My first job experience

Slaw
I worked at a food factory near Kirkuk a while ago as a supervisor for my first job. I worked from 6:30 in the morning till 5pm in the afternoon and occasionally till 7pm, 6 days a week for a few months. I was the best worker of my team but we all got fired because of team incompetence and the bad management. I never wanted to come out and say this in fear of my safety so don't expect me to give details. Getting a job isn't easy near my village.

We initially got paid 650k per month on paper but in reality only received 600k or 590k, then they slowly changed our income down till it dwindled to 550k iqd per month on paper and 480k in reality due to losses, and the state of the economy. They held us accountable for machinery mistakes that the machine servicing team were responsible for, and the machine servicing team themselves weren't adhering to the cleanliness guidelines despite them being humans too. I remember seeing one of them dip his glove-less hands into the dip while servicing the machine as it was actively running, licking it then dipping it again for another lick while I was actively pushing him away... I told about it but management did nothing. The machine servicing team only wore mob caps but not face masks, and even with the mob caps, they were lenient.

one time they refused to give us our paychecks if we didn't sign a paper saying that we pledge to not sue the company be it by law or tribes, in-case any workplace accidents and injuries happen to us... Although they never provided us with any time to go buy safety gear, and did not provide us with safety gear (sometimes even limiting the amount of gloves or masks or mob caps we can hand out in a day without limiting how many times workers go out and back in to swap their mob caps, gloves and masks). I think it was unfair, as the ground was wet all the time, thus some people slipped, others nearly broke their legs, and worst of all, the workers themselves didn't know how to stop the machines. In my last day I saw a guy's hand get turned into a cup lid repeatedly, and it was one of the worst things I've seen. I've also seen a machine servicing team guy get his finger chopped off including the bone, so the factory had to stop the operations for the entire day to sanitize the machine.

My coworkers weren't any better despite having finished school and uni unlike me, one was absent a lot, and the other one slacked off, often staying in the QC lab that was air conditioned despite their on-and-off work regarding those weird lab machines like CIBs and Acidity tests and whatnot, while I held down 5-6 factory machines everyday because I was a hard working powerhouse. They sometimes did their fair share of work but focused more on nit-picking my errors whilst not doing much themselves so in turn, I made them do some of my Donkey work. This is the main cited reason why we all got fired. The losses generated by their lack of work upset management despite management knowing well enough that on the daily, I had at least 5 machines everyday on my back, and the management is the generalization type, so in-turn they threw me away with the rest despite me being heavily re-recommended by the foreign managers and by the literal principal of the QC team for the diligence and honesty I brought to the workplace. I was by all means not just a poster-boy but the example they used to teach the new QC and supervision team, who still months down the line, the Foreign managers tell me that they aren't as good as I was. I don't mean to bluff but I genuinely worked really hard and was known even by company share holders. But at the same time I was heavily over-worked and threatened with financial loss if I tried to do anything.

The management at one point locked our lab so we had no way of getting sanitation for the workers thus rendering one of their tests a failure for the national health and safety testing. We got fired when the results of that were re-discussed. The management's only thoughts were with money, and I mean they wanted immediate money, not short term gains but immediate money. They didn't do much to better the working conditions effectively, and they usually were absent so I couldn't take a day off easily for example. I remember one time running after them for 5 days just to get a 1 break. Management didn't clarify our precedence so in my understanding I've built reading Supervisory articles, we should've had precedence and word over the servicing team but we didn't, so they started the machines according to the times needed to generate profit, but not the times when everything was prepared for the sake of the cleanliness of the food.

And the workers...? They brought anyone from down the road without health checkups. Some of them didn't know how to speak, others didn't know how to fold a box or read or write or do anything. I myself wasn't trained by the factory management but taught myself reading articles so as a Kurd who can speak Arabic and English, I taught the workers what they should be doing; The workers frequently tested terribly for their cleanliness swabs, and were put in positions at work which would cause repetitive strain injury for the workers because management was too cheap to fix the machinery which was supposed to do what the workers were doing. They were small brained simplistic people.

The food was terrible. We were served rice and beans everyday. Just rice and beans. I remember it was so bad to the point where we had worms in our food one day, and one of the workers stood up and started swearing at the chef... The chef himself was also very disrespectful to everyone.

I have way more to say but months after being fired from my first job, I felt like sharing this now that the heat has cooled down and now that I work at a University. Oh I remembered! One time they made me work on a Saturday against my will otherwise they threatened to fire me and they got upset when I told them that the 25k compensation they paid wasn't enough.