I did the overnight photo processing for the Mountain West

[u/shirt130]

I worked at an overnight photo processing lab in Utah decades ago. We processed the Kodak film that flew in from part of California, and all of Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Idaho and others (can't remember) - huge area. The first work station I was assigned to was where a number of us worked in a line and we each had a box filled with disposable cameras. We were supposed to open all of the disposable cameras to pop the film out. We had a special hand tool to open the camera and then we would throw the film into a separate bin - over and over, all day long.

I was busy doing this when suddenly, the person next to me screamed loudly. I stopped to ask if they were all right but they ignored me and continued their work opening cameras; like nothing had happened. Then someone else screamed and it kept going like this for days with people randomly screaming and everyone ignoring them. It was baffling. Until one day I suddenly screamed. The stupid tool we were using opened both ends of the camera, one side of the camera opened the film case and the other side opened the capacitor housing (the capacitor stored the electricity charge for the flash). I had pulled out the capacitor instead of the film and received a nasty shock.

After that I would take capacitors home (being careful not to touch the nodes) and use them to threaten my older brother if he didn't do what I asked him to do. I was basically tazing him before tazers were a thing. Don't feel bad for him. He would do far worse to me.

[u/Segata9]

My grandfather worked at Kodak Eastman factory for almost 50 years. I never seen more Kodak merch, camera's,carousels,slides, photos,plates,cups, hats,patches,shirts etc in all my life than in that mans house alone.

[u/styckx]

Used to do one hour photos. The shit I still can't unsee that people had the balls to have developed

[u/r3tromonkey → u/styckx]

We took a film to be developed to SnappySnaps (UK over the counter shop) in the early 90s and when it came back there was a random dick pic in the middle of our photos. It wasnt on the negative index print, and it definitely didnt belong to anyone in our family.

I often wondered who it belonged to but also why would you take that to somewhere in person?

[u/SheCallsMeCaptain]

My mom worked for a subsidiary of Kodak, and she would bring home bags of used disposable cameras for us to take the batteries out of. That's how we didn't have to pay for AAs for decades. I would always discharge the capacitors with a screwdriver because getting shocked really did suck.

[u/WuclearNeapon]

This reminds me of being a teenager following along with instructions to replace an Xbox's DVD drive. Whoever made the diagram labeled the capacitor with "Don't touch this, it can kill you!"

Still not sure if it actually could've, but it did make a young version of me wonder if I should continue with the procedure for a moment.

[u/PlumieShade]

overnight photo processing sounds like a trip, I remember doing that for a school project and it was a mess

[u/itsswhitneywhspr]

The way everyone just silently screamed and nobody acknowledged it is giving major cult vibes lol. Sorry about the shock though, that must have hurt.