[me] It took a week or so after the end of that job for the garlic smell to finally get flushed from my pores.

[sano] And while you were back at your desk, Juan and Maria took your place for the remainder of the year.

Indeed. I went back to school. A very large part of the work in the Central Valley was seasonal, so workforce was cut way back in the off season, but, yes those still working were often 'Juan and Maria' as you put it.

The work was often physically demanding but what really made the jobs so hard to endure was the sheer unending monotony of the work. But I knew that for me it was only for weeks or a few months. For others it was the work they were going to do for years.

Not sure how the canneries operate now given the increased use of robotics, but back in the day there were still many people making the process work. It was all women that worked at the most tedious and repetitive jobs. From where I often worked I could observe a line of women at the front end of the processing where the fruit came in and was cut and pitted by machines. Their job was to check the quality of the fruit, toss out what didn't pass, make sure the machines had properly sliced the peaches and keep the assembly line running smoothly. All day they did the same repetitive task over and over again.

It made me appreciate my own situation and to feel empathy for those tied to this kind of work for years not weeks or months.