I made a cursory check of past threads before starting this one and found nothing, but I honestly couldn't recall if we'd discussed this or not. If we have, I'm pretty sure it's been years.
What is the most interesting job you've had?
Personally, I worked making fruit leather for a summer when I was 21. My parents moved to rural Washington from where I went to high school in Oregon when I was 20. The previous year at university had been a mixed bag, living situation wise, and so I moved in with my parents for the summer, eager to get away from my college town. The understanding was, of course, that if I wanted to live with my parents over the summer, I had to have gainful employment. One of the major employers in the area was (is) a fruit leather factory. I put in an application there and was hired on fairly quickly.
What is fruit leather? Yes, it's like a fruit roll-up, but better. The fruit leather company I worked for makes theirs from fruit puree (apple as a base, other fruit purees depending on the flavor being made). There are no artificial additives. Some flavors require additional flavoring, such as the mango fruit leather, but the flavoring is natural mango flavor.
I worked in the packaging room. The average day consisted of showing up for my shift at 6:30am, clocking in, washing my hands with the rest of the packaging team, and then going into the packaging room. Once in the room, we would be assigned to stations by our team manager. One person would grab trays of dried fruit leather off of a massive cart (the carts, fully loaded, weighed as much as a VW Beetle), and put them down on a roller table adjacent to the line. Another person would run a special paddle along the edges of the fruit leather to loosen it from the tray. The third person, directly next to the line, would pull the fruit leather up off of the tray, stack it like a deck of cards, and then more or less deal it like cards into the packaging line, which had slots for the pieces of fruit leather. The line would then carry the fruit leather through the packaging machine. On the other side, another person would count out the number of pieces of fruit leather needed for the size of box being packed. This person would also check for defects in the packaging. Further down the line, another person would put the fruit leather in the correct packaging. Then, another person would put them in a larger box to be put on a pallet. The pallets would then go off to shipping and receiving. We operated two lines, each with two roller tables extending off of either side of the line, four people surrounding each table, and one person fetching trays for each side. We blasted a lot of awesome music, and always had a great time belting out "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond as a crew.
Fruit leather is a hot, sticky business. Although I only worked in the packaging room, you had to walk through the production area to get to the packaging room. In production, heavy-gauge nonstick trays (much like cookie sheets) would go under a machine that would lay a strip of flavored fruit puree on the tray. These trays would then go on the above-mentioned carts. The carts would then go into a dryer, where the fruit leather would lose a certain percentage of its moisture. This was closely monitored for product quality--too dry and the fruit leather breaks apart. After the dryer, the fruit leather would go into a cooler, mostly to make them easier for us to handle. Sometimes carts would not get as much time in the cooler, and so us packaging workers would have to wrestle with sticky fruit leather.
I made bank that summer. The United States apparently loves fruit leather, and since I was on the "flex team", I often got the opportunity to stay late and work overtime. At the end of the day, nothing felt better than washing off the grease and stickiness from my skin.
So, the next time you bite into a piece of fruit leather, know that it was made with care! The people I worked with really love their product. Additionally, the company I worked for is a major employer in their area, a very impoverished part of Washington State, and they provide a lot of good jobs for people who need them. Despite the fact that fruit leather is sweet, it's also good for you. There's no added sugar, it has fiber and vitamins, and it's portable. Next time you need something to curb your sweet tooth, try some fruit leather. Seriously!
So that is my interesting work experience-what's yours?