I have a colleague who knows I have a degree not only with a journalism theme, but yet another degree that actually studies the rubric, the workings of the trade. This colleague, is a kind and thoughtful person. 

    "I can introduce you to a contact person who works for a media company," my kind and thoughtful friend said. 

    Knowing life is short and sweet, and remembering a thousand missed opportunities, I said, "Let's go." I had visions of movies I had seen with hansom and pretty journalists tracking down a story and exposing the bad guys. So, in the middle of the night we headed off to the media company production building.

    The contact at the media company was a beleaguered figure with sunken eyes, wrinkled, weathered face, gray hair, just a bit hunched over, yet rather buff in an odd kind of way, perhaps it was the hands and arms. The hands of the contact looked like a farmer's who used to handle an old horse-drawn plow - muscular and calloused.

    "Can get y'all in," the calloused-hands contact said rather matter of fact. 

    Product haulers, advertising delivery drivers, sales people, and paper carriers are in and out of the joint all the time, so we fit right in the chaos; publications and advertising sat stacked to the ceiling of the sports arena sized building every where. It is a state of the art building - not that old - designed before anyone realized the Internet would destroy vast areas of the publishing, music, and advertising industries. It looked like the set of a science fiction movie; shiny machines with ubiquitous robotic attachments sat integrated with computer screens and flashing neon control panels.

    I expected to hear about the vast intricacies of the modern publishing business, but I was taken aback like being splattered with some vomit by a drunk outside a bar. 

    "Let me tell you something," the calloused-hands contact said. "They run this high-tech place with the same hillbillies that came from the old building. The floor manager looks like a member of the Charles Manson family - acts like one too." The calloused-hands contact continued, "The Manson-esque floor manager is a smoker and if there is a job open, opts to hire friends and smokers. If you are a friend and smoker you get multiple breaks per night. If you are a non-smoker, you get shit." The contact went on, "The Manson-esque floor manager runs the place like a cult. The Manson-esque floor manager was once a tech person who was promoted via The Peter Principle, never having had a day of official supervision training that any one can remember." 

    The calloused-hands contact smiled a sad smile and said, "None of my co-workers would know what The Peter Principle is."  

    Then the calloused-hands contact looked off into nowhere and said, "Some times the Manson-esque floor manager gets bugged-out eyes and hollers at all of us in incomplete sentences regarding nothing actually going on, and then goes out and smokes."

    I looked at my kind and thoughtful friend, and the quiet response from my friend was that this calloused-hands contact person had a couple of college degrees and not to judge the comments too quickly. The calloused-hands contact was working in the crappy job because being up in age toward 60, no one else would offer a job. The calloused-hands contact had a shell shocked look and did not seem to notice my friend's comment regarding the same contact's resume.

    "We work all night, when we work," the calloused-hands contact said. Then the calloused-hands contact continued, "People come in here to work tired. Some work other part-time jobs during the day. Many have little kids at home. People just don't have their heart in this shitty work, and that is dangerous around all this equipment.  It also lends for a work environment where people will not speak up if they see a mistake happening.  And we have thousands of dollars of time-sensitive product that we work on at any given time.  Hell, if we were back in the 'Nam, we would all be dead before the night got half over." 

    The calloused-hands contact looked sad for a moment and then continued, "They never use the same work schedule twice so we are always working different nights than the week before. The schedule comes out on Sunday night - so we have no time to plan our personal lives for the weeks ahead. The place is run mostly by part-timers. That causes an environment where few people know what is going on at any given night. There are dozens of publications to print, and some are daily, some are semi-weekly, some are weekly, some are monthly, and on and on. So, if there is no one person keeping track, it gets ugly. The foreign language publications are heavy and often take longer than assumed.  Everyone is expected to stay longer than scheduled to finish the press runs - as if no one has a life to go home to."

    After a pause with a pained look, the calloused-hands contact said, "Lift seven tons of product a night - and at 58 fuck'n years old. The printing press people are union, and run the press a hundred miles an hour. The product flies out at us and it is hard to keep up. They see us struggle but don't seem to care, they blast out the product and then either take their break or go home. 

    The calloused-hands contact pushed on and said, "We take the printed product and insert it with advertising, fold it, sort it, stack it, package it, or all of the above.  The lead production person is an obsessive compulsive manic depressant and runs the machines fast.  Being in the middle between the union press people and the obsessive compulsive lead production person, and then trying to appease the Manson-esque floor manager makes coping rather, well..., challenging."

    That was the most positive thing the calloused-hands contact had said to that point.

    The calloused-hands contact labored on with the tragic comedy dynamics that now were becoming ever more painful to listen to, "Never use the state of the art break room. If you are lucky enough to get a break, and try to sit down for a minute in the break room, one of the Manson-esque floor manager's minions will come in and tell you to get back to work. Then the minion will go out and smoke with the Manson-esque floor manager."

    Almost with tear-filled eyes the calloused-hands contact said, "Tried to apply for a couple of full-time jobs, but the Manson family floor manager hired his drinking buddy. And then, to appease the printing foreman, hired one of the printing foreman's neighbors. You see we have had layoffs and two rounds of furloughs and the printing foreman lost a worker in that area to the purge, so to shut up the printing foreman, Ol' Manson-esque floor manager hired the printing foreman's unemployed neighbor into our area. Don't know what happened to the laid off printing person." 

    The calloused-hands contact now obviously in mental pain, droned on, "There is a building operations manager and of course human resources, but they seem to validate all this bizarre management behavior."

    The calloused-hands contact looked over a shoulder and continued without provocation, "Started to work here after going back to college, you know, improve your lot in life, 'go back to college' they say, and all that shit. Anyway, there was a shit load of driving their junky trucks, but it was so cold or hot, and a few years ago before going back to college, this body spent a year in a wheel chair for health problems. Siting in a junk truck is hard on your body. It's better to work inside because it is warm in winter and cool in the summer, and you can keep your body moving. Ya just put up with the seven tons. But they still make a guy drive now and then because none of these kids that work here have driver's licenses. They either lost them to tickets or never bothered to get them. Most of the kids working here live with their mothers and leave shit laying all over...." 

    I threw out a question to break the monologue, "What about your pay?"

    The calloused-hands contact abruptly stopped the rant about co-workers and looked off in a thousand yard stare, "We work for just over minimum wage, we get no benefits. If you are sick, you don't get paid. Most of us come in to work sick."

    "My God," I said to my kind and thoughtful friend. My kind and thoughtful friend gave me a look as if we needed to get the hell out of there and leaned over and thanked the calloused-hands contact person. I noticed a quirky group - some tall, some short, some loud, some with wild eyes - of people emerge from the loading dock which had been pointed out to me as the smokers' hangout. 

    l looked back around and the calloused-hands contact was gone - vanished into thin air.  A person with buggy eyes in the quirky group looked at my kind and thoughtful friend and myself like we were prime candidates to be cut up and stuffed in an old Buick trunk. The whole quirky group was close enough so we could smell the cigarette smoke waft from their gaggle. 

    The strange bug-eyed person said, "Pick up your God damned papers outside, you fuck'n contractors ain't suppose to be in here. 

    My kind and thoughtful friend cracked a faint smile at me and we turned and vanished through a side door. 

    "What the fuck just happened?" I asked my kind and thoughtful friend. 

    "Welcome to the new American work environment. It is the 'New Norm' of the Amercian work condition. Idiots in academia romanize this blue-collar hell never having ever set foot in it for themselves. But then, it does seem more like something from the 1930s I've only read about. But, all in a 21st Century building," my kind and thoughtful friend said. 

    "Its a fuck'n paradox," I said.

    "I just felt you needed to see what is really going on in the work world," my kind and thoughtful friend said. Then my kind and thoughtful friend paused a second and said, "We better get a fuck'n beer and maybe a shot or two after a peek at that shit. If we hurry, the bars are still open." 

                               Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
          (each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan) 

    This week's Wisconsin military service person to remember is Private First Class Isaiah R. Hunt, 20 of Suamico (just north of Green Bay) died when the driver of his military vehicle accidentally struck another vehicle north of Baghdad, Iraq, on November 15, 2004. Isaiah was a member of the 782nd Main Support Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was a driver and gunner in Iraq. Pfc. Hunt was thrown from the turret of his vehicle when it collided with a civilian contractor vehicle. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Hunt died en route to a hospital. He joined the military in July 2003. Isaiah graduated from Bay Port High School in Green Bay Wisconsin. Isaiah is the son of former Green Bay Packers linebacker Mike Hunt who played for the Packers from 1978 to 1980. At the time of his death, Hunt was survived by his dad Mike and mother Pamela. Private First Class Hunt was the 28th Wisconsin military service person to die in Iraq since the start of the war in Spring, 2003.
                                        
                                                As of this blog entry's posting date:

    94,279 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
    
    9,316 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    4,368 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    923 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    595 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    31,572 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    4,565 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    101 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    16 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    139 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    17 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.