On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane

by Emily Guendelsberger

Mostly, though, she takes pride in being good at her job. Her numbers, she says, are usually double or triple what other pickers can manage. That doesn’t happen for her at every job—she actually technically qualifies for disability. “Between my Asperger’s, which is technically classified as autism spectrum disorder, and hearing loss and ADHD and PTSD—that lovely storm of me—that’s what qualified me,” Blair says. “But I just couldn’t accept a handout. I love knowing that the government had my back, but I was, like, ‘My mind might be a little special, but my body’s fine. I can physically work.’ “And I love that I’ve found a job that actually utilizes the way that I am. My eidetic* memory—I’ve never really been able to use that at a job before. Like, at the grocery store, I remembered all the codes, even for other departments that weren’t mine. They’d be coming to me, like, ‘What’s the code for artichokes?’” Blair laughs. A photographic memory is very useful at SDF8, she says. When an item code she’s encountered before comes up on the scanner, “there are images attached, not just numbers. I’m remembering the bar code, and its picture, and its feel—that’s one of the things that makes me so fast.”