The Hellish 60-Hour Work Experience During Factory Launch

Hello everyone! I’m Shohei.
This column is written mainly based on my field experience.
After being on site for over 10 years, there are truly many things that happen. I’m writing about things I remember, as they come to mind.
Well, please read it casually, like “Oh, so that’s how other factories are.”

“Don’t worry, everything is prepared”

I still vividly remember the factory manager’s words. At that time, I never dreamed they would be the prologue to a nightmare that was about to begin.

Day 1: The day when all the gears came loose at once

That day, I arrived on site to support the launch of a vegetable factory. I was supposed to be just a “helper.” Little did I know that this mere “helper” would later become “the last line of defense.”

When I arrived at the factory, the atmosphere was tense. It was supposed to be the long-awaited first harvesting day, but there was an anxious feeling in the air, like a rookie chef trembling in the kitchen.

“Is everything ready?” I asked, and the factory manager’s expression subtly clouded.
“Yes, well… mostly…”

I would come to realize the weight of this word “mostly” within the day.

There should have been many hands needed for the first harvesting day, but the floor only had scattered figures. Moreover, half of them were fresh faces saying, “Today is my first day! Nice to meet you!” Their eyes shone with hope, but that would probably only last for now.

And then, the fateful first batch of harvested produce arrived.
“Huh? This… doesn’t fit in the bag, does it?”

The vegetables were about two sizes larger than expected. As impressive as they were, they created the tragedy of mismatch with the packaging bags. I could see the blood drain from the face of the packaging staff.

“There’s someone who can operate the packaging machine, right?” I asked, only to be met with silence and head shakes from those around me.

Yes, I was the only one in the factory who could operate the packaging machine. At that moment, my fate was sealed.

Day 1 Night: Countdown to collapse

At 5 PM, the part-time workers went home at the end of their shift. Only a few full-time employees and I remained. And piles of unprocessed vegetables.

The words “Let’s clean this up with overtime” marked the starting point of a 60-hour marathon.

I stood in front of the packaging machine and began my battle with the physical law of size mismatch between vegetables and bags. It was like trying to push a round peg into a square hole. Trimming them to make them smaller would make them non-standard, and forcing them in would tear the bags.

At 2 AM, with my vision flickering from fatigue, I finally devised a “technique.” A godlike move like the final stage of Tetris—rotating the vegetables at specific angles while bending them to slide into the bags.

I had spent 6 hours developing this “rotation insertion” technique.

Day 2: The boundary between reality and unreality

When the morning sun began to shine through, I was still standing in front of the packaging machine. My feet were swollen, and my wrists were signaling the onset of tendonitis.

“Good morning!”

A cheerful greeting announcing the start of a new day. But for me, “Day 1” was still continuing. Though the calendar had moved forward, my time axis remained stopped.

The second day was a repetition of the same situation. No, it was actually worse. Because my work efficiency, having not slept, was on a downward trajectory with time.

With each press of the packaging machine button, my eyelids would drop along with it. In the space between consciousness and unconsciousness, I entered autopilot mode. A strange sensation where only my hands continued to move like a robot.

Day 2 Night: Dialogue with hallucinations

By the night of the second day, my mental state had subtly changed. When fatigue reaches its extreme, they say the brain starts to show hallucinations as a self-defense mechanism.

I had the illusion that the vegetables flowing from the packaging machine were talking to me.
“Why are you packaging me so tightly?” as if the vegetables were complaining.

And no wonder, by this point, my packaging method had completely deviated from the “proper procedure” framework. I was no longer trying to beautifully fit the oversized vegetables. I was folding them in half, pushing them into the bags like rice balls.

Even though I could hear the faint voice of reason saying, “This… doesn’t meet product standards…”, my head, deranged by fatigue, ignored it. Looking back, I had completely entered “runaway packaging mode.”

At one point, I was startled to find myself in dialogue with the packaging machine.
“Let’s hang in there a little longer, we’ll get through this together,”
I was encouraging the packaging machine.

Day 3: An experiment in exploring human limits

By the morning of the third day, my body was completely someone else’s. After 48 hours of nonstop packaging work, I had almost no feeling in my hands, and my feet felt as heavy as if they were filled with lead.

Still, the work continued. By this time, the rhythm of packaging had become ingrained in my body. A state of enlightenment where my body would move on its own even without consciousness.

The factory manager approached me with concern.
“Are you okay? You should rest…”

I smiled and answered.
“If I… stop now… I feel like… I won’t be able to move again…”

It wasn’t a joke; it was my true feeling. The fear that once I stopped, I would never be able to move again was controlling me.

Breaking the limit: What my body taught me

On the night of the third day, after about 60 hours, I finally reached my limit.

My fingers, trying to press the packaging machine button, wouldn’t listen to me as if they belonged to someone else. My feet were no longer my own, immovable like a tree rooted to the floor.

“I can’t… anymore…”

At that moment, strangely, my mind felt lighter. Perhaps it was the sense of release from acknowledging my limits.

I’m certain I went home after that, but I have almost no memory of how I got there. When I became aware, it was the next morning, and I was lying down without changing my clothes, with the front door key still in the lock. The refrigerator was left open, and for some reason, there was a single chopstick inside. Whether I had tried to eat something, or it was just a hallucination, I don’t know.

According to my colleagues, I had apparently said goodbye and left work normally, but I have no memory of that either. The human body is truly mysterious; even when consciousness is completely offline, the body seems to have a function that automatically executes the minimum social courtesies as a working adult.

Lesson: What I learned in 60 hours

What I learned from this experience is simple.
“People die if they don’t sleep.”

…jokes aside, the real lesson was “the importance of preparation and education.” I experienced firsthand that no matter how excellent a person is, they cannot function without the appropriate number of people and training.

After that, in subsequent factory launches, I became known as the “preparation demon,” obsessively ensuring adequate staffing and education in advance. Sometimes I was told I was “overdoing it,” but for someone who has experienced the 60-hour hell, there is no such concept as “overdoing it.”

Several years later, I still have symptoms similar to PTSD where my body reacts involuntarily when I hear the sound of a packaging machine. Nevertheless, the confidence gained from overcoming that extreme state has become a significant asset within me.

Finally, advice for those of you who will be involved in factory launches:
“Sleep is not a luxury, but a necessity.”

I hope that my 60-hour nightmare will be of use to someone.

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