Мы с радостью работаем в военное время

Before going to a translating website, the English translation is 'We work happily in wartime.'

What an odd statement

My parents had different experiences growing up. Both lived during the Great Depression

"Great Depression, worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world, sparking fundamental changes in economic institutions, macroeconomic policy, and economic theory. Although it originated in the United States, the Great Depression caused drastic declines in output, severe unemployment, and acute deflation in almost every country of the world. Its social and cultural effects were no less staggering, especially in the United States, where the Great Depression represented the harshest adversity faced by Americans since the Civil War."

My mother's mother was a full-time housekeeper and her father worked as a conductor for the Interborough Rapid Transit (one of the NYC transit companies of the time). Hs salary was modest, and their lifestyle was very basic. They never ate out. Foods were portioned and food never went to waste. My grandmother even said a prayer before discarding the rinds of oranges or the bones of the canned salmon.

My mother graduated high school in 3-1/2 years and went to work immediately. College was not even a consideration. Not all diplomas made students eligible for acceptance to or enrollment into college and hers was one such diploma.

On my father's side of the family, he had two working parents. His mother worked in a sewing factory. His father was a tailor by trade but--at some point--became a baker. He was also an absent parent, and my paternal grandmother had to often run the household on her own (or with the help of her eldest daughter).

Unlike the stability of housing that my mother had (she lived in the same apartment from birth until the day she got married), my father's family moved frequently. Vacancies were abundant at that era, and I was told that landlords would often sweeten the pot by offering one month's rent for free (sometimes even two!) to entice people to stay. Needless to say, my grandmother would pack up and leave. Sometimes she'd even move within the same building!

During the war years, both grandparents on my father's side had jobs. And after the war they also had a spinster daughter who brought in money to the household. His family ate meat during the week and had cold cuts in the refrigerator. They had assorted cold cereal in boxes and had animals (a parakeet and a dog). Feeding a pet was not a consideration when one had to budget carefully for the family meal plans.

My paternal grandmother never seemed to complain about factory work. She made fun of her co-workers (as I am certain they did of her). She was familiar with most of the English language racial slurs of the time and seemed almost proud to show them off (look at how I'm becoming a Yankee Doodle so quickly!).

When I hear the word 'factory' I think of car manufacturing assembly lines, or I think of smelting in a hot, close space, or I think of sewing machines that are shoulder-to-shoulder with piece work that needs to be pushed under the foot of a machine as the threads line up the stiches. It's never a(n) happy image. Yet, when wages are combined (even in pre-, peri-, and post-war time), a family can live somewhat better.

When I left my biological family, I had done mostly office work. The only time I worked outside, was when I was a private contractor for a cab company. What I thought was the only type of viable work for an educated American, some considered a ball-and-chain existence. I could never understand their point of view. I didn't have to be outside and be exposed to the elements. I could sit most of the time. And I could talk to others if need arose. As an introvert, I seldom found the need to talk to others.

So why am I even writing about this? Because I did have one job (my very first job while I was still in high school) that I later came to realize, was a factory. I was part of a group of people who manufactured, packaged, and delivered soap opera scripts. Each of us had to be able to:
- type scripts on a stencil from the networks' writers
- proofread the stencils with a co-worker
- make corrections to the stencils as needed
- mimeograph the stencils

- sort the pages with the same page number in each shelf
- collate the pages grabbing the top one from each shelf and combining them in numeric order
- counting the pages to verify that no page is missing
- stapling the scripts
- packaging the scripts
- delivering the scripts

I made minimum wage and I was able to work on the weekends. Mind you, back then I could fill my gas tank for $5!

I guess there are different definitions of what a factory is !