was no one
to touch her. She came and went, ticked the boxes she had drawn herself and all
she had to do was bollock someone once in a solar eclipse and that kept her
head above water. Good old Butch Sue, one of life’s barnacles.
All is Rosey
Destiny’s
Child were being obsessive about ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’ when the mother of the
food chain approached.
“Could
I borrow you, please?” It was one of the phrases that Butch Sue used
continually. It only ever meant that I was being deployed elsewhere, but I
feared for the day when she meant it literally and used me like a towel to dry
between her legs. I was led into an adjacent room and the obligatory glaring
commenced. The room was full of orange ladies both in spray tan and sauce as
they stood around tables covering non descript meat in barbeque flavouring.
“Michael,”
Butch Sue said and vanished. Michael Rose, our box lifting Jedi, approached.
“Turkey
thigh in container, sauce on turkey, container in machine. If you can’t master
that I’d ‘ang yourself tonight.” There endth the lesson. I joined a table and
commenced my task in hand. Rosey was managing the production line, but was also
getting his hands saucey. The flavouring was gag inducing. It was the kind of
sickly sweet gunge that Mr. Blobby would yak up after a night on the tiles. It
came in industrial tubs and was the same colour as my hat. A thigh was dumped
into a container, embalmed with a ladle of Blobby vomit and placed on a
conveyor belt that zipped it along to be sealed by a guzzling machine. A long
streak of sauce down the back of one of the male workers suggested that it
sometimes got ‘spilt’. Rosey came and stood next to me.
“You’re
a rare breed,” he stated. Here we go again, a set up line to be followed by, “a
lesbian without a fanny,” I suppose, but Rosey, to his credit, was not of that
ilk.
“And
what is that then?”
“You
survived the first week. It’s like the Grand National on induction week. Many
start the race, but only a few fuckers finish it.” A peculiar sense of pride
and shame washed over me.
“And
how long have you been here?”
“Too
fuckin’ long, shag. Too fuckin’ long, but I’m ‘atchin’ my escape plan.”
Rosey
was a rare breed himself. Some loved T.F.L. like a forever giving pet, most
used it like a self help manual to make themselves feel special and the rest
were just happy to use it as a shield against the outer world, until the
security of death saved them; but Rosey saw it as a ploughed field, with the
grass being greener on the other side.
I
received his life story condensed into five minutes. He’d been a jockey, but,
by his own admittance, a pretty bad one. No kidding. He was about six foot three
and probably fourteen stone in just bone and sinew. He wanted to get back into
horse racing – one way or another. He and his mate Millsy were attempting to
become race horse owners. He looked up at the clock.
“I’ve
got a meetin’ with ‘im anytime now.”
We
were glared at all the while by a woman who had mugged a clown and made off
with his make-up box. She waited for Rosey to march off and check the machine
and then decided I was ripe to be picked on.
“Orange
hat?” that was me, “you’ll find that break time is for talking.” A standard
worker punching well above her substantial weight. Human Resources material
right there. Rosey returned and Mrs. Happy crawled back into her shell and
scowled out from under its lip.
“I’ve
got a fuckin’ stellar plan,” he continued then returned to the machine that
started to bleep and flash.
“Uh,
what did I say orange hat?” Mrs. Happy asked.
“I
didn’t say anything.”
“You
cheeky little bastard.” She looked horrified, set aside her container and
marched off in the possible direction of Butch Sue. Rosey returned.
“What’s
her problem?” I asked as she disappeared through the plastic strips.
“Ronnie?
Take no fuckin’ notice. She makes my shit itch. ‘Ere ‘e is.”
Millsy
was very much the same as Rosey in build and posture. Another bubbling volcano
of ideas and I don’ts.
“You
rang my lord,” he said in a mock posh tone, “what’s the Jackie?”
“Well
there’s..... the what?”
“What’s
the Jackie?”
Rosey
looked perplexed. “Onnasis?”
“Plan.”
“What’s
the Jackie Plan? What the fuck you on about?”
“Chan.”
“What’s
a Plan Chan?”
“No
you dull fucker. Jackie Chan – Plan. What’s the plan? Cockney rhymey slang
innit, mate? You’d ‘ave been no good in the war.”
The
meeting was off to a flyer.
Rosey
looked around and lowered his voice. “I’ve been thinkin’.”
“Oh
aye, thought I could smell summut burnin’,” Millsy winked at me.
Rosey
pulled a folded glossy pamphlet out of his pocket and handed it to Millsy.
“Read that.” It was the T.F.L. newsletter.
“All
of it?”
“’Eadline.”
Millsy
unfolded it and took a step away from splashes of Blobby puke. “Chicken outwits
worker?”
“Otherside.”
“Maxman
makes it nine in a row?” he read aloud. Rosey nodded slowly. “Who the fuck is
‘e?”
“Chief
exec of T.F.L. in ‘e? Got this mint ‘orse, a stallion, been winnin’ all before
‘im, most successful thing on four legs since The Pet Shop boys.”
“An’
what? We put some money on it?”
“No.
You remember what we were on about yesterday?” Millsy cast his mind back as
Mrs. Happy re-entered the room, shortly followed by Butch Sue. She took up her
previous position and wore the smug grin of a playground snitch. Butch Sue
hovered dangerously by the doorway. Millsy was struggling to remember what he
had had for breakfast, so Rosey recalled their conversation.
I
ladled sauce as Rosey broke away from the thighs. It would seem that Millsy’s
father had recently died, which had upset Millsy greatly, though not through
grief; rather the paltry offerings of his Will. Millsy’s father had lived as
hard and as fast as the racehorses he had owned and had nothing to show for it.
Millsy had inherited nothing, except a retired mare.
Butch
Sue surveyed the entire work shy conversation as I eavesdropped and continued
marinating and then intervened.
“Could
I have a word please?” she asked and I looked up expecting the meeting to have
been interrupted, but Rosey wasn’t drawing breath. I glanced towards her and it
was me she was fingering.
“Me?”
“Who
else?” Mrs. Happy was smouldering with satisfaction. Butch Sue guided me over
to a wall. “What is T.F.L.?” She wasn’t there on the first day of the induction
so perhaps she didn’t know.
“Uh,
a poultry processing factory?” she was un-moved. “Am I in the right area?”
She
leaned into me. “DO NOT get cocky with me.” Butch Sue was fairly humming with
contentment. “It has come to my attention, that your attention,” pause for
double word use recognition, “span has a habit of wavering.” Rosey and Millsy
were now leant on a table away from the production line, deep in meat unrelated
conversation. “We are all here to work and not play. Now you start doing some
work and think about that. In silence.” Good work Butch Sue, well done. Find
something that isn’t broken and sit right on it. She waited for me to return
and vanished. Mrs. Happy broke away from her own conversation to eyeball me.
Rosey
and Millsy chattered on for twenty minutes and the meeting was only halted when
the forever gorging, never hungry machine bleeped and flashed. Millsy bid
farewell and Rosey marched over. He pushed some buttons, yanked at some
plastic, it started all over again and he returned to the table.
“Michael?”
Mrs. Happy asked fluttering her clogged eyelashes.
“What
the fuck do you want?”
“Ronnie’s
absolutely gasping for a tinkle. Do you mind?”
“Piss
yourself dry for all I care,” he bit.
“Thank
you Michael,” she purred, eyeballed me and minced away.
“So,
put the world right?” I asked.
“The
wheels are in motion. We’re gonna wank off a ‘orse.”
Baste
In
the hour up to lunch Mrs. Happy never returned and Rosey foretold of his path
to Gold Cup glory. Millsy’s father’s mare had been an above average
steeplechaser, winning more races than it had lost. It was now to be converted
into an incubator for a potentially promising foal. Maxman’s farm was a twenty
minute ride out of Hereford and under the cover of darkness Rosey and Millsy
were going to sneak into the stable, bring the stallion to climax into a bucket
and then artificially inseminate the mare.
“Have
you ever basted an animal before?”
“Eh?”
“It’s
the technical term for masturbating a creature.”
“Bastin’,
wankin’, don’t matter what you call it as long as we get some seed out of the
fucker.” You had to admire him.
“So
whose drawn the basting short straw?”
“Dunno
yet. We’re gonna ‘ave to toss for it,” he said then marched off to beat the
bleeping machine. I assumed he meant flip a coin, though with these lads you
were never too sure of their intentions.
He
returned and continued. “We’ve already got the name an’ all,” he looked around
and whispered, “Sir Winalot.” A touch premature; let us hope the Stallion is as
well.
“What
is the gestation period of a foal?”
“You’re
speakin’ in fuckin’ tongues now mate.”
“How
long until you get the foal out of the mare?”
“As
quickly as fuckin’ possible.” Excellent. The plan to take the National Hunt
community by the mane was finalised to the enth detail.
“When
is the night of love?”
“This
Saturday. We’ll go down Edgar Street first to watch the bulls, have a couple of
looseners at the final whistle and then make our way there. Stop off for a
couple more pints on the way, bit of Dutch courage y’know?”
A
drunk fondle under the stars? Rosey really knew how to approach a date.
Lunch
There
were six cubicles in the men’s toilets and six sinks. A tall, bony man was
shaving in front of a mirror. A steadily drawn out snore was reverberating around
the room from behind the closed door of one of the cubicles. As I washed my
hands the snore morphed into a series of rapid snorts, something was muttered
and a tapping noise sounded. An empty orange juice bottle slowly rolled out and
the snoring continued.
The
two vending machines in the canteen were crammed with salt and sugar and were
never without business for long. Only a small percentage of the work force
queued for a square meal, though still enough to keep Graham the chef busy with
pan and tongue.
I
selected a table in the far corner bathed in sunshine. The view was of
pre-fabricated offices housing the intelligence of the T.F.L. company.
Two
men wearing ties and blue shirts stood at a window overlooking the canteen. One
nursed a coffee, while the other looked as if he were kneading something inside
his trouser pocket. The coffee drinker nodded towards the canteen and the other
laughed. Behind them desks were laid out in parallel lines. Erratic plants lay
dotted around the floor illuminated by the strip lights above. A short, rotund
lady waddled towards them and spoke as she passed. The coffee drinker smiled
and replied. He watched her go, looked back at the canteen and spoke. The other
tie shook his head, folded his arms and screwed up his face. A svelte lady in a
bottom hugging skirt approached from the other direction carrying a file. Her
ponytail bobbed with her stride. She acknowledged both men and continued on
through a doorway. Both watched her all the way. The man unfolded his arms,
clenched his fists and thrust his pelvis twice towards the window. The coffee
drinker nodded slowly.
Tuesday, 18th
May
Time
did not pass at T.F.L.; it collected. It banked up around the machines and
wedged itself under the roofs. Tonnes of poultry entered the factory naked and
exited at the other end dressed in plastic; but time never went anywhere.
Wednesday, 19th
May
During
an exhilarating period on chicken drumsticks I worked out that I could swim the
English Channel eight thousand, eight hundred and forty five times during the
rest of time at T.F.L..
Lunch
I
returned to the table in the corner on the canteen, but without the sheen of
sunshine. It was a grey day. The trouser kneader was at the window leaning on a
water cooler. He waved a plastic cup elaborately as he engaged the svelte lady
in conversation. She twirled the ponytail around a finger and nodded. He rose
up on tip toe and mimed a flamboyant square cut cricket shot. She released her
hair and placed her hands together.
A
young lady took up a seat next to my table. She sipped some tea and wiped her
eyes. Tears were a common occurrence at T.F.L.. Somebody was forever snivelling
on the factory floor, in the departure day, by the taps or here in the canteen.
A female colleague joined her.
“Just
ignore them,” she said and ran her hand along her friends arm. A broad, older
woman steamed between the tables and joined them.
“What’s
on go ‘er?” she demanded to know, stirring her coffee round and round and round
and round.
“They
just won’t leave her alone,” the counselling friend said and the girl cried
harder.
“Now
you listen to me,” the broad woman snapped causing the girl to look up, “while
they’re botherin’ you, they’re leavin’ everyone else alone. Now you take solace
from that,” she said with a defiant nod. The shock of the sage advice
momentarily halted the girl’s tears. Back over in the office the man’s trousers
and shirt were a much darker shade and the water cooler lay on its side. The
svelte lady’s back was arched in merriment.
Friday, 21st
May
On the tiles
Excitement
had built steadily throughout the week and now on this glorious day it reached
a crescendo. The factory floor was a hub of smiles and laughter. Monday’s were
a stark contrast of bagged eyes and low brows, but Friday’s signalled the start
of the weekend. All talk was about getting drunker than had been achieved the
weekend before. The week’s pressure was going to be relieved all over town and
in its gutters.
“My
liver ain’t goin’ to wish it were born!” Stefan declared to Eddy, a machine manager,
as they postured around his hydraulic trolley.
“We’re
you startin’?” Eddy asked.
“I’ve
got a couple of cans in me locker an’ I’ll bury them before I leave.”
“Me
too.”
“Then
I’ll ‘ave a look in at the karaoke an’ bury a couple in there.”
“Tidy.”
“I’ll
sink a super turbo shandy in the Oxford en route to the Oak where I’ll smash a
double gin.”
“See
you in there.”
“I’ll
‘ave a Strongbow in Jake’s.”
“Yep.”
“A
Smirnoff Ice in the Newmarket.”
“I’ve
read you.”
“A
WKD, no two, in the Imperial.”
“I
knows.”
“Then
into Mazzer’s an’ drink all the fuckin’ lager they’ve got.”
“Not
if I beat you to it.”
Stefan
lowered his voice. “You got any marchin’ powder to get you round the circuit?”
“Sam’s
got plenty. She’ll sport you some.”
“Cock
on, shag. Drug takin’ WILL be tolerated on THESE premises!” Stefan declared
pointing to his face. “I don’t want to remember a thing about tonight, mind.
Not a thing.”
Even
when time was of their own the workers meant to disappear it as quickly as
their bodies would allow.
The
only worker not to show the same enthusiasm for oblivion was Butch Sue. She was
as unanimated as usual. She’d probably already planned a night in whispering
suggestively to a spreadsheet over a chilled bottle of gravel.
Lunch
It
took some acute soul searching whilst on turkey thighs to work out why I didn’t
share the same want for self destruction as the rest of them; because after the
completion of my second whole week of employment I had been rendered
sufficiently immune to enjoyment.
