Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Sex Toys R Us

So I'm eating with my new lunch time homies and as most topics of conversation in a proper work environment go, we were talking about sex. More specifically about sex toys. In between sandwich bites we started coming up with ideas for new sex toys. Although in reality I'm sure they've already been invented by somebody and are in the goody drawers of dozens if not hundreds of Americans all throughout the country.

That combined with a conversation I once overheard in a West Hollywood sex shop where two sales associates were rating how hard different vibrators got them off as casually as two housewives comparing cleaning products got me thinking. Whose job is it to come up with new sex toys anyway? Is there a design firm down in the San Fernando Valley, the porn capital of the US, whose sole purpose it is to create and test the titillating new designs?

What are their board meetings like? Is it a room full of grey-haired old white men sitting around a conference room table debating things like the pros and cons of jelly vs. glass, what the newest invention to hit those hard to reach places should be, or how they can keep costs down by sending the rabbits overseas to have the vibrating pearl beads attached by the minuscule hands of Asian day laborers?

Is the testing warehouse full of tired workers who have punched their time cards in and out of this place for the past 2 decades? Is the manager an old broad with a name tag that reads "Marge, 25,000 orgasms of service"? Are the workers even still interested in the products they create and test? I know after 3-4 years at my job I no longer cared as much about the little things that got through. Is that how it is at the Sex Toys R Us factory? Do Martha and Beverly swap stories on their way home about how they just faked the last 3 hours of work because let's face it, it's a short week and no one's really working anyway?

What are the benefit packages at this place like, besides the obvious, of course. Do they get paid vacations where the last thing on their mind is sex and really just want some time to let their vital organs recover? What kind of medical benefits do they get? I'd imagine several trips to the doctor would be required, if only for regular treatments of rashes, tears and the occasional electrocution.

I wonder what the recession has done to places like the Sex Toys R Us factory. Have they been subject to the same workforce reductions that the rest of the country is facing? When a normal workgroup consisted of 25 staff members are they now down to 10 and expected to produce the same amount of work? Do the remaining 10 now have to conduct multiple reviews at a time, possibly in groups of 3 with the odd man out taking notes?

So many unanswered questions came to me all because of this mindless lunchtime chat. Where are sex toys manufactured? And most importantly, are they hiring?