Dear Humanity,

Dear Humanity,
Why, oh why did we create a society in which menial labour is a necessity? Now, I'm not talking menial labour in the sense that I'm supposing most of you understand it. No, no. I've worked shit jobs before, who hasn't? But there is a distinct difference between a shit job and a menial job.
Let me paint a little picture for you. Imagine that you wake up at quarter to six in the morning. The sun is not up. You pull on your clothes; anything you find on the floor will do. It's cold, but you don't bring a jumper. Where you're going not only will it get hot, but your status is so low there's nowhere for you to put your things. Those pigeon holes in the kitchen are not for you, and you better not forget it.
Imagine yourself shuffling up the slope from your dormitory; there are people with you, but no one has much to say. The job you're going to do doesn't exactly inspire lively conversation. Or any conversation for that matter. Your destination is a fruit packing factory: apples, nectarines, peaches, pears. Other fruits whose names you can barely speak out loud without cringing anymore. Fruit has become your enemy. You hate the fruit.
At half past six exactly- any deviation from this time will result in an absolute bollocking- you take your place in an assembly line; in front of you is an endless and almost perpetually mobile conveyor belt looping around the factory floor. It starts up with a dishearteningly healthy whir. The fruit begins to come towards you. You have a box next to you. Your job is to fill the six plastic containers in that box with apples. There is a particular method to this packing, depending on the size of the fruit: seven apples down the bottom, eight on the top or some variation thereof. The top must look like a flower, the visible portion of the apples should be red. And so it begins.
There is no conversation, the machines are too loud, and almost everyone is plugged into their ipod. You have learnt that a fully charged Ipod will last you the necessary hours, but only if you turn it off on the few times the conveyor belt gently slows to a stop. By this point you have stopped looking at the people around you, it's too depressing. Faces are unwaveringly blank. Eyes are glazed. It is as though you come to the factory and die, your barely animated corpse taking your place for the hours you spend there. You hope everyday that you will reach some transcendental zen-like state. You hope that the menial labour will allow you time to think, to day dream, to digest. It does not. The tiny amount of brain power it takes to fill those boxes correctly stops you from thinking of anything but fruit. You have been dreaming of fruit for days now. When you finally leave you feel as though your soul has been left in that factory, gently twisting around the floor, on a conveyor belt that smells sweetly of apples.
Now imagine, for a moment that you are destined to repeat this until four in the afternoon five days a week, unless you can get yourself transferred to another job. This, my friends, is menial fucking labour.
Sincerely,
Helenahandbasket