Something was burning. Whatever that smell was, it wasn’t bothering Alan. “It’s not an easy job,” he told me.
+++++The smell was bad enough that I was having a hard time focusing. “I’m not afraid of hard work,” I said. “And I need the money.”
+++++“You need the money,” Alan agreed tiredly. Nervous as I was, I must’ve said that line a dozen times already. “Mittelsohn Metals does one thing and one thing only. We take material and make it into metal parts. We don’t care what it’s for. Boats? Planes? Elevators? We get a contract, we fulfill it. You, having zero work experience in the industry, will be putting boxes onto conveyer belts. These boxes are extremely heavy.”
+++++I shifted in the metal chair behind Alan’s metal desk. Everything in the facility was metal. That was a natural consequence of working in this industry, I supposed. “Will I be needing forklift certification?”
“No,” he said. He chuckled. “No! You should see the layout of the room you’re in. It’s awful. I don’t know what moron designed the floor plan, but there’s no way you could fit a forklift back there. You’re lifting with your arms.” He bobbed his head at my torso. “If you’ve got a gym membership, cancel it. You’re not a big guy, and you’ll be getting all the exercise you need, from eight to five.”
The burning smell was beginning to sting my nostrils. I had lied to Alan. I was afraid of hard work. But I hadn’t lied when I said that I needed the money. I wasn’t about to say no. “I’ll do my best. Who’s giving me training?”
“No training needed,” Alan said. “Boxes will be set out by the night shift. You’ll go in, pick them up one by one, and set them on the conveyer belt. If you run out of boxes, take a breather if you want, and send for more boxes.”
“Just lifting boxes,” I said.
“Just lifting boxes,” he replied.
Doing what I could to hide my nerves, I stood up and shook Alan’s hand. “Show me the way, and I’ll get it done.”
My workspace was a narrow hall. The conveyer belt stood on one end. An erratic stack of hard wooden crates stood on the other. The burning smell had grown worse back here, and the conveyer belt never stopped moving, releasing a metallic whine. When Alan had walked me here, I hadn’t seen any other employees in the facility. He left me in the space alone.
I felt unease. Why were these boxes left here on one side of the room? Whoever had set them there could have simply put them on the belt for me. I dismissed these thoughts as anxiety around a new job. With a grunt, I bent down and picked up the first box.
It was absurdly heavy. Something rattled noisily inside. With thudding footsteps and burning muscles, I shambled my way across the workspace and set the box on the conveyer belt. I stopped to wheeze. Then I went back for a second box. There were at least a hundred boxes, and the second was just as heavy as the first.
When I set it on the conveyer belt, my finger got caught underneath it. I yanked my hand back, but blood already ran freely. Grimacing, I sucked the finger and went for a third box.
Was I lifting raw materials, or completed metal parts? I had no idea. The boxes were featureless save a small red stamp marking them property of Mittelsohn Metals. Every box weighed exactly the same. Every box resonated with that same rattle. The stench of fumes was giving me a headache.
I don’t know how much time passed. I’d stopped counting after the eighth box. I must’ve lifted close to thirty when the door opened.
A young woman stood there. “Are you the new employee?” she asked.
I stopped myself from lifting another box. “Yes. What’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem.” She walked into the workspace. “I was wondering if you wanted some help.”
“Help?” I tried not to look tired. “I don’t exactly need help, but if you’re offering, I won’t say no.” I would’ve done anything for some help. At this rate, I wasn’t sure if I’d finish all the boxes by the end of shift, but then again, there was no clock in here, so I couldn’t be certain.
The woman’s mouth made a smile. “I can lend you a hand, but we’ll have to trade.”
I studied her. She was one of those people where you can’t quite decide if they’re attractive or not. It felt like every moment I spent scrutinizing her, I changed my mind. “What trade? What’s your position here?”
“Oh, I don’t mean trading jobs.” Her mouth continued to smile as she gestured toward my stack of boxes. “I’ll finish out your shift today if you give me something of yours.”
“Like what?”
“Six strands of your hair,” she said.
The woman had said it so casually, I was sure I’d misheard. “Pardon?”
“Give me six strands of your hair, and I’ll finish your shift.”
“Why six?”
“Because I want six.”
I ran a hand through my hair. I regretted it, because my finger hadn’t stopped bleeding. The wound kept opening with every box I lifted. I’d be lucky if it had a chance to form a scab. “What do you want my hair for? Are you going to take my DNA and clone me?”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” she said. “To clone yourself and make him do all this work?” Her mouth kept smiling.
With an exasperated sound, I touched my hair again. “Alright,” I decided. I counted out six strands of hair and plucked them. I held them out for her.
Her smile grew teeth. “Thank you.” She took the hair and put it in her pocket. “You can sit back. I’ll take it from here.”
I went and sat against the back wall of the workspace. Straight away, the young woman hefted a box into her arms and carried it up to the conveyer belt. She must’ve been stronger than she looked. Her breathing hardly changed after her second box. Perhaps she was attractive after all, I decided. I didn’t mind watching her work. The smell of the fumes faded away from my consciousness, and I forgot about the squeal of the conveyer belt.
“You’re really going to finish out the whole day for me?” I asked her.
“Absolutely.” Her tone was chipper, carrying no sign of exertion.
“You’re not going to get me in trouble, are you? I can’t lose this job already. I need the money.”
“Everybody needs money,” she told me, as if that was meant to explain something to me.
Time passed, and I watched her march back and forth, back and forth. The woman must’ve gone into something of a trance, lifting and carrying without any change in her expression. I suspect that I went into something of a trance too, because before I knew it, the stack of boxes was gone, and my shift had ended.
“Thank you,” I told her. “I mean it.” I felt guilty, but from what little of my shift I’d done, my muscles were already scheduled to start aching in the morning.
“Don’t feel bad,” the woman told me, reading my mind. “I’m always willing to help, for the right price.”
I’d forgotten about the hair until then, but decided not to dwell on it.
The next day, my finger had a brown scab on it. I drove to Mittelsohn Metals, passing by Alan’s desk.
“Back again?” Alan asked me, a teasing glint in his eye. “I was worried you’d give up after a full day.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” I told him, which wasn’t quite a lie.
“Well, get back to it. Every day is easier than the last.”
I stretched my aching muscles, certain he was wrong. I walked to my workspace, where the conveyer belt whirred and the mountain of boxes had been replenished. Questions returned to me about who had set the boxes here and what was inside them, but I pushed these thoughts aside, bracing myself for a proper full day of lifting.
She came back before I had the third box in my hands. “Hello, again.”
“Hello,” I said. I decided that if she offered to do all of my work for me, I’d say no.
“Would you like a hand?” the woman asked.
“You can lift with me,” I told her, “but I’m not letting you do all of the work.”
“Why not?” she asked, tilting her head curiously.
“It wouldn’t be fair. Don’t you have your own job to do?”
She said, “It’s fair if I say it’s fair. Let’s trade, and I’ll do the full day for you.”
I tried to ignore her for only a moment to lift a box. My arms didn’t want to cooperate with this one. I could barely get it off the floor. Giving up, I asked her, “What do you want, then? More hair?”
She put a finger to her chin as if pretending to think. “Not hair this time. I want a bit of your fingernail.”
“My fingernail!?”
“Just a little trimming.”
“I haven’t got any nail clippers on me.”
“That’s okay. You can pick it off with your thumb, can’t you?”
I looked at my finger, the one with the scab on it. My fingernails were getting somewhat long. “I should do my own work,” I told her. I tried again to lift the box. I was embarrassed by how quickly I gave up, but I stood and said, “Alright, have it your way. You can have a bit of my fingernail.”
I picked at my nail and gave her the result.
“Thank you.” She put it in her pocket.
I took up the same spot as yesterday, sitting against the cool metal wall and watching her work. She had no difficulty whatsoever lifting these boxes. I was jealous. And frustrated.
“Hey,” I said. “You never told me what your job is around here. Your actual job.”
“Do you care?” she inquired.
I was in a bad enough mood that I said, “No, I guess I don’t.”
“Good.” She was pleased. She went on lifting boxes and setting them on the conveyer belt. As I watched, the smell of the factory fumes made me sleepy. I wasn’t a lazy person, was I? No, I wasn’t. I was simply somebody who’d taken advantage of a good trade.
The boxes disappeared, one by one. Time passed in a blur. She finished the work, I gave her my thanks, and we went our separate ways.
On the next day, Alan gave me the same joking greeting. “Back again? Still not giving up?”
I must’ve been feeling more guilty than I realized, because I risked blowing everything. “There was a woman who helped me with my work yesterday,” I told him. “Do you know who she is? Did you send her?”
Alan furrowed his brow. “A woman? Who?”
“I never learned her name,” I admitted.
He laughed. “Well, there’s not many women who work here. That certainly narrows it down. What department is she in?”
“I’m not sure. I was just wondering if you’d sent her to help me.”
“No, I did no such thing. It’s important to me that new hires learn to build some work ethic, you know?” Alan seemed a bit troubled. “What’d she look like? Maybe I can place a name.”
I opened my mouth, but I drew a blank. The woman was so ordinary in appearance, I found it impossible for any specific trait to come to mind. “It’s not important,” I decided. “I only wanted you to thank her for me.”
“Thank her yourself,” Alan said, losing interest.
My arms were feeling better, after barely lifting a thing yesterday. This time I would refuse the woman’s help. If I got caught letting somebody else do my job, I’d surely get fired. I needed the money.
Yet there she was. The woman was standing in my workspace when I came through the door. She was right in the middle of the room, staring forward with a smile fixed on her face. “Hello, again.”
“I’m not accepting your help this time,” I told her.
She pretended to look puzzled. “No? Why not?”
“I need to do my own job,” I asserted. “And you need to do yours. I have to get used to finishing my own shift.”
“Why is it important for you to do this?” she asked. “This is a stupid job. You shouldn’t have to do this in the first place.”
“I need the money.”
“You need the money,” she echoed, as if I’d said something foolish. “You really don’t want my help? You haven’t heard my offer yet.”
“What do you want this time?”
She pointed at my hand. “I want that scab.”
I raised my injured finger. The scab was a couple days old now, not quite ready to come off. “My scab?”
“That’s right,” she said. She didn’t seem to find her request strange at all. Of course, she hadn’t found the other requests strange either.
I was so baffled that I didn’t bother to question her further. Instead, I turned to the stack of boxes at the end of my workspace. The stack looked bigger than it had before. I could hear the conveyer belt squealing its high-pitched note. “Fine,” I said. I picked at the scab. Getting it off of my finger was painful, but the pain was nothing compared to a full day of lifting heavy boxes.
Because the job was stupid. And why would Alan care if somebody else did my shift for me? If the work got done, what did it matter which sucker did it? This woman’s requests were strange, but I wasn’t going to miss out on such a good trade.
She took my scab and put it in her pocket. Then she got to work, while I sat and watched.
I was messing it all up, I knew. I needed this job. This was going to turn into a big mistake.
“Back again?” Alan teased on the following day. “Say, you ever remember that woman’s name?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”
And the woman was standing in my workspace again, waiting to offer her trade. She had now gone three days without doing her own job, and was prepared to give up a fourth.
I asked her, “What will it be this time?”
Her mouth smiling, she raised a hand and wiggled her pinky finger. “I want the tip of your pinky.”
I flinched. “Pardon?”
“I want the tip of your pinky.”
“You want my finger!?”
“Just the tip, from the last knuckle up. I’ll get the rest of it later.” Her mouth remained smiling, like this was a mean joke.
I glowered at her. “You’re taking this too far.”
“Am I? It’s only the tip of one finger. It doesn’t have to be from your dominant hand, either. Do you really need the tip of your pinky?”
“But what do you want it for?” I pressed. “Why did you want my scab, or my fingernail, or my hair? What do you get out of it?”
“For me, it’s a fair trade.”
“It isn’t! How is a scab worth a full day of lifting these stupid boxes?”
The woman asked, “But would the tip of your pinky be worth it? Would that be a fair trade?”
“I’m not cutting off the tip of a finger.”
“No? It’s not as hard as you’d think.” She had something in her hand. It was a box cutter. “The bone in your pinky isn’t so thick. Cutting off the tip would be far easier than lifting all of these boxes.”
I looked from her to the boxes. For a fleeting, crazed moment, I considered taking her box cutter and prying open one of these stupid boxes to see what was inside of them. “I’m not doing this,” I told her. “You’re crazy.”
She put away the box cutter. “Suit yourself. But I’ll be here in case you change your mind.”
“What?”
She gestured at the stack of boxes. “I’ll watch you work today. And when you change your mind, we’ll trade.”
“And if I said yes, what would it be tomorrow?” I challenged. “My toe? My ear? A whole arm?”
She shrugged, as if these were each rational prospects.
Angry, I turned to my work. “Just stay out of my way.”
I picked up the first box. I had forgotten how heavy they were. Had they gotten heavier since my first day? Or had I somehow grown weaker? I made it to the conveyer belt, setting the box down. The woman stood against the wall where I had sat in the past, watching impassively. When I lifted the next box, I made sure that I did not grunt, nor show any sign of strain. The squealing of the conveyer belt grew more obnoxious by the second, and the burning smell in the air made me dizzy.
By the time the fifth box hit the conveyer belt, my body was screaming at me to stop. I knew that I wasn’t going to make it to the end of my shift. I doubted if I could get through even half of these boxes. Somehow the way the woman was watching me made this harder, knowing that I had a way out as soon as I said the word.
When I set a sixth box on the belt, my finger caught underneath it. The same finger, caught in the same way as before. I swore and sucked the blood. It was bleeding a lot.
If I couldn’t lift these boxes, then I would lose my job. I couldn’t lose this job. I needed the money.
As I stood there sucking blood, scowling at the woman, she was looking back at me.
I contemplated my pinky finger. I really needed this job.
[Image Credit : Photo by Nick Moore on Unsplash]
by 
Bravo!
A brilliant metaphor for outsourcing if you wrote it in the 90s, and a brilliant metaphor for AI right now.