Why, you ask? What makes me so damn special that I can claim that all of you would envy me? Simple.
I work in a lip balm factory.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking,
“Bouv, ya idjit! I like to use the stuff, not manufacture it!”
Well, yeah, but here’s the kicker…I get all the damn free samples and seconds I can carry out the door!
OK, so techincally, it’s not a lip balm factory, it’s a hot pour lip and skin care product manufacturing facility, but the main products are lip balm and lip glosses. I started working there last week as a summer job before I start grad school in the fall. It pays pretty decent for work that isn’t hard…just very repetative. In the past two weeks I have loaded tubes onto a conveyor, put tubes in boxes, put boxes in boxes, put stickers on boxes, assembled boxes, put stickers on different boxes, and assembled those same different boxes. Oh, and as a huge change of pace one day I got to screw caps onto small containers. Highlight of my week, that was. And my first couple of days was rather amusing, as I first had to pack “Mint Julep” flavored lip balm, and then pack “Appeltini” flavored lip gloss. I have expected to be packing “Scotch on the Rocks” body butter the next day.
But back to the free stuff. You see, we make products for many retailers. The compnay used to have it’s own brand of products as well, but sold that a few years ago and now only manufactures for other companies. Some of our clients include Victoria’s Secret, GAP, Bath and Body Works, and The Body Shop. And every so often we make more than we need to, or a few thousand of them get run off and we find out later that they weren’t up to spec, and so they get dumped into the “free sample” boxes near the front door. These are large boxes, and have so much crap in them that they still have stuff that gets thrown away after a month becuse not enough people take it. So I’ve been helping myself to a few peices each day. Too bad most of the stuff is rather girly (I have about a dozen tubes of Victoria’s Secret sparkly lip gloss,) but some of it is gender-neutral. So if there’s a dopefest in the next few months, youi’ll know I’m there if everyone is walking around with lip balm and lip gloss. 