Daily story, May 21, 2025

It was the first time I had been allowed to work the big machine. I had begun to think the training was a cruel joke, that it would go on forever and there would always be some new thing to learn. But two weeks’ shadowing was the last step, and now the foreman had fixed the badge to my chest that showed I was an operator. I remembered them saying that three quarters of injuries on the big machine happen the first week you work it. I remembered it as my hand was pulled into the gearing. And I wondered why they never told me what the big machine was for.