My first really shitty job.

The first shitty job I can recall was at a place called Rygmyr Foods in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. We made popcorn balls and popcorn bunnies. It was hot, boring work that paid minimum wage which was about $3.25 an hour if I recall. So you could work your balls off all day for less than $30 while you made thousands of dollars of fucking bunnies a day. What a racket.

The owner, Gene Rygmyr, was, in my opinion, a first class asshole who treated the employees like animals. He’s dead now, good riddance, and though it pains me to speak ill of the dead, this prick made our lives miserable with low pay, shitty hours, shitty working conditions, never, ever a kind word, nothing. This is the guy that ruined the whole “job” concept for me. Because of this dink, I decided that I’d never work 40 years to make someone else rich. So, I’m grateful for that, I suppose.

I had two main jobs there. First, I was on the clean up crew after school. I’d get there about 4 pm and another guy and myself would hose everything down and squeegee all of the popcorn and goo to the back of the factory where we’d scoop it up and throw it out. Since there were no bosses around, this really wasn’t too bad and hey, I made $6.50 a day for my 2 hours worth of work.

Once summer hit, I was able to put in more hours. They put me on the mixer which was a big drum in which popcorn and a lecithin mixture were stirred up. Once it was all mixed, it would take two guys to pick it up and dump it for the girls who would work their magic creating popcorn balls or bunnies by putting it all through a press of sorts. This was hot, dirty, sticky work and not once were we ever told we were doing a good job or shown any consideration whatsoever beyond our $3.25 an hour. Meanwhile, Rygmyr raked in mountains of cash from the mountains of fucking bunnies we made. Fucker still pisses me off.

One day, a girl got her fingertip chopped off in one of the machines. The line stopped long enough for a quick clean up then back to work. Afterwards, there were no safety updates or anything, just an admonishment to keep our fingers away from the moving part of the machinery. I never saw that girl again. (I think her name was Pam but it’s been a long time now.)

The plant manager, Ed, I don’t recall his last name, was actually pretty cool. I’m sure he was well-paid, too. HA!

Ironically, the bunnies and balls were quite tasty. We were sometimes allowed to grab a few rejects at the end our shift. How kind.

Eventually I quit this job to spend a year in Australia as an exchange student.

The only thing funny about this job is that we employees were stupid enough to let ourselves be exploited the way we did. Rygmyr took advantage of people in desperate need of a job and for that I will never forgive him.