1974年高中毕业后，因为年龄不够，在家等了一年，参加75届的分配。到了75届毕业时，还是没工作，又和75届同学一起去商场劳动一年。转眼就到76年夏天了。仍然不知道工作会在哪里出现。这当然不是我一个人，而是整个75届高中毕业生。这时毕业生就划归街道管理了。在76年夏秋之际，我由街道安排又到一个工厂劳动。好像也有几块钱报酬。这是一个塑料厂，不大，约100多工人。厂的主要生产流程是把聚氯乙烯树脂原料（粉末）压制成各种形状的半成品。我去的车间是生产塑料薄片的，大概2-3毫米厚，2-3米长，2米左右宽。工艺过程很简单，把融化的粉末送入一个滚筒状碾压机，薄塑料皮就从碾压机里连续地送出来到一个金属平台（桌子）。我们有三个人围着这个桌子工作。两人负责把这连续的薄塑料皮拉到平台的尽头。第三个人负责用剪刀在固定的长度处把薄塑料皮剪断。没有什么技术的。只是要掌握好时间。因为碾压机一旦开动，这塑料薄片就源源不段地往外出来了。如果不在恰当的时候剪断，长度就会超出了。这时就得紧急停止碾压机。我不太清楚分我做这个工作是不是因为我在商场剪过布。这个工作过程经常会使人联想起卓别林的无声电影《摩登时代》，工人在流水线上是受机器控制的。后来看美剧，非常流行的《我爱路茜》中也有类似的镜头。路茜来不及在生产饼干的流水线上给饼干加料，就直接把面前的饼干给吃了。
这个工厂和其他无数工厂一样，是三班倒的。早班清晨6点到下午2点，中班从2点到晚10点，夜班从晚10点到早上6点。每班中间都有一段半小时的吃饭时间。我对三班倒是有了解的。我们的一个邻居夫妇俩都是三班倒的工人。我的一个同龄朋友也是三班倒工人。一般来讲，上三班的工人在三个班中循环的。比如上一周早班，然后一周中班，再一周晚班，周而复始。每三周就会有一周要白天睡觉，晚上工作。因为作息时间经常颠倒，实际对身体是有害的。我以前只是听说或看到过别人做三班，现在自己要来做了。
工友们非常友好，很照应我们这种刚出校门的年轻人。工人中也有许多优秀人才。我的一位工友就是其中的一位。他是66届高中毕业生（那时没有大学可上），学多识广，经常在工余或饭间给工友讲历史，文学。深受大家欢迎和尊敬。
我在这个厂里做了大概3-4月，直到我终于被分配到了另外一个塑料厂做一个“正式学徒工“。
Experiencing Working in Three-Shifts
After graduating from high school in 1974, I waited for job assignment for an extra year because I wasn’t at the age when graduating from high school. I then joined the class 75 working in a department store for another year. By the time I did all these, the time was late summer of 1976. I still didn’t have a job. This was not just me, it was for the entire class of 1975. We were all transferred from school to the local community where each student lived. That is, we officially left school and became a local resident that was managed by the local community. In my case, my local community office arranged me to a factory that produced plastic products. The monthly stipend was a few Yuan (definitely less than the official salary for a starting factory worker.) This was a relatively small factory, about 100 or so workers. What it does is to make various shaped of semi-finished products from the original polyvinyl chloride powder. The production line I worked on made plastic sheets, 2-3 millimeter thick, 2-3 meter long and about 2 meter wide. The process was very simple. Melt polyvinyl chloride would flow out of the hot pot into a pair of rollers after some cooling process. The thin film of 2-3 millimeter would continuously come out of the rollers onto a long metal table. Our work was to cut the film at a fixed length. Usually three people worked as a group. Two would pull the film onto the table, one would cut the film at a fixed length. There wasn’t much skills. The key is to cut the film at the correct length. If for some reason you can’t do the cutting at the correct time, you’d have to stop the machine altogether because the rollers are continuously rolling and the entire thing would be messed up. I wasn’t sure how or why I was assigned to this job. It could be just randomly done, or it could be because I was cutting fabric before going into this factory, as the process of cutting in these two places had some similarity. Working in this position made me think of Chaplin’s silent movie “Modern Times” which shows how workers on production lines were under the completely control of the automatic machinery. Later when I watch the TV show “I Love Lucy” in the U.S., the story line is similar. Lucy would have to eat the cookies on the production line when she could keep up with the pace of the machine.
This plastic factory, though small, ran a 3-shift system, like countless other factories. The first shift was from 6 am to 2 pm, the second shift 2 to 10 pm, the third shift 10 pm to 6 am. There was a meal break, usually half an hour in each of these shifts. I had some idea how this system worked. We had a couple in our neighbor who were both working under such a system. I also had friends who worked like that. Usually people rotated among the three shifts regularly, e.g., on a weekly basis. That is, one’d work one week of morning shift, followed by one week of second shift and one week of night shift before switching back to the morning shift again. People who worked in the night shift would have to sleep during the day. Because of the constant shifting in one’s daily schedule, it was very taxing on one’s health. I saw or heard these stories of three-shifting work, now I’d experience it myself.
My fellow workers in the factory were very friendly, especially towards those of us who were just barely out of school (middle school or high school). Even though the work was boring and low tech, there were workers who were very much like learned scholars, very knowledgeable in many areas. We had one such worker in our shift. He was a high school graduate of 1966. That class of high school graduates were generally considered the best high school graduates in years. Because all colleges were stopped at the time due to the Culture Revolution, people like him would have to either work in factories or go to countryside to do farming. He would often tell stories of history, literature, and others during work or breaks. He earned great respect and admiration among all workers.
I worked in this factory for about 3-4 months, before I finally got a real full time job in a different plastic factory!