Stories that land

Tomoike-san’s shift by the conveyor belt

A factory job paid Tomoike-san 8,000 yen a day. His task sounded simple: keep an eye on a machine.

Before the story

Comedian Tomoike-san (友池さん) recalls a factory job during the summer and year-end gift seasons.

A job that sounded easy

Tomoike-san here. I had this job that paid me 8,000 yen each day.

During the summer and year-end gift seasons, cardboard boxes of things like nori seaweed came down a conveyor belt. A machine went CLUNK and stuck white tape on them. My job was to watch it for malfunctions.

Do nothing. Just watch.

I thought it would be easy. There were breaks, but for seven hours, I was watching that endless CLUNK. I was so bored, so bored… I started feeling sick.

I couldn’t even use my phone.

Because there was someone whose job was to watch whether I was watching.

He’d make his rounds, and if I was on my phone, he’d come rushing over: “What do you think you’re doing?”

So he was spending seven hours watching, too. Watching me.

The lucky moments were when the tape machine malfunctioned.

I’d call someone from the factory on the intercom, and they’d fix it. Neither I nor the guy watching me did anything.

After New Year’s, that job was gone. I asked the temp agency:

“What happened to that job?”

They said: “Labor costs piled up. The company went bankrupt.”

White rectangular boxes on a conveyor with a blue belt and green frame, against an ochre background.

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