Stay in New Orleans

Stay in New Orleans

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On the 17th I finally visited the first local supermarket I had found within about 5 miles of local route. I was amazed at the dirth of regular food stores in New Orleans residential neighborhoods (though A&P and Albertsons are now each building a super center in the area). Right next to Task Force is one of the many neighborhood food stores (shown here) that are now quite rare in most of the rest of the U.S. but still common in New Orleans. It is on the left and is the light pink store front in front of the gold pickup truck. They also sell pizza and chinese food. On the 18th there wasn't much work and I spend the day hanging out.
About a half mile away is Union Supermarket (just to the right of Thrift City). It carries the usual food iterms for a super market, but only has about twice the floor space of a typical convenience store so the selection is not that good and the prices are a little high. They also don't stock frozen dinners so they were not useful to me even though they are right on my daily drive to Task Force. They did have lots fresh produce and meats so people could cook regular dinners (if they had a stove and oven).
After having driven about 25 miles of artery roads around the area where I was working/staying I was amazed to have never seen any super markets as you generally can't drive five miles on an artery in a residential neighborhood without seeing at least one, often several. When I asked Samuel about it be mentioned the one shown here which is only one half mile North of my nromal loop (but in a direction I hadn't explored as yet). This is the super market I go to every other day now, Robert Fresh Market. It is a nice regular super market with reasonable prices. I will buy two frozen dinners in the eveningn and heat one on the exhaust manifold while I drive and shower. It takes an hour to heat that way. The other I will bury under clothes and such and it will stay cool until the next day when I will have it for lunch. That is necessary to save time as you will see.
On January 19th I stayed at the Tulane Library until 8:45PM then remembered/discovered that my exercise club, Riviera Spa, closes at 8PM on Saturday. Drats. Worse, on Sunday, January 20, I got work with B.F.I. (the trash company) at their recycling center. They are working 12-13 hour days seven days a week (at least until they get caught up). So, I worked from 6:15AM to 6:15PM, but my club is only from 1PM to 6PM on Sunday. Double drats! Surprisingly enough I didn't feel to terrible going without a shower. January 21 was Martin Luther King's holiday, but we worked the usual 13 hour day (6AM to 7PM), so it wasn't be so bad that the libraries were all closed. I really enjoy the work and my shower on the 21st was especially nice. Here is the Recycling Center where I am working now. It mostly a large hangar like open area.
It is located in an industrial park between two highways with the entrance on a private road with a little birdge under the railroad tracks. The park must have been started by New Orleans Cold Storage (as per the sign), though they don't seem to have a presence back there now. The white sign along the middle support for the bridge is a water depth guage as it can and does flood when it rains. The deepest I have seen it is six inches of water, though I am sure it gets higher during a hard rain. The other entrance to the park is at Labarre and Airline Road, right by the Sav-A-Center.
Task Force asks that temps arrive one hour before an assigment so that they have time to find replacements in the event there are 'no shows'. That would be 5AM or 5:30AM depending on how you figure it. So, for me the normal work day starts with me arriving at Task Force at 5:15AM or so where I go to the bathroom (it is so nice that they have a bathroom for the temps) and have my breakfast (dry cereal and milk made from powedered milk with sugar added). Here are Claude and Edgar at Task Force. They also work on the sorting line at B.F.I.. Notice that there are no chairs but sort of raised benches attached to the wall. Task Force takes the B.F.I. people there about 6AM, but charges $1 out of your pay each way even though it is only a couple of miles. So I take my car over at 5:40AM and meditate until 6:15AM. I was glad to take the van and bus the first couple of days to different assignments as I got to see how taking the bus home (and walking so much) really lengthens the days for most workers there. I also saw that New Orleans really does have a very good bus system that is well uitlized. However, my days now are long enough without adding waiting for the van. B.F.I. doesn't start up the sorting line until 6:30AM (which is when you start getting paid) so I have 15 minutes to get into my work boots and clothes.
They have 15 minute breaks at 10AM and 4PM (paid) and lunch is half an hour starting at noon (not paid). Lately they usually shut down the line at 6:30PM and we then spend thirty minutes sweeping up. That makes for a twelve hour work day. Yikes! There are surprisingly few vermin there. I have only seen two rats and one cockroach in three weeks there. One reason might be these rat poison dispensers (or perhaps not as I imagine rats have learned to avoid such traps). There is text on the top (not legible in picture) saying 'poison, do not touch'. They must assume the rats can't read. Another reason for the lack of vermin is the B.F.I. philosophy of 'keep it moving'. Every day we shovel/sweep the same areas and it covered again the next day. However, it is new material so that vermin have no place to settle in. Seems to work for them anyway.
As I need to get to bed by 9:10PM to get my sleep, that doesn't leave a lot of time for other things. One of the things I do to save time is shop every Monday morning before work and get five frozen dinners and orange juice that I put in the freezer/refrigerator in the break area. I can then heat a frozen dinner each day in the microwave they provide. However, Robert Fresh Market where I was previously shopping does not open until 6AM, sometimes 6:05AM, which can make it a little tight. The Sav-A-Center is a much larger store and open 24 hours (here shown at 6AM in the dark as I see most of the world as it dark when work starts and dark when work finishes) and is right by the other entrance to the industrial park, but they charge $1.79 for a Banquet/Patio/Morton/ShurFine frozen dinner (all are identical and made by Con Agra) while Robert Fresh Market had them for $1.39. What to do?
Well, that got me investigating other options (as I hate paying high prices. I had found Robert Fresh Market because Samuel had told me about a Winn Dixie at Canal and Carolton which is where Robert Fresh Market is, but where is the Winn Dixie? So I went a couple blocks North of Robert Fresh Market and found the Sav-A-Center that they had been building but was now just open. It was supposed to be right next to the Winn Dixie and sure enough you can see the Winn Dixie 'Marketplace' in between the arch of the Sav-A-Center entrace here. The next picture is of the Sav-A-Center and the one after that is of the Winn Dixie. The Winn Dixie is an early super store (it appears) and about twice the size of Robert Fresh Market. However, it is also about half the size of the Sav-A-Center. The Winn Dixie is open 24 hours, though, and sells Banquet frozen dinners for $1 each. Dilema solved.
Here is the new Sav-A-Center with the high prices. With all the work I have a large appetite and have cookies and a drink on break. I also read my Syda Yoga written lessons (they send me batches for six months and I then read them on schedule).... It is my understanding that the 12 hour day with only two breaks is in violation of current labor laws, but they sort of slipped into it. I believe that they are supposed to give a paid 15 minute break for each 4 hour period worked. Edgar was saying that when he started there, they usually got out at 3PM, but recycling seems to be catching on in Louisiana and they need to run the sorting line longer. When the normal day was 11.5 hours, they were fine (accroding to the labor law). However, when they added the extra 30 minutes of work, they were supposed to reschedule the day for three breaks (losing most of the benefit of the extra thirty minutes with the disruption and such). I could complain, but they would just go back to 11.5 hours per day and what point would it serve.
Here is the Carolton Winn Dixie Marketplace where I shop early Monday mornings. To save time I commonly eat my dinner of peanut butter sandwich and banana on the way to Riviera Spa where I shower. Then I am off to Tulane University where I check my e-mail (and not much else) before it is time to head back toward Task Force for bed time. Hard to believe that such long hours were the norm in the U.S. just a few years ago. However, with the overtime the people at B.F.I. are making a good income and the combination of higher pay ($5.80 instead of the more common $5.15 for day laborers in New Orleans) and long hours with overtime seems to attract the better workers.