Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit

by Eliese Colette Goldbach

Amelia’s fate gave me pause. I had seen other Orange Hats—all of whom were men—break petty rules like this, and they were usually forgiven. I knew an Orange Hat who got caught leaving his shift a little early, but there were no repercussions. I heard of another Orange Hat who took a long nap on a picnic table. The main boss in the Finishing Department woke him up angrily, but the Orange Hat didn’t lose his job. When I heard about Amelia, I thought back to what some of the other new hires had said during orientation: The guys down here aren’t gonna put up with all that bubbly shit. I wondered whether Amelia had been singled out by the Hot Mill bosses, many of whom were men. I wondered if some of those bosses had hounded Amelia in a way that they wouldn’t have hounded their male counterparts. If they had picked on Amelia unfairly, she was certainly the type to stick up for herself. In the Rumor Mill, people said that Amelia had attitude. Maybe she was just being assertive. Maybe she was just calling bullshit. Maybe she wasn’t the right kind of woman for the mill.