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| Sign posted by Craig Root on I-95* |
I was traveling along a highway when I saw it. “Who is John Galt?” were the only words emblazoned on an enormous billboard. I knew the answer, having read Ayn Rand’s thinly disguised philosophical treatise, Atlas Shrugged, some forty years earlier. I could even remember when I read it.
On summer break from school, I was working in a warehouse that shipped non-food items to supermarkets. Women worked in narrow alleys between walls of boxes and a clacking metal track. At the head of the track, boxes were assembled, orders thrown in, and as a box was pushed a woman she was responsible for “picking” the items in her bays. Moreover, she was responsible for setting up extra boxes if more were needed, for banding small items, and finally for packing every item neatly and securely, no matter the shape or size. With some regularity, the managers hectored us to do our jobs more effectively. If one woman fell behind in her picking and packing the whole line suffered as boxes crowded the track. At such times, women often made time to help their overwhelmed co-worker. Management clearly preferred faster work over cooperative endeavors.
Men were employed as stock boys. A stock boy could make your life miserable. If he was angry or lazy or both, he might never restock your shelves while orders piled up on the track. Rarely could a manager be entreated to correct the problem. On the other hand, a dedicated stock boy could anticipate your needs and keep a steady flow of stock on the shelves.
The men were always paid at a higher rate than women. But, we all suffered from the heat, and withstood the useless blast of loud fans; while air-conditioning was reserved for the bosses upstairs.
As women, we also shared the disdain of the owners and managers. Any woman employed in the dirt, dust, and the noise of the warehouse was treated like a slow-starter in the big race of life.
I read Atlas Shrugged to the end. So many pages, and so much reading; some of it done in quasi-quiet moments in a warehouse. I know I felt little empathy for Galt in the end. If he wanted to know what it was to be on the oppressed end of a small business, he should stop by the warehouse someday. If he wanted to understand resentment he should be a woman working as a “picker,” paid less money and more arrogance than her male counterparts.
“Who is John Galt?” -- for me, he’s the figment of a philosophy that sets the individual above community, personal triumph over cooperative effort. I wouldn’t have been able to work five summers in that warehouse without the support of women who came to my aide, or stock boys who eased the path, or other college students who recognized that everyone - everyone - in that warehouse was treated as less than fully deserving of happiness.
- Robin Gray
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*I-95 John Galt Billboard Mystery Solved; Friday, July 17, 2009, The US Report, http://www.theusreport.com/the-us-report/i-95-john-galt-billboard-mystery-solved.html, accessed May, 14, 2013
