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Working-Class Heroes
Storyslam winner Paula Rayson regaled the crowd with memories of working the graveyard shift at a meatpacking factory.
“That job stole my dignity, that job stole my sense of safety, that job stole my sense of purpose,” reminisced employment consultant Rachel Cantelon. She was describing the slew of paid gigs she’d had over the years, ranging from waitressing at a country-western bar to working as a beer tester for a Molson brewery. “At my first job babysitting at the age of twelve, I stole the parents’ booze. So karmic payback occurred in my twenties, when work began stealing from me.”
Cantelon was sharing these tales from the trenches in “Stolen Opportunities,” her contribution to All in A Day’s Work, a storyslam fundraiser for Youth Employment Services held last Thursday at 57 Adelaide Street East. Organized by Jenn Mason and Gabrielle Zilkha of the fundraising organization The Spotlight Project, eleven professionals from all fields were given five minutes to tell their best stories about work. “We want to hold events that are artistic but raise money at the same time,” Mason said. “We want the subject to fit with the charity, and Gabrielle works for YES, so we decided to do a series about job stories.”
Funnyman Mark Breslin got the audience giggling.
And stories they had. Women’s Post publisher and Toronto mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson recalled her teenage years spent pumping gas and the personal low of stealing a hamburger off a stranger’s barbeque while broke in Manitoba. DANCAP programming director Chris Scholey reminisced about abandoning the safety of academia for the vivacity of the theatre, and York University academic advisor Paula Rayson nostalgically recalled a three-week stint at a freezing factory, where she worked the 4 a.m. shift scanning barcodes onto sausage rolls and porkpies. “I probably would have enjoyed it more had I been sniffing glue or drinking perfume like my co-worker Paul,” she mused. “Paul’s dead now.”
Scattered across the room were handwritten signs on which attendees admitted to their biggest work pet peeve or weirdest job title. Winner: Pro-lapsed Uterus Stuffer.
While the speakers shared their horrific moments, audience members also revealed some of their own bizarre highs and lows in the working world. “YES actually gave me the best job I ever had,” said visual artist and video director Peter Venuto. “I rode my moped around Rosedale, picking up electronics people had left on the street. I was playing Robin Hood, intercepting the DIY recycling movement!” (Peter was assigned to bring the electronics in so that they could be repaired and then sold.)
Both the speakers and the audience related to the difficulty of pursuing a dream. “Everyone I know has a ‘job that pays the bills’—it’s like a buzz word. Everyone’s doing something on the side,” said Arun Devdas, a thesis coordinator and self-defined “student therapist” at York. The stress of the recession was palpable and discussions centred on the issue of adequate employment. When asked if the majority of the adults she knows are happy at their jobs, speaker Rayson admitted “probably not.”
Yet the mood in the hall remained optimistic. Even after reflecting on the sexual harassment and oppression she endured in the workplace as a female machinist for the CNR in the 1980s, choir director Sistah Lois preached hope. When her employers at CNR deemed her singing at work a “health hazard,” Lois held onto her songs. “The music never left me—it was always my tool,” she said. “A GO train goes by and I hear Gloria Gaynor. All over Toronto there are people who have sung these engine-room songs.”
Amen, sister.
Photos by Christopher McKie/Christopher McKie Photography.