Berkley Center

During my time in Hong Kong, I became an intern at Live Nation’s Asia headquarters. When I first began my internship, I was given a list with 12 items. The items ranged from long-term to short-term tasks I was expected to complete. Number three on the list read, “YUZU passes and roll posters.” After I completed task one and two, creating marketing recaps for two different shows, I moved on to task three. My advisor asked me to hand roll at least 650 posters for a upcoming concert by a Japanese band called YUZU. I had never heard of the band before, but after rolling the posters, I became rather familiar with their outer appearances; their music, however, not so much. I began rolling posters and rolling posters and—yes, rolling more posters. I continued rolling posters for hours on end for three days straight. Soon the posters began crowding the office. My cubicle could no longer contain the posters, so I began to move them to different cabinets and free spaces around the office.

I began thinking, "How many times in our lifetime do we take something from someone without realizing or appreciating the effort of the other person?" I thought of all the times I have taken a poster from someone at an event and never even considered they might have rolled the posters themselves. Did I assume posters printed themselves and magically rolled themselves into the confines of a rubber band? When my hands and arms grew sore from rolling posters, I switched to the task of making backstage passes for the concert. Once again, I never thought that people handmade these passes. Surely, they are manufactured, right? But even a manufacturing factory includes people (although the number of people is decreasing due to new technological resources). It is extremely easy, especially in the current age of consumerism, to forget that items ranging from the clothes we wear, the music we so easily listen to on YouTube, and the devices we use to access sites such as YouTube are easily accessible to us as a result of the labor of someone else.

Rolling over 650 posters does not in any way compare to sweatshop labor; however, the menial task allowed time for reflection. The sector of society I live in in the United States is removed from the immediate laborer. I eat two to three meals a day, yet I do not see the farmer or the butcher on a daily basis. In fact, I never meet the farmer or the butcher. I am unaware of their names, their locations in the world, and on which day their labor resulted in the food I then eat days or months later. I wear clothes everyday, but I have no idea whose back bent over as their hands worked with needle and thread or who stood next to the machine to ensure my clothes were being made efficiently.

Invisible labor presents a precarious situation on both sides. On the side of the laborer: imagine working hard and never really seeing how many people your labor effects. If all you see is the profit at the end of the day, the profit will be all that matters. When a mother cooks for her child, she is sure to cook the best meal she can because she cares about the well-being of her family. On the other hand, a child knows his or her mother’s cooking. Regardless of whether a mother is a master chef or barely cooks at all, the child will be grateful—if not immediately, one day. But how can consumers be grateful to people they forget exist on a daily basis?

When I worked the concert, I saw how my efforts helped the show run smoothly. I watched as crew members and fellow employees wore their backstage passes—the passes that I cut and laminated, hung by the ropes I tied by hand. After the concert, I watched as fans’ faces lit up with joy at receiving a free poster—the 650+ posters I rolled by hand. I felt joy at watching the fruits of my labor be used. How sad it must be to never see the fruits of your labor. The truth is, our current capitalist system alienates the laborer from his or her labor. How do we fix this? Shopping at local farmer’s markets is the easiest way to begin altering the system. From the factory line worker to the CEO, every laborer matters. With that mindset, we can create change.