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- 13
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- 19
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To start from the beginning, when I first started in the back room, I knew there were problems. I knew that the Dept. of Agriculture had already visited us and cited us for a long list of problems. I knew that we had been paying off the Health Dept. for some time now. I knew that there was mold in the ceilings, because I was the one to clean it. I knew that there was mold in our food, because I was the one who made it. I knew that we let things sit for days before packaging it in paper for the freezer. I fought against these orders as best as I could, but that only made me a target for corporate. Telling me how my uniform was wrong, how I was doing everything in my job wrong, when just a week earlier they were the ones that told us to change it. I knew that place was going to shut down, it was just a matter of when.
Corporate was an entire problem on their own, making us change things on the fly because the demand hasn't been the same since the pandemic hit. Product didn't move as fast as they wanted, so it was put into other items; new sausages, meatballs—"Home Made!" We raised the prices higher than anyone around us to try to balance out our demand, but that only pushed more people away. No matter how much we screamed we were better then the rest. We weren't, at least nottruly. in any way that mattered.
In short, I wasn't surprised that the meat and grocery store I worked at shut down. Not for the safety and health concerns. Or even the constant loss of money that every one of our stores had become. Everyone around us did at least something to the same extent, if not worse. But it was our meat. I don't know if everyone around us got the same stuff we did, but ours was certainly not normal.
I swore I've seen it move, squirm like it was still a pulsing piece of muscle being used despite being separated from the carcass for at least 3 days. I swore I could look into the bone of a pork shoulder and see it stare back. The meat I cut and tore with my hands squirmed, moved away from me in the cold, eternally damp room that I worked in tirelessly. The deer we got when hunting season started didn't move like the pork and the beef did. And I know these things weren't from being tired, there were never enough hours in the back. Overstaffed as we were, I was lucky to make 36 hour weeks—not that it was much of a complaint, being someone with such a busy life.
If the moving out of the corner of your eyes or the subtle squirming as it wrapped around your hands wasn't too bad. If all of that wasn't enough, I know for a matter of fact that the meat we got felt things. Emotions. Just like me and you. I came to this realization, past the odd moving and the occasional feelings of being watched from a muscle with no eyes, when I was cutting up a piece of pork. I could feel the pulsating vitriol of hatred. Pork is a slightly acidic meat, and it can hurt your fingertips when you work with large amounts of it in a short amount of time. I hadn't touch anything before I touched that pork shoulder, and I felt the fiery hatred filled pain shoot through my fingertips when I laid my hands on it to hold it down to cut it. I cut it down into tiny bites. Much smaller than ever should be necessary. So much so that when my boss asked me what I was doing, I could only answer "Being thorough." And what was worse, is that he understood. He knew what I was talking about, how the emotions of the meat that we butchered into edible pieces for the masses transferred through pain and hatred.
I am glad that place is no longer. When we locked the place down for the last time, I knew it was going to be hard for a lot of people to find community again. So I had us all make a group chat so that we can update each other and keep in touch. It was chaos all the time on there, arguments from work still effecting the way people lived their life. At least, it was until a week or so ago. But nowadays, there's nothing, not even a response from the occasional check in I give. When I go to check on their profiles, they've all been active within the past few days, but no posts or anything for months. When I go to reach out for to them individually, I either get no answer, or I am blocked. I don't know what happened to my previous coworkers, no one who worked there really had much of a life anyhow. Maybe it's time I move on too, and forget the years I wasted at that place.
Corporate was an entire problem on their own, making us change things on the fly because the demand hasn't been the same since the pandemic hit. Product didn't move as fast as they wanted, so it was put into other items; new sausages, meatballs—"Home Made!" We raised the prices higher than anyone around us to try to balance out our demand, but that only pushed more people away. No matter how much we screamed we were better then the rest. We weren't, at least not
In short, I wasn't surprised that the meat and grocery store I worked at shut down. Not for the safety and health concerns. Or even the constant loss of money that every one of our stores had become. Everyone around us did at least something to the same extent, if not worse. But it was our meat. I don't know if everyone around us got the same stuff we did, but ours was certainly not normal.
I swore I've seen it move, squirm like it was still a pulsing piece of muscle being used despite being separated from the carcass for at least 3 days. I swore I could look into the bone of a pork shoulder and see it stare back. The meat I cut and tore with my hands squirmed, moved away from me in the cold, eternally damp room that I worked in tirelessly. The deer we got when hunting season started didn't move like the pork and the beef did. And I know these things weren't from being tired, there were never enough hours in the back. Overstaffed as we were, I was lucky to make 36 hour weeks—not that it was much of a complaint, being someone with such a busy life.
If the moving out of the corner of your eyes or the subtle squirming as it wrapped around your hands wasn't too bad. If all of that wasn't enough, I know for a matter of fact that the meat we got felt things. Emotions. Just like me and you. I came to this realization, past the odd moving and the occasional feelings of being watched from a muscle with no eyes, when I was cutting up a piece of pork. I could feel the pulsating vitriol of hatred. Pork is a slightly acidic meat, and it can hurt your fingertips when you work with large amounts of it in a short amount of time. I hadn't touch anything before I touched that pork shoulder, and I felt the fiery hatred filled pain shoot through my fingertips when I laid my hands on it to hold it down to cut it. I cut it down into tiny bites. Much smaller than ever should be necessary. So much so that when my boss asked me what I was doing, I could only answer "Being thorough." And what was worse, is that he understood. He knew what I was talking about, how the emotions of the meat that we butchered into edible pieces for the masses transferred through pain and hatred.
I am glad that place is no longer. When we locked the place down for the last time, I knew it was going to be hard for a lot of people to find community again. So I had us all make a group chat so that we can update each other and keep in touch. It was chaos all the time on there, arguments from work still effecting the way people lived their life. At least, it was until a week or so ago. But nowadays, there's nothing, not even a response from the occasional check in I give. When I go to check on their profiles, they've all been active within the past few days, but no posts or anything for months. When I go to reach out for to them individually, I either get no answer, or I am blocked. I don't know what happened to my previous coworkers, no one who worked there really had much of a life anyhow. Maybe it's time I move on too, and forget the years I wasted at that place.