This is another room. It has lots of dush
One job I worked in college was at a screenprinting shop. I found the ad on Craigslist, I think. I had broken my shoulder about ten days before when I tried roller skating outside of a party. The arm was still in a sling and I was taking Hyrodcodones but I really really wanted a job that wasn't retail or food service and screenprinting is pretty cool. I took the bus to the interview and I took the sling off on the bus and put it in my bag so that they wouldn't decide not to hire me because of my broken shoulder. I was kind of lucky that it was my shoulder because they can't put a cast on it so you can get away with pretending it isn't broken.
The interview went fine but the guy Dale seemed to doubt that I could get good at screenprinting (it's kind of a guy's job). He had me pick up one of the palettes that you load the garments on and he warned me it was heavy. It was a little heavy and normally I could do it fine but I had a broken shoulder that I didn't tell him about so I could barely lift it. After that he took me over to the embroidery machine and that was something I could do. Lifting my arm up high to load the thread still hurt but I passed and he ended up hiring me.
I had two co-workers aside from Dale, who mostly was not in the shop because he went around selling Santa Cruz shirts and hats to local liquor stores. There was a woman who handled the clients and a big dude who did the screenprinting. On breaks they would hit a bong they kept by the microwave but I never did. It made me a little nervous because random people would come in sometimes to buy stuff (like the shirt that was the Coors Light logo but instead of Coors Light it said Santa Cruz) and it often reeked of weed. They were nice, though, and one time the screenprinter guy saw me walking to catch the bus as he was Ubering to work and had the driver pull over to pick me up, which was awesome. After awhile I also got Snow a job there and I didn't tell Dale we were dating. I said Snow was my friend and a "real great guy". Snow got hired to help with the screenprinting but eventually Dale told me to tell Snow not to come in any more. It was maybe because Snow asked for PPE because the chemicals gave him a cough but Snow also didn't know how to screenprint, which Dale knew from the beginning and wasn't his fault.
In our warehouse complex there was a company called Feejays that made pajama onesies that had feet and mittens built into it. It sounds like fucking hell to wear, like it would just be awful, but they were mildly successful and had a storefront downtown. We did printing on the Feejays and they were the worst. After you ink a garment you have to lay it flat on what is basically one of those giant conveyor belt pizza ovens. I helped with that part when we were really busy. The little feet wouldn't sit flat and I'd always burn the stupid little toes cause they got to close to the heating element. Sometimes it was just a little burned so I wouldn't say anything and just fold it and put it away.
We also did these embroidered logo jackets for a company called Joby. They would bring in these Patagonia jackets that were at least $100 a piece and have me put the logo and some other stuff on it. It was annoying because it had these straight lines stitched onto it so you had to be super precise or else everyone would see it was off. Worst of all, because it was made out of this stiff nylon material, you couldn't undo your mistakes. With most fabric if you mess up the stitching you can carefully pull it all out and start over, but the nylon stuff was unforgiving. I messed up one really bad on the arm and made a big hole that looked like a cigarette burn. The girl who worked with the clients took a sharpie and colored the white fluff inside black to blend in with the black jacket and tried to pass it off. The client lady noticed but she said it's okay and she took it home and fixed it herself on a sewing machine. Later my coworker told me that Joby was a startup that was working on doing what Uber does but with helicopters. I was getting paid about $12/hr at the time which was a dollar above minimum wage, and I was happy with it.
There was also a judo gym that we shared the building with and for some reason we had to use their bathroom because we didn't have one. They had stalls and I'd often bump into kids in there because they did classes, which was fine. The gym smelled really weird though, hot and humid and sweaty and like feet, so I'd go to use the bathroom and get hit with hot, humid stink. One time I nicked myself on the embroidery machine needle and bled a bit on a the white garment I was working on. I rushed it over to the hot stinky bathroom and washed it out with handsoap.
It was a warehouse type neighborhood so there wasn't much to get for lunch if I forgot to bring one. The only option was a 7-11 down the street. This led to my first time trying a hot pocket. Instead of just eating hot pockets, though, I got into this weird habit of having a Slim Jim and one of those canned Starbucks espresso and cream drinks. They tasted weird together but I ate it all the time.