Matt Schuenke

   I grew up in a small community with little diversity where everyone was truly created and treated equally.  One of the many jobs I had in high school was a few cities away stuffing envelopes.  It was only supposed to be one day a month and the money was good so I agreed to do it.
   I showed up at the warehouse on the day I was to start work.  When I walked in, it looked like I was late because there were already a few hundred people hard at work.  I asked the first few people I saw where new people were supposed to go, but all I could get for an answer was a lot of Spanish.  I was eventually led to the lady in charge.
   “Hello,” I said.
   She acted as if I just told her that her missing son had returned.
   “Hello! You must be Matt; it's so nice to have someone working with me that speaks English,” she exclaimed.
   “Really? I thought I heard people speaking English on my way in.”
   “Oh yeah, but you have to realize that those grunts are stuffing envelopes because it's what they are good at, if you know what I mean.”
   I was starting to understand.  She put me in charge of the warehouse, as kind of the manager.  I was put in charge of 350 people on my first day, to make sure that they kept doing their job that I didn't know how to do.  I soon found out that I was the youngest person working in the building by about 10 years, and was also being paid the most.
   Everyone had sore, dry hands. They were all running around to do their job the best they could so they might be noticed enough to get a raise, which would help feed another child.  But I, on the contrary, was quite comfortable.  My boss was constantly offering me some kind of refreshment.  And whenever I would try to help out in the assembly line work, my boss would tell me not to overexert myself.
   I was offered a raise if I came back the next day.  I felt so bad working in that place. I was treated so great because of my skin tone, the language I spoke, and the class I was in.  There were so many valuable workers there.  They all deserved my job and my wages, but because of the class that they were born into they were stuck with less money and more work.  They were stuck.  But I would not be the one to make them stuck.  I never came back.