Working at Gunstones

My first proper job was @ Gunstones back in the late nineties. Gunstones is a bakery and the dept I worked on supplied sarnies to marks and Spencers.

I remember my first day walking to the oppressive factory looming over me like a bad dream. It looked a bit like Auschwitz but at least there you could hear the odd child’s voice or see a bird flying in the sky.

One bonus was that the smell of fresh bread baking was far more pleasant than the smell of burning bodies. Also, I wasn’t worked to death you could if you want to opt out of overtime.

We were given our new uniform and hair nets and wellies that didn’t fit and would cause someone like me to moan incessantly about workers’ rights.

The walls were white and there were no windows. Everyone looked the same. It was freezing no matter whether it was summer or not. I worked 10 and a half hour shifts.

Boredom was a foe to be vanquished which I felt I lost on a daily basis. I clock watched more than the terminally ill on their death bed.

Luckily I got a lift from a neighbour in his Mini but he would smoke and have his window wound down I used to freeze before I started work. We got there twenty minutes before shift as we liked to get a good spot on the conveyor belt line.

Me and my neighbour liked to start buttering it was pretty easy and you could do it half asleep which at 7 in the morning suited me fine. You would have an hour on each section of the belt. Twenty people made one sandwich. Each person played a role. After buttering you would move further down the belt.

For example if we were making cheese and ham sandwiches the next part would be throwing cheese on like some mad croupier who had gone postal.

not as easy as it sounds those slices of cheese would stick together and if you didn’t keep up you pulled the line and the belt stopped halting production.

You didn’t want to do this as the scorn of your fellow workers would be daunting to say the least. I remember an old lady looking at me with disgust because I couldn’t put tomatoes on fast enough. She looked at me like a racist would look at a black person in a swimming pool.

Ham was easy and lots of fun. You had to “fluff” the meat (no that’s not a reference to porn) make it look nice get some air in there. Then you would spend an hour closing these baps making sure the meat wasn’t sticking out like a pelvic prolapse.

The sandwiches went to a magic machine where some bloke who was paid more to tend the machine felt he had meaning to his life would look smug if he could get the machine to work fast without chewing up the sandwiches.

I was so tired but you had to keep sane by playing games and at 11 every day me and my neighbour would sing Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of our voices. Boredom and insanity gave me new confidence in public singing.

I worked twice here both 6-month stints and to be fair met some interesting people one of whom got me into Hunter S Thompson, Joseph Heller and J D Salinger.

There were even worse monotonous jobs than what I’ve mentioned. I used to get cramp from putting cold chicken onto a sarnie for an hour and a half. Destalking tomatoes wasn’t fun and I’m happy I never had to debone the salmon.

I also was victim of a prank when I asked our female chargehand if we had any Canisten cream.

All in all good times “Arbeit Macht Frei” indeed.