To earn enough money for college, a high school graduate takes a grueling factory job. He expects his only takeaway from the work to be a paycheck, but a mysterious coworker teaches him about the world and his place in it.

The laborers at a gas plant use all means to evade company rules and withdraw their money as they please.

An employee writes a heartfelt letter to his former boss to argue that he was wrongfully fired. As he lays out his life story, his hidden cowardice and stubborn ambitions paint a different story.

A manager at a railroad electrifying company reluctantly takes on a man who is being abused by his wife, allowing him to try his best at the job and earn some money. Unfortunately, the man’s hard work is soon eclipsed by his wife’s brutality.

A Native American ex-convict finally lands a job at a doughnut shop, but a betrayal by a co-worker leads him to consider whether or not the job is worth the discrimination.

An aging factory worker faces a jarring surprise at work months before his retirement. As capitalism chugs along, employees get caught in its cogs.

An unemployed man struggles to help an equally penniless, yet shockingly beautiful, young woman in her search for food and shelter.

In an unlikely encounter, a homeless teenage boy recounts harsh events of his life to a writer. He nonchalantly tells of an employer whose assignments caused him to have permanent physical and mental damage.

An unemployed husband learns of an affair between his wife and her boss. He writes an emotional letter to the boss that details the course of his failing marriage, and he pleads with the boss to not take his wife away from him.

In a job interview, a former factory worker explains how the Red Scare caused conflict at his previous workplace. When one of his coworkers is accused of sabotaging the new machines, the factory worker must defend that he is not a communist.