Jobs # 10 (Indigo Wild)

After the debauchery of 2010-2011, I needed to get clean. So, naturally, I ran to the soap factory. At some point in 2011, I started working at a local business that produced high-end soap products and employed several struggling musicians, including myself.

I’d moved out of the big weird house in South Hyde Park with my friend Mookie and our bud Anthony. We lived a few blocks off 39th Street in a little bungalow. Mook brought his recently inherited pool table to the basement, which opened onto the street through a garage door. All in all, it was a pretty great little party pad. We had transported the bar from the last house into our dining room and officially re-opened Swingin’ Dicks to close friends.

There were a lot of late-night pool games and silly arguments on the porch. I’d stay up as late as I could, always knowing I’d have to head into work around ten the next morning. Looking back, it actually sounds really nice!

I would wake up daily, most likely with a heavy head, and head to the factory. Thankfully, it wasn’t far, I didn’t take the job that seriously, and a lot of my friends worked there.

The soap factory is located in a rehabbed icehouse, built in the 20’s before refrigerators and freezers existed. The building was old and impressive, although people from the suburbs had renovated it, so it had a somewhat conflicted feel.

My first job was as a soap slicer. I already had extensive experience with pulling sliced material from machines, so I felt very confident. I did well, too, for a while. Eventually, the summer heat and lack of air conditioning would get to me. Or, there was my former Jerusalem Stone co-worker, who was now the head soap maker in this establishment, blasting live Violent Femmes and Clutch so loud I wanted to pull my own head off. The only downside to this job was that you reeked of essential oils. Many people didn’t like that. I was even refused service at a sandwich shop one day!

Eventually, after about a year, I was moved out of the back room and into the packaging room, and I was granted a 50-cent raise. I would spend the next two years filling plastic bottles with liquid soap and labeling them. I’d also make candles, bath salts, and laundry soap.

As monotonous as the work sounds, and it was, this may have been the most fun I had at a job. We made no money, and the hours were late enough that there were probably about 10-20 other local musicians working with me at the same time. If we didn’t know each other, we got to it quickly. I even played in a Pink Floyd cover band with two of these dudes, thanks to our endearing love and hate of classic rock radio.

I ended up leaving at the right time. After three years in the factory, I’d finally decided to go to Grad School. I would spend the next six years working sporadically and pursuing two graduate degrees. My personal life would change dramatically over this time, but I know it all had to happen.