
Friday Super-Post
So this week I have literally worked 13 hours which is nothing. To give you a comparison, by this time last week I had worked 43ish hours. The reason we have worked so little is because Fish and Game shut down gill netting in the Cook Inlet and possibly also in Prince William Sound (I have had different people tell me conflicting things on this) for at least a few days. So I have had a lot of time on my hands, unfortunately I have not used this time productively when it comes to my blog posts. So today you’re going to get a post with 3–4 sections including this weeks edition of the mailbag. Part I: Lately I’ve been working a new job. No I didn’t get fired. I’ve been working on the 3's*, which are all the fish that are either really messed up, aesthetically off in some way, or not the fish we are racking at this time, all of which are coming down a conveyor belt. I really like it because for pretty much the first time here I’m using my brain. Almost every job here could be automated and it wouldn’t be complicated to do so. When the. threes come down the conveyor belt you have to first decide what type of fish it is? Is it a chum, pink, red, coho/silver, or in rarer cases a king.
Oh by the way here are all the signals that people do to know what fish we are doing.
Chum: move fingers up and down like a mouth

Pink:

Red:

Silver:

King (This is rarely used):

Okay back to the job. After you decide what fish it is, you either slide it down a metal table for someone to rack it, put it in a tote, or if it’s spine is broken then you toss it in a basket. I also have to chop ice, weigh the baskets of destroyed fish, and other tasks as part of this. Don’t get me wrong none of this stuff is remotely difficult to do, but the fact that I have to do a variety of things and actually use my brain for once is so refreshing.
Part II: Mailbag
Have you eaten any salmon up there?
I have eaten some salmon. Not that much, but my friend James is an excellent chef so I have had some King that he made. and also ate some King cheeks that he baked in the oven. Both were amazing, the cheeks tasted like steak. Some guys make food after they get off but I’m usually too tired, and especially too tired to make salmon.
Do they feed it to you in the cafeteria?
We eat meals in the break room^
Pictured here:

What is gender breakdown of people in “the plant”, what sorts of jobs are women doing?
I’m not sure about case-up or roe but in processing there is definitely a majority of men. The jobs that women are doing are grading and blood-lining, grading is sorting the types of fish and grading whether it’s a 1,2, or 3, and blood lining is where you clean the fish if the machine doesn’t do a good job.
Part III:
What I’ve done on my days off: taken naps, listened to podcasts, watched movies, drank soda with Syd the Fisherman, cleaned my room, shot some hoops, more naps, went for a walk, picked some berries, facetimed with friends, ordered some salmon to bring home -let me know if you would be interested in getting some and I will get back to you with more details- and yeah that’s about it. I’m hoping to go into town sometime today. See ya.
*i’m pretty sure the number three pinks and chum are used for cat food.
^actually a building but whatever