Working at The Bindery

1197 Words3 Pages

Working at The Bindery

I have a dream. I have a dream about getting a doctorate degree in music. Well, to get that far, I know I must get through undergraduate school first, let alone graduate school, and so on. Last year I realized that I needed a job that paid much more than minimum wage if I was going to afford to go to college. I then heard about The Bindery from a friend in the same situation as I was. I filled out an application, went to the orientation a few weeks later, and then discovered that working there would be no ordinary job. I will now briefly explain how the factory works and then show you the "ropes" of working in my department.

There are two major departments at The Bindery: the press and the bindery. The press cuts large rolls of paper into smaller ones. The rolls of paper are trimmed down to size for books, and all words and graphics are printed here. The paper is then folded by machinery into forms (groups of pages in books). Bundles of forms are held together with a piece of wood at each end and tied with plastic string. The bundles are then loaded onto skids. After the skids are prepared, the bundles are shipped to the work-in-progress area (where you are) by fork trucks. The skids of bundles are placed in front of each pocket, where forms are placed to feed into the machine that binds the paper into books. Pockets are parts of machinery about 12-15 feet long and are at waist or stomach height. The machine takes one form from each pocket and groups them all together to make a book. It runs very quickly, and it can make thousands of books in minutes. Five lines are in the bindery department, therefore, five books can be made at the same time.

First, I will e...

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...r workstation so it will be clean for the next shift. When the journey persons say it is timeto go, grab your belongings and punch out. Get some sleep for the next day.

Working at The Bindery has taught me and is still teaching me much responsibility. I have learned to manage my time well. Working afternoons is tough because I don't get home until midnight every night. Life isn't fun and games every night anymore. I also have learned to work very hard for my money to pay for my college tuition. Being there just for the summers was a taste of real life for me; not everyone gets the opportunity to live wealthy like we see in the movies. It has given me more motivation to stay in school to avoid a life-long job like this, for I don't want to labor for the rest of my life. I want to continue to live out my dream of getting my doctorate degree in music.

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