I was thinking of the type of security like in airports where you have to watch a door. No reading or TV on that job, that’s for sure. And man, it must be mind-numbing boring!
I’ve been working on a plant for 5 years and I can tell you that the types of people you get in plant jobs are people who for the most part are not that smart, have no common sense, have huge ego problems and insecurity problems. The union people usually disrespect the bosses and have no regard for anybody but them selves. No moral value at all and people are just lazy. Favoritism in the plant happens all of the time and nobody follows the rules. And just so people know just because somebody has a degree that doesn’t mean your necessarily smart. If you can, go to college and do something you enjoy for a living. Not all people are bad in plants but there deffinetely are a lot.
This thread has been dormant for almost seven years. Also, don’t paint with such a broad brush.
I’ve worked in plants with production lines for 30+ years and have had to actually trust my health and life to some of these people on the line. I have no problem with it.
In regards to the 7 y.o. OP, when I worked on the lines a generation ago or when I am in observation mode now, in my head I’ve solved all the worlds problems if I became supreme czar. I’ve been “Gilligan” and figured out a way into MaryAnn’s pants. I’ve redesigned every machine I’ve worked on. I’ve preacted out scenarios and discussions I knew were looming (kids & THE sex talk fer instance.) I’ve scored the winning goal in the superbowl. Once the job becomes routine, the mind is free to explore the universe.
Been doing automotive line work for 20 years now. I listen to music and tons of interesting podcasts while my body does the same 10-12 moves over and over again. Yes, I’m sore every single day of my life and well made shoes are important to me. But I burn off so many calories that I can eat what I want (mostly) and the pay and benefits are good.
Do I feel fulfilled and look forward to going to work every day? Hell no. But I’ll be eligible for early retirement in 2 years and I’m gone.
Lots of new hires quit fairly quickly. Surprisingly, lots of 20-something, musclebound young men leave the job after a day or two, but the 5 foot tall 100 pound single mom’s sticks with it. I guess it all depends on how much we value the benefits and decent pay.
Pretty much everyone has “the southern end of a north-facing mule.” My brother, in the stages of retirement as a university professor (and journal editor, and pinnacle mentor in his subfield) has kept a large Campbell’s Soup can on his desk as a pencil holder for 40 years… because his one summer working there was enough motivation to GTF out of that tier.
I am of the opinion that all adults work the same net amount. Some do a tremendous amount of work to get to a level where “work” is comparatively light and even fun. The rest do one day’s worth of work every day of their lives, even if it’s the work to get government support and stay alive at a minimal level. I’ve told all of my kids that: work now while it’s easy, or work hard every day of your life.
My ex was a fairly hard worker, but she never put in longer, harder days than the year she convinced Unca Sam she was completely disabled. :dubious:
There seem to be two kinds of people, with almost no overlap. Those who can go all day with thier mind simply spinning in neutral, who never really “think” anything until some stimulus stirs them to decisive action (hungry - look in fridge - eat cold drumstick).
Other people have minds that are continuously active with thoughts and ideas and wondering about things in linear progression, who can drive a car for 12 hours with the radio off and still never get bored.
People in one group have no awareness of what it is like to be in the other group.
Perhaps to some degree, but that’s not an accurate characterization because it seems to imply that neither group would get bored with dull assembly-line work, and the reality is that typically almost everyone does, though some stick with it for reasons of necessity or mental durability.
I’ve never done that kind of work but a friend worked on an auto assembly line for several years, and I once had a chance to see the plant in operation. It actually looked fun and easy, with the line apparently moving quite slowly and everyone equipped with every possible tool and mechanical assist to make it as easy as possible. To me, the whole place looked spotless, well organized, and efficient.
He told me it was anything but, and the combination of (often) endlessly repetitive hard physical work and often just unremitting dullness grew on you to the point of madness. He said it was the reason assembly lines often got sabotaged – the #1 fear of plant managers because of the extraordinary costs of a stopped line – because it offered a blessed break and distraction, however brief it might be. And the line workers would typically release their tensions with wild weekend bouts of drinking, leading to the (correct) claims about the statistically inferior quality of Monday-made cars due to the number of no-shows and personnel substitutions (and also Friday-made cars, due to the numbers who started their drinking weekends early).
The rent has to be paid and the family has to be fed. You find a way.
I worked on an assembly line as one of my very first paying jobs. It was before the invention of the Walkman and other portable listening devices. Let me just say I would have really REALLY preferred to have that sort of input while doing mind-numbing routine.
How I handled it: I went home every night and no matter how tired I was I practiced my typing. I went from something like 10-15 words per minute and lots of mistakes to 40+ per minute and near perfect accuracy, which was enough to get a job typing in an office that had AC in the summer, heat in the winter, bathroom breaks when I needed them instead of at the employer’s convenience, and I could sit down instead of stand all day. Having a plan to get out of that sort of work really helped me put up with it.
If I had to do that sort of work again I would, but like others have suggested, if permitted I’d be listening to music or language audio or something to engage my mind a bit and make the time go by faster.
I’ve never worked a factory floor, but I worked midshifts in 24 hour military facilities. We were not allowed to bring any reading material in except professional reading or study aids for weekly tests. Other people had tests with 30 questions randomly drawn from a bank of a 100 questions. Because of my position, I had 50 questions per week randomly drawn from a bank of 800 questions. All I did was drill, drill , drill, until about 5-6 am when planes launched then I worked real world for an hour or two.
I think certain people are just cut out for that type of thing. Like people with certain types of autism.
In some ways almost any job can become repetitive.
Consider it good training for when life calls upon you to perform other mindless, repetitive tasks for extended periods of time, like sex.
You might be doing it wrong.
OTOH, he/she might be up to 40 hours a week. 
I did a series of machine operator type jobs in my 20’s. Pure agony. A couple of the machines I operated for years required repeating the exact same movement, each cycle taking about 5 seconds. That’s what my day consisted of. Sundays were filled with dread for the coming week.
I used to get overjoyed when a machine broke down. A chance to leave the machine and watch as the maintenance guys fiddled with it!
I quit one of the jobs (labeling steel parts as they came out of a CNC plasma cutter) after nearly getting into a car accident on the way to work, after which my first thoughts were “damn, that guy didn’t hit me, and now I have to continue on to work.” When I realized I’d rather get into a car accident than work a shift, I quit. Unfortunately that was my first repetitive job, and I did 10 more years (with breaks for school, etc) of them before I was out.
Some of the worst was automotive parts inspection. Our group failed a part maybe once a week, but the penalties for sending a faulty part to the manufacturer were so high that it was cheaper to pay a handful of temps full-time to look for the one defect, than it was to just send the lot unchecked. I bet you a fiver I’ve seen more valve guides than you have.
I don’t work on an assembly line but much of my work involves production, which is in a way like an assembly line. I’ve been doing it for so long now that my muscle memory actually directs it – “I” just happen to be its storehouse.
Some thoughts as to what’s been said upthread:
-
Such work does have a "zen"element to it, which is what initially attracted me. I may be pulled into 5000 different directions during a shift but the muscle memory tasks are my salvation in an otherwise hectic, crazy workday.
-
“The faster you do it the less bored you are”. There is a LOT of truth to this. It takes time to build up to that “fast”, though, and that’s what trips people, especially if their mindset is, “Well, this looks easy, I can do it with my eyes closed!” No you can’t. It may look easy, but there’s a lot of steps to master, and if you’ve never done this type of work before, it’s going to be your stumbling block. Once you master those steps and get a rhythm going, you’ll gradually move faster.
-
“You emerge from this kind of work physically spent but you’re mind still abuzz”. True. Another reason why I do this type of work is to save my mind for for intellectual pursuits as well as my writing. I couldn’t attempt either when I worked in an office because I was literally brain dead as in “If you give me that book I’m going to chuck it across the room because I’ve been STARING at words all day.” My bedside is now piled with books and I work on my writing every single day.
-
Running around is part of my job. It may not be exercise in the purest sense, but it’s exercise nevertheless. Plus I heave a lot of stock, and that’s a workout right there.
I have a friend who works for Ford in a Canadian plant. He said that if there was such a thing as Drunk Olympics that auto workers would sweep the gold count.
Nearly everyone uses some sort of mind altering substance at work, and the guys who chose alcohol were so used to functioning while wasted that they were flawless.
Some of the guys make a decent side wage by supplying the other workers with the pills or weed they use to cope.
I had a summer job in a canning factory, where I loaded cases of canned vegetables onto pallets all day. Thinking back, it wasn’t so bad. I can’t remember what I thought about, but it must have been something. It wasn’t exactly repetition, because the boxes had to be stacked,and there was variation in the height they had to be lifted. (It staggers me when I think that I lifted and moved 20-30 tons a shift, and sometimes worked a double shift.)
To me the hardest part would be waiting for a few seconds for the next box to come down the line. When I play Monopoly on Pogo, there is a 30 second ad break every 3 minutes, and sitting and waiting is infuriating. Once I get on a roll, I want to keep going at a regular pace without interruption.
My husband worked a factory line for eight years. His description of it pretty much matches kiz’s: your mind is your own, and that’s a beautiful thing.
I’ve always had trouble on the boredom front, with basically “mindless” – to be done if one wants to earn – work; of which circumstances forced me in my working life, to do a fair amount. Found various ways to make it endurable. Sometimes, it was assembly-line stuff. The most recent instance for me – quite a number of years ago now – involved security-type work; mentioned in this thread as capable of being equally, or more, boring.
The job was art-gallery security: being present in the gallery, watching the visitors and making sure that they behaved properly and did nothing to put the exhibits at risk – intervening if they looked like doing so. With my not being particularly an art buff – so being in the presence of the arty material, not a significant “plus” – I found the work mostly, agonisingly boring (though I had some very congenial and interesting work colleagues). 95% of the time, nobody did anything wrong; nor did any visitor – as occasionally happened – engage one in conversation (if they did, you were supposed to be polite, answer questions to the best of your ability, but keep it short and not let it become a distraction).
To stay halfway sane in this job; I undertook a challenging verse-memorising project. Half a lifetime previously, I had done a couple of years of Russian at school – subsequently forgot most of it, but knew the Cyrillic alphabet, and could get some idea if it was fairly simple stuff, of what the Russian writer was on about. I set about trying while on duty: to learn by heart, in Russian, Solzhenitsyn’s long World War II ballad Prussian Nights. Suitable for the purpose, because the author had composed the work while set to hard labour in the Gulag: had to do it in his head (no writing materials provided for prisoners), and surreptitiously – to which end he emulated the non-literate bards of olden times, with plenty of rhymes and catchy, emphatic rhythms, in order to aid memorisation. I had the book of the ballad, in Russian (with parallel English verse translation) – sneaked in with me, whenever on duty, the current couple of pages of it, and whiled away the hours by memorising this stuff, in between doing what I was paid to do. I got many pages of it off by heart, before the job came to an end – this was fifteen-plus years ago, and I’ve forgotten nearly all of it now.
Our supervisors patrolled the galleries diligently, making sure that we were doing our work properly: I got (non-disastrously) in trouble once or twice, for engaging in distracting stuff, instead of focusing 100% on the job. “See with head”, that in this, they were right and I was wrong; however, a desperate personal situation had forced me into this work, which I would never have freely chosen – feel that I had some justification in finding a means of stopping me from going screaming mad with boredom / walking out of the job.