When I got hired on at the warehouse, the shift supervisor — a guy named Pete who had been there for eleven years and had the disposition of a man who had made peace with something most people haven't made peace with — walked me through the building and gave me what he called "the orientation."
It was not the official orientation. The official orientation was a video and a packet and a signature on four forms. Pete's orientation happened at 11:55 PM on my first night, five minutes before our shift started, and it consisted of four rules.
"Write these down," he said.
I wrote them down.
Rule 1: Do not go to Section 7 after 2 AM.
Section 7 is a back corner of the warehouse, past the overstock shelving, where the receiving dock used to be before they closed it off. It's not in use. Nothing is stored there. There is no reason to go there. During the day it's just an empty corner that smells like concrete and old diesel. After 2 AM, Pete said, it is something else. He wouldn't specify. He said he had been in Section 7 after 2 AM once, in his second year, and he had not gone back, and he would not be going back, and I should take his word for it.
"Take my word for it," he said.
I took his word for it.
Rule 2: Do not acknowledge the woman in the break room.
The break room is on the south side of the building. There is a woman who is sometimes in the break room between 1 and 3 AM. She sits at the table by the window. She does not have a badge. She does not have a uniform. She does not have a cup of coffee or a phone or anything a person in a break room would normally have. She sits and she looks at the table. Do not speak to her. Do not make eye contact. Get your coffee and leave. If she speaks to you, do not answer. Walk out of the break room and do not go back in until 3 AM.
"What does she say?" I asked.
Pete looked at me for a moment. "She asks if you've seen her son," he said. "Tell her no. Actually—" He reconsidered. "Don't tell her anything. Just leave."
Rule 3: If you hear your name, confirm the source before responding.
Someone may call your name from the other end of a long aisle. Before you answer, go around the aisle and confirm that whoever called you is one of the people you can account for. If you can't account for them, you didn't hear your name. Keep working.
Rule 4: Do not count the workers.
This is the one I keep coming back to. Pete said this last, and he said it with a different quality in his voice than the others — flatter, more careful. "At any given time on the overnight shift, you will know how many people are supposed to be here. You know your crew. Do not count them. Do not do a headcount. If you think you can see more people than there should be, you are mistaken. Keep working. Do not count."
I worked there for eight months. I followed the rules. I never went to Section 7 after 2 AM. I passed through the break room twice and saw the woman and I got my coffee and I left and she said something as I walked out but I didn't hear the exact words and I kept walking. Someone called my name from the far end of Aisle 12 one night and I went around and it was nobody, and I kept working.
I never counted the workers.
I wanted to, every night. I would stand at my station and I would feel the warehouse around me, the vast echoing dark of it, and I would feel the presence of people — the sounds of them, the sense of them — and I would fight the urge to count.
Because some nights, even without counting, you could tell.
You could tell there were more of them than there should be.
I quit in February. Pete didn't seem surprised. He shook my hand and he said: "You did good." I asked him what happened to the workers who broke the rules. He said he didn't know specifically. He said they didn't come back the next night and they didn't call in sick and he assumed they quit.
He said he assumed this.
He did not sound entirely convinced.