TexMo has a piece describing what goes on at a tamalada. The article does a fairly good job of describing the process but doesn't come close to conveying the rapidity with which the experienced work and how difficult even the simplest parts of the task are for the novice. There really seem to be no good commercial tamales these days; even the ones that used to be quite good (jalapeno pork, we're talking here) all seem to be adulturated with textured vegetable protein these days. There's no solution but to move to the top of the list for ones made by somebody's mother or grandmother.