Jobs, Jobs, Jobs – Part Four

As a Special Education teacher I had many years of rewarding work with children with special needs. I’ll probably write about that some time, but for the moment I seem to be remembering other jobs.

One was working for Stokes Seeds in St. Catharines. (Thanks JoAnn, for reminding me.) Stokes hired casual workers each Spring as ‘pickers’ and ‘packers’. Most of Stokes’ business was catalogue orders of seed packages. The warehouse had wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves full of packages of seeds. As a ‘picker’, my job was to grab an order and a basket, and RUN through the warehouse ‘picking’ the correct seed packages, putting them in the basket, and then dropping the basket off at the packing department. Grab another order, another basket, etc. It took practice to find the right seeds quickly; some days I was assigned to vegetables, other days to flowers. My shift was 3:00 pm – 11:00 pm.

I could tell you about my sore feet, but believe me, I was one of the fortunate workers who could afford the luxury of a good pair of walking shoes. Others were not so blessed. I saw women (it was apparently ‘women’s work’) with swollen, blistered feet, wearing slippers and flip-flops, the best they could do on minimum wage. I could tell you about my sore back, which at first recovered overnight, but soon did not recover at all. I was in pain (feet and back) throughout my shift. But so was everyone else!

One evening I arrived to find I’d been re-assigned. I was to work in packing! Ah, the luxury of it. Picture a long counter with a row of bar stools. As ‘packers’ we got to SIT! Besides the comfort of sitting, I really enjoyed the job of packing. I was fast, accurate, and apparently very good at organizing and packing the boxes and wrapping them tightly, ready to mail. The person in charge of the packing department told me so! But after three wonderful nights packing, I was re-assigned to ‘picking’.

Devastated, I asked the head of the packing department why I had been re-assigned. She explained that all the jobs rotate and that she has no say in who works in her department.

The next morning, I went to the Stokes Seeds head office and asked to speak to the Personnel Department. 


“May I please be permanently on packing?”  “You see, it’s about my feet....”

“Absolutely not.”

“... and the head of packing really likes my work; she wants me to work there full time.”

“No.”

“Can I tell you about my back?”

My words were falling on deaf ears. (Or am I supposed to say ‘hearing-impaired ears’?)

“This is how it’s done; if you don’t like it, quit.”

“And while I’m here” I said, “may I make a suggestion?”  “Instead of stocking the seed packages alphabetically by name, if you placed the most popular ones on the middle shelves, the picking would go faster and you would eliminate a lot of the bending and stretching needed to reach for the packages, thus reducing the stress on the back, and probably cutting down on sick time.”

“This is how it’s done; if you don’t like it, quit.”

I quit.