The Pickle Factory

One lesson I learned very quickly was that no matter how much education a person has, if they don’t speak the language of the country they live in, they have little value.  And such was the case for me in 1974.  I was spending the summer in Regensburg, Germany and Deutsch did I nicht sprecht.

The summer after completing a graduate program at the University of Stockholm and the one before beginning another graduate program in Glasgow, Scotland I needed to earn some money.  The first job I found was in the cafeteria of the University of Regensburg.  I stirred huge vats of soup wearing a hairnet.  The men who worked there—with hair much longer than mine—did not wear hairnets.  When the summer session ended, so did the job.  And thus I ended up at the Hengstenberg pickle factory.

Every morning I would slip into high rubber boots, a khaki worker’s coat and put what can only be described as a babushka over my hair.  I bicycled several miles through the town, passing the home of Copernicus, to the factory where I stood for eight hours shoving raw cucumbers into jars on a line with other women.  To save money, I ate cucumbers for lunch.  Needless to say, the upside of this situation was weight loss.

For five Deutschmarks (about $2) an hour I joined the gastarbeiters from Turkey and the former Yugoslavia. We shared the common denominator of not being German. The few Germans who worked in the factory were not the brightest pickles in the barrel.

We all stood before a trough of cucumbers, which was regularly re-filled.  A conveyor belt would send the jars our way.  The person at the front of the row put in the dill springs and seeds and from there on we shoved and cajoled cucumbers into the jars.  We wore rubber gloves and in the six weeks that I worked there, I wore out the fingers and thumbs of several pairs.  Once, a woman far down the line found a jar that wasn’t packed tightly enough and threw it to the ground in anger. At the end of the line the jars were filled with brine. When I got home, a rented dorm room at the university I did not attend, I reeked of vinegar, dill, onions and brine and my boots were covered in cucumber seeds.

Having been an aficionado of sour pickles since childhood, I was greatly relieved to find that I didn’t care for the Hengstenberg variety.  I had heard stories of people who worked at ice cream stores or chocolate factories and been entirely put off.  I still enjoy a good pickle, just not the Hengstenberg kind.

One day I arrived at work to find that our routine had changed.  We sat on small crates and peeled onions for the day.  I learned that after a while one’s eyes stop tearing up.  The onions were for purple pickled cabbage.  The room next to the pickle line produced sauerkraut. 

Several weeks into the job, two new men arrived.  One was a student from Uganda and the other, a Sri Lankan, was studying for the priesthood in Rome.  We shared the common bond of the English language and the need to make money to subsidize our education.  We soon became friends and ate lunch together.  Once, the Ugandan came over to my station to say hello.  He was very dark skinned and the German woman next to me put out her hand and touched his arm.  She explained that she wanted to see if the color would rub off.  See what I mean about not the brightest pickle in the barrel?  The Ugandan was very gentlemanly and laughed it off.

On another occasion I was in the bathroom on one of our very limited breaks.  Several gastarbeiters surrounded me and asked “ Is it true that you are American?”  When I answered in the affirmative they looked shocked.  “Then WHY are you working here?”

I explained that it was a summer job, that I was a student and I needed to make some money, but didn’t speak enough German to get a decent job.  I then asked them about the homemade pita bread they brought in the lunches and the next day they brought me some.

I was able to kiss the factory goodbye after six weeks.  For all I know, they are still there.

A few days before I was to leave for Glasgow, my boyfriend found my application for the residence halls at Strathclyde University in one of his books.  He had never mailed it.  I left for Scotland not knowing where I would be living for the next year.

On a trip to Vancouver many years ago I found a jar of Hengstenberg mixed pickle.  I bought it and keep it on my desk to remind me to appreciate the job I have.